From Ideas to Impact

***NOW IN PAPERBACK – Featuring an Exclusive New Chapter on Entrepreneurship*** Accelerate your real-world, social impact by driving systemic policy changes As Co-Founder of Global Citizen—an international education and advocacy organization with the mission to end extreme poverty worldwide—Michael Sheldrick has worked with governments, businesses, foundations, the artist community, and everyday citizens to distribute over $40 billion around the world over the past decade. Now, in From Ideas to Impact: A Playbook for Influencing and Implementing Change in a Divided World, he delivers an inspiring and insightful discussion on how to implement social impact by driving policy change. This book reveals key characteristics of successful policy entrepreneurs - visionaries bridging the gap between promises and real-world outcomes. They are practical implementers who put impact first, resisting the urge to pursue the instant dopamine boost that comes from simply winning arguments at all costs. They are connectors and networkers who build diverse coalitions and broker win-win solutions to address our current implementation crisis. An indispensable guide for individual changemakers, philanthropists, corporate social responsibility (CSR) practitioners, environmental, social, and governance (ESG) professionals, policymakers, corporate foundations, and higher education students, From Ideas to Impact: A Playbook for Influencing and Implementing Change in a Divided World, features: An overview of pressing challenges to avoid, including an obsession with winning arguments at the expense of results, demands for unwavering tribal loyalty, and a counterproductive aversion to negotiation. An eight-step playbook offering tools to master policy entrepreneurship, foster cooperation, build bridges, and drive policy implementation beyond stagnation, conflict, and polarization. Diverse policy entrepreneurs and examples spanning historical movements like the Transatlantic Slave Trade and FDR’s New Deal to contemporary battles for climate justice, coal community transitions, and grassroots gender equality efforts. At its core, this uplifting book instills hope that change is achievable despite our divisions. It showcases how individuals at all levels pursue systemic policy change through united voices, cooperation, and solidarity. Sheldrick equips readers with the tools to craft impactful narratives that can inspire countless more success stories, reinforcing the idea that we are not prisoners of fate and that actual change begins with us.

Preface to the Paperback Edition xvii Foreword xix Prologue xxiii Introduction: Harbingers of Hope 1 Part 1 An Eight- Step Playbook to Master Policy Entrepreneurship 7 Chapter 1 The Visionary: Setting the Foundation for Change 11 Chapter 2 The Diplomat: Catalyzing Impact through Pragmatism 45 Chapter 3 The Implementer: Enforcing Accountability and Follow- Through 65 Part 2 Success Stories of Policy Entrepreneurs 75 Chapter 4 Advancing Access: Equal Education for All 77 Chapter 5 Empowering a Community: Just Transition beyond Coal 101 Chapter 6 Building Bridges: Small and Mighty in a Warming World 127 Chapter 7 The New Rulemakers: How Business Innovators Are Shaping the Future of Markets 153 Conclusion: Being Part of the Solution in a World on Fire 187 Epilogue 205 Author’s Note (2025) 207 Acknowledgments 209 Additional Acknowledgements (2025) 215 Annex: Summary: Eight Steps for Policy Entrepreneurship 217 Endnotes 223 Index 273