Bridging Social Innovation and Business. A Co-design Experience for a Community Welfare Project

The objective of this paper is to investigate the competences and methodologies that can support the construction of a codesign process. This is intended to be a continuous and strategic dialogue between organizations from different sectors – business and not for profit – and communities in developing socially innovative services related to welfare. Complex social needs, as the ones tackled by social innovation, require integrated and innovative approaches able to combine and manage the contributions of different actors. In particular, private sector is called upon to acquire an active role through a stronger recognition of its potential and by sharing all its resources – not only economic ones. By presenting an on-going Italian project on communitarian and cross-sectorial welfare, the paper reflects on how the design approach could play a crucial role especially in structuring such multi-stakeholder processes.