About The Small Planet Institute

Our Beginnings

Frances Moore Lappé and Anna Lappé founded the Small Planet Institute in 2001 to help define, articulate, and further an historic transition: a worldwide shift from the dominant, failing notion of democracy as a set of fixed institutions toward democracy understood as a way of life, a culture in which the values of inclusion, fairness and mutual accountability infuse all dimensions of public life. On every continent, people are creating such “living democracies” as they discover their power to remake societal rules and norms to serve their widely shared values. At the Institute we further this historic transition through collaborative public education efforts with colleagues worldwide and through our own books, articles, speeches, and other media.

Our Philosophy of Democratic Social Change

We seek to identify the root causes – economic, political, and psychological – taking our planet in a disastrous direction that, individually, none of us would choose. We then search for exemplary entry points that are interrupting and reversing negative patterns and generate new, more life-serving spiral of hope in action. Appreciating that we humans are social mimics, the Small Planet Institute spreads stories of these positive entry points and, just as important, disseminates a wider understanding of root causes. With a grasp of root causes, citizens no longer disparage their actions as “mere drops in the bucket.” Once we’re able to see the “bucket,” we realize our drops are quite spectacular; the bucket is actually filling up.

How We Work

Our focus for the first five years has been to create media in various forms to express and share our core philosophy as well as the positive, solutions stories we’ve uncovered in our research from rural Virginia to rural Bangladesh to inner-city Brazil. These media include books, television programming, magazine and newspaper articles and op-eds, public presentations and conferences, guest lecturing and more. (See details below). 

In an effort to expand our reach, we have established a new publishing arm, Small Planet Media. Frances’ new book, Getting a Grip, (our first) was printed on recycled paper with soy ink in a union shop. Concurrently, we released our first film: a short-format documentary on clean elections, Getting a Grip on Money & Politics. The film—featuring Frances and Deb Simpson, a former waitress and single mom turned Maine legislator—is a joint production with Guerilla News Network, and is directed by Anthony Lappé.

Much of the work of the Small Planet Institute is made possible by the pro bono generous contributions of the time and talent of dedicated volunteers and interns. We are extremely grateful to every one of them.