Why is the outcome ‘Goals and outcomes are met’ important?

When the goals and outcomes of a social movement are met, change agents, change teams and others recognize the impact of individual and collective action and agency. They understand the role of values in relation to a shared concern or strongly desired change and how framing change as urgent and credible acts as a powerful driver for change.   

Some social movements, when goals and outcomes are met, evolve from informal grassroots efforts to formalized and institutionalized changes. The services, norms, and/or practices that are changed become embedded in an organization, service, and/or broader society as a scaled-up, scaled-out, or scaled-deep change (Bate et al., 2004b, del Castillo et al., 2016; Herekchuk et al., 2010; Waring & Crompton, 2017; Grinspun et al.,  2018a).

The goals of the social movement may move from being partially met to fully met. Yet, later on, goals can also reverse course calling attention to a reactivation of the social movement. Ebbing and flowing between fully and partially achieved goals is not uncommon. 

This ebbing and flowing may be dependent on factors, such as:

• a resurgence of a need to meet the goals of a previous social movement due to an event or new mounting pressure for change;
• a loss of momentum in change agents and/or change teams caused by competing priorities; and/or
• a social movement that appears to be fully achieved and no longer needing individual and collective action.

Some social movements may undergo rapid expansion that occurs because of their success, but due to organizational strain, they may collapse into smaller niche groups with new goals and values.

• Other social movements dissolve because they have achieved success by reaching their goals. In the context of a change successfully scaled deep, the change is now widely accepted and standardized. In these cases, there is no longer a perceived need for the social movement.
• Change agents and/or change teams may re-orient towards new goals once old goals are achieved, which may spawn another wave of a social movement or a new social movement.           

SOURCES: Christiansen, 2009; Herechuk et al., 2010; Waring & Crompton, 2017.