Social and environmental challenges in our society offer opportunities for innovation. Having a sense of purpose may enhance both opportunity recognition and strategic alignment. However, aligning strategy and mission may be challenging when an organization mission is pursued in pluralistic ways. How can mission driven organizations manage pluralistic efforts while cohering to their mission? With an inductive field study of Slow Money, an organization fostering sustainable local food systems by connecting food entrepreneurs with local investors, I trace how its mission was translated into different local actions. I find that multiple local actions were recombined to create novel strategies curated and diffused by the central leadership. Rather than derail an organization’s mission, I show how pluralistic local action fosters formation of strategies for social innovation.
