Innovation Comes from the Edges

“Innovation comes from the edges.”
It’s a phrase that’s been said many ways by many people, technologists, scientists, and even CEOs, and it’s become a bit of a mantra at Collaborative for Change. But we mean something a little deeper by it.

We’ve seen firsthand that true innovation often emerges not from centralized institutions or polished think tanks, but from the margins, from farmers restoring degraded soil without fanfare, from teachers weaving climate literacy into everyday lessons, and from communities reimagining what resilience looks like. These solutions don’t always come dressed in the language of “disruption” or “design thinking.” More often, they’re born from careful observation of nature, years of lived experience, and a willingness to try something different when all else has failed.

Today, many communities across Africa are learning that they can no longer rely on native forests to stay warm; the very trees that once protected their ecosystems are vanishing. And while the problem is immense, the solutions are already growing at the grassroots. One of those solutions is seed banking. Jill Wagner and I are on a mission to help communities establish seed banks in every region of Africa, to preserve what’s left while we still can, and to ensure that people have the means to rebuild what’s been lost, or what may yet be lost to the next natural disaster.

We’re also working to improve water systems. With the support of innovators like Les Behrends, whose reciprocating water system offers clean, gravity-fed, energy-free irrigation, we’re hoping to bring better infrastructure to communities where access to reliable water remains a daily struggle. Without water, there is no restoration.

And yet, in many corners of philanthropy, innovation is still defined narrowly. Funders may spend years refining complex metrics and theories of change, hoping to pinpoint exactly where their money will have the greatest “impact.” While this research is important, it also tends to overlook the people doing the most quietly radical work, because they don’t fit the mold, or because they don’t speak the language of pitch decks and ROI.

At Collaborative for Change, we take our cues from nature. When we follow ecological rhythms and listen to the local and Indigenous communities who have safeguarded those rhythms for generations, we find all the intelligence and innovation we need. Our job isn’t to direct or to impose. It’s to walk alongside, to support leaders who are already on the path, and help strengthen the footing beneath them.

Nowhere is this more urgent than in Africa. Despite centuries of extraction and interference, Africa is not a place in need of saving. It is a place in the process of reclaiming. The communities we work with are not waiting for permission. They are rebuilding from the ground up, through seed banks, food forests, water catchment systems, riparian repair and educational programs rooted in place. For all the wealth that has been taken from this continent, it is nature that offers the most enduring foundation for sovereignty.

We don’t build markets for the sake of markets. We support the kinds of economic activity that keep communities whole, nursery sales that keep agroforesters employed, diagnostics that protect soil health, carbon credits that return money to the villages planting the trees, and economic pathways yet to be discovered by the people closest to the land. Markets should serve restoration, not the other way around.

We also accept all people, but we focus our work on one continent at a time, not by ideology, but by necessity. Our model is built on depth, not breadth. That focus allows us to reduce risk, build trust, and align emerging initiatives with funders who are genuinely seeking grounded, locally led impact. It’s not by design, but by presence.

Innovation isn’t a breakthrough waiting to be discovered in a lab. It’s already alive in the work of a grandmother passing down seed knowledge, in children restoring a streambank, in a teacher helping students name native trees. Innovation doesn’t come from the center. It grows outward, from the edges.