Mapping Adaptation Project (MAP)
Adaptation and Innovation in the Human Rights Ecosystem
FROM CRISIS TO ADAPTATION
The human rights ecosystem is under unprecedented strain, but in this moment of disruption many activists are ready for change. MAP convenes activists who see the challenges and are ready to test ideas, iterate together, and share new insights with their peers across rights spaces in three areas:
POLITICAL POWER
Rights struggles are won and lost through politics. Rights actors must build the political leverage needed to advance rights on those terms.
ORGANIZING MODELS
Many structures are overly rigid, siloed, and shaped by competition, limiting the collaboration and agility the moment demands.
PEOPLE POWER
A more interconnected, porous ecosystem is needed to work in service of communities and social movements already organizing.
PROJECT GOALS AND PLANS
The Mapping Adaptation Project surfaces emerging adaptations, connects practitioners across regions, and fosters experimentation and peer learning to test new approaches to human rights organizing.
MAP is building and supporting cohorts of activists to come together to imagine and test what comes next. Here's what we are doing to get there:
Convene peer learning cohorts to enable experimentation
Support participants to refine their ideas into small, time-bound experiments for rapid learning
Document what we learn along the way to share back into the ecosystem's collective knowledge
Conduct interviews with diverse ecosystem actors to understand their concerns and priorities
FIND OUT MORE ABOUT MAP
Read our regular briefings from the MAP team and cohorts as well as our other initiatives.
MEET THE PROJECT TEAM
Project Director
Researcher
Researcher and Facilitator
Project Administrator
PROJECT HOST
Rights CoLab, a fiscally sponsored project of NEO Philanthropy Inc., is a collaborative organization by design and has innovation embedded in its programming. Rights CoLab’s mission is to strengthen civil society and leverage markets to fortify human rights. The organization is a small, dynamic team with a network extending across the Americas, Europe, West and Southern Africa, and East Asia. Rights CoLab partners with civil society organizations to test innovative approaches to human rights in the face of deepening authoritarianism and inequality. In the area of civil society innovation, our incubated projects explore new opportunities including social entrepreneurship, local philanthropy, and impact investment.