According to a Johns Hopkins University COVID-19 status report from the U.S., as of February of 2021, more than two million people have died from COVID-19. This is said to be the equivalent of the population of Brussels, the province of Belgium. Ever since the start of COVID-19, an entire city has vanished in just one year. Our lives have changed so much so that it is too daunting of a task to list them all here. It has become standard to wear a mask at all times, and gathering more than 5 people as a party at restaurants or cafes is not allowed in Korea. It is no longer easy to visit a familiar movie theater when there is nothing to do or even shop at a grocery store. It now requires great courage to leave the house.

Environmental experts have stated that all of these situations are man-made disasters created by humans themselves.They warn us, without hesitation, that stronger viruses will continuously appear, and that this is just the beginning.

After COVID-19 sweeps across the world, our society will be quite different than before. ‘Contactless’ is expected to take place throughout society, and the sustainable development ‘Green New Deal,’ which has humans and the environment as its core, will be accelerated. As the Fourth Industrial Revolution, which connects all products and services such as AI and IoT with networks, solves all economic activity and consumption online at home. ‘Homeconomy’ and ‘Edu-tech,’ which combines next-generation online education, will fill our daily lives.

With the advent of an unprecedented pandemic, the era of accurately predicting something or effectively solving simple tasks have passed. Amidst an unclear situation, where we cannot clearly look into our future, the problems surrounding us are no doubt heading in the direction of the new-normal era. We need to find an answer.

This is why we gathered together. In late October of 2020, at the “2020 Next Impact Conference,” jointly hosted by the Stanford Social Innovation Review (hereinafter SSIR*), Hanyang University, the Korea National Council on Social Welfare, the Chosun Daily for a Better Future, held an online conference with the topic of “Transformation of Collective Impact for the Next Normal.” Major social innovation field faculties, such as the Global Social Innovation Magazine editor in chief, economists, business administrators, social welfare experts, impact investors, social contribution managers from global companies and large firms, social venture representatives, hands-on workers from non-government organizations, all gathered. They diagnosed the present state and deeply discussed the path that we should take to make a better future. The conclusion of the conference can be summarized into this one sentence.

“May the Collective Impact be a valuable solution to live in the new-normal era!”

What is Collective Impact? This is a term first presented by John Kania and Mark Kramer in the winter of 2011, and their article has been downloaded more than 1 million times across the world. Collective Impact is a cooperative tool to solve the foundation of difficult and complicated social problems. John and Mark suggested five preconditions. The first is for diverse interested groups across sectors to set a common agenda. The second is to establish shared measurement systems. The third is to clarify each role and responsibility to create synergies during mutually reinforcing activities. The fourth is to have continuous and clear communication among interested groups, and lastly, the fifth precondition is to form a full-time backbone organization to lead the whole project cooperatively.

The keynote speaker of this conference, Eric Nee, the editor in chief of SSIR, stated that, rather than a focus on western countries’ individualism, groupism and collectivism of Asian countries is a more appropriate approach to Collective Impact. Accordingly, Seo Sang-mok, chairman of the Korea National Council on Social Welfare, analyzed Korea’s COVID-19 issue from this perspective of Collective Impact. In Korea, under the common goal of COVID-19 quarantine and prevention, the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters is in the lead as a major organization, and medical professionals, government organizations, local governments, companies, and citizens have their own roles and responsibilities to solve this problem together.

In addition, measurement indicators such as the number of confirmed patients and tests per day, the number of deaths and quarantines, and the number of medical beds are transparently disclosed through emergency messages, regular press conferences, and the news media. Collective Impact will not only be important for quarantine, but also for solving the social imbalance problem due to COVID-19.

In fact, COVID-19 is not the only problem that humanity is facing. Complicated and difficult problems such as climate change, poverty, youth unemployment, regional imbalance, and aging await us one after the other. In the post-corona era, we need to set out for new challenges that we have never experienced before. It is difficult to predict the effects of these problems on our lives—but one thing is clear—one specific country, company, or individuals cannot solve this problem alone. It is “our problem to solve together” rather than “your problem.”

In the new-normal era, we need leaders to help solve social problems together. The “systematic leaders” talked about in Collective Impact should come forth in great numbers. The attitudes of △being considerate about neighbors as a member of a group, △the ability to trust and sympathize with others, △finding the essence of problems and providing creative solutions, △solving problems with data, △flexible communication abilities to clearly express one’s thoughts, listen and respect others opinions, and finding the best solution, and △the attitude to recognize the difference in language and trying to minimize the gap. Leaders with these attitudes and abilities are necessary in the newnormal era.

Are these too obvious? However, the generation that requires leaders with these skills has actually come before us. Then how can one develop and enforce these competencies? I would like to suggest finding small but clear happiness, executing it, and feeling a ‘small but clear sense of achievement.’ For this, one has to think about what kind of social problems they are interested in. Let’s say that one is interested in education, gender equality, and environmental problems among the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals. Then, one can look around the community to find related issues with families and friends. If a certain problem stands out, conduct some research and investigation and even try interviewing related workers. After that, define the problem and determine the solution. In other words, try the design thinking process.

If doing it alone is difficult, participating in programs that enable experiencing these competencies with other people is another way. Root Impact, a non-government organization, and Impact Basecamp, Hanyang University’s joint operating organization, are good examples. Based on our local community’s social problems, problem solving skills, design thinking, logical thinking, data learning skills, and communication skills can all be learned.