Social Change: Defined

Human history is a tale of change, progress, and betterment of all aspects of our shared experiences in the pursuit of better lives. This change has broadly consisted of reformations and transformations of social, cultural, political, religious, or economic aspects of the world. This includes the change from hunting and gathering to specialized labor, from manual labor to industrialization, from feudalism and monarchies to democracies, and from long-distance phone calls to instant video conferences. Humans always have and will forever continue to strive to improve their surroundings.

United 4 Social Change aims to ensure that everyone is equipped with the right resources to actively participate in this never-ending quest for bettering human society. Thus, at U4SC, the social change we strive for is better democratic societies. We believe that in order for all other social change to be just, fair, and equitable, change must happen through robust democratic norms. We thus focus on changing societies so that all members are civic leaders: people who have the knowledge, care, and ability to further whatever social change they and their fellow civic leaders find compelling.

We use a three-pronged method to empower these individuals to pursue their “social change” of choice.

  1. We enlight individuals so that they have the knowledge to discuss and decide which specific areas need reformation and transformation. What do they believe needs to change? What information can they gather from personal experiences or second-hand experiences? Where can they find information outside of their preexisting knowledge?
  2. We ignite them to take their understanding and knowledge and find out what they themselves care most about changing. Why is this issue important to them? Why is this issue important in their local community? Why do they care, and why should others care?
  3. We unite them to act towards whatever form of social change they have chosen to pursue. What can they do? How can they encourage others to take those actions together? What programs/organizations are working to combat this issue?

Our programs thus focus on helping individuals become these civic leaders so that future human progress is led by all of us and not some of us. Inherently, we are agnostic to each individual’s ideal of social change. As an organization, we do not encourage social change of any one type, but rather seek to improve the processes by which all social change occurs. That is the social change we are united for.