Another Invisible Hand.

• Author: London, Liz
• Position: SOCIOLOGY NOTEBOOK

IN MUCH THE SAME WAY that Adam Smith's "invisible hand" works in the private sector, there are unseen agents that are helping to accelerate social change, according to research by The Bridge-span Group. "How Field Catalysts Galvanize Social Change," published in the Stanford Social Innovation Review, shares research findings on 15 fields that aimed to achieve population-level social change. The study reveals that, in eight of those fields, an emergent type of intermediary--which Bridgespan terms a field catalyst--both connected and strengthened the work of actors across a given field to achieve a specific, critical milestone. One such catalyst, Roll Back Malaria, served as a hub for many other players striving to eradicate malaria and saw worldwide deaths from the disease fall 75%.

Taz Hussein, coauthor of the article and a partner at The Bridgespan Group, indicates, "Field catalysts were not the only agents of change in those fields that saw dramatic, population-level gains, but they were the common denominator. The consistency of their presence suggests they play an out-sized role in helping to surmount some of our biggest social challenges."

Other fields where catalysts helped spark precipitous breakthroughs include:

* Marriage equality. In 2002, not a single state issued marriage licenses to same-sex couples. In 2010, Freedom to Marry expanded its scope to include the entire field. Five years later, 37 states had issued licenses. Then the Supreme Court cleared the way for same-sex couples to marry in all 50 states.

* Reducing teen smoking rates. In the 1990s, smoking rates among adolescents climbed to nearly 37%. The Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids came to life in 1995, with the explicit goal of driving down youth smoking rates. Two years later, U.S. rates began a year-over-year decline to 9.2% by 2014.

* Reducing teen pregnancies. In 1991, teen childbearing in the U.S. had climbed to more than 60 births per 1,000 teenagers. With its founding in 1996, The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy mobilized public messaging and became a "trusted source" for objective information. By 2015, the rate had dropped to an all-time low of 22 births per 1,000.

According to coauthor Bill Breen, a Bridgespan editorial board member, "Practitioners tell us that scaling a successful innovation, by itself, is not enough to benefit...