The book redefining how we create lasting change
“Advice gets in the way. Coaching gets out of the way.”
Why We Wrote This Book
At Social Ventures Partnership, everything we do — from venture coaching to systems change — comes from one radical belief:
Real transformation happens when we get out of the way.
Too often, enterprise and community support is built around control: programmes that prescribe, consultants that direct, systems that measure people rather than empower them.
This book turns that model upside down. It argues that the true role of those who support entrepreneurs, changemakers, and communities is not to lead them — but to coach them to lead themselves.
What It’s About
Getting Out of the Way: Coaching Changemakers is both a manifesto and a practical guide to reshaping enterprise support around people, purpose, and possibility.
Drawing on decades of work with social entrepreneurs, artists, educators, and activists, Keith Jeffrey and Paul Squires reveal how coaching — not advising — creates real, lasting impact.
Through vivid stories, coaching frameworks, and system-level insights, the book explores:
The Coaching Mindset — how purpose, identity, and resilience underpin entrepreneurial success.
Advocacy and Systems Change — how coaching can challenge inequity, reform funding, and unlock access. The Power of Networks — how trust-based, peer-led ecosystems sustain long-term transformation.
Why “Getting Out of the Way” Matters
Because the old systems no longer serve us.
Publicly funded business support has become a numbers game — focused on outputs instead of outcomes, dashboards instead of people.
And yet, every community has its own changemakers — people with lived experience, creativity, and drive — who can reshape local economies if they’re trusted and supported to do so. This is the mission of San Diego Social Venture Partners.
“Getting out of the way” means:
Trusting people to lead their own change.
Listening before directing.
Creating space for reflection, creativity, and growth.
Designing systems that enable agency rather than dependency.
It’s not about doing less — it’s about doing differently.
The Intellectual Foundation of SVP
This book is more than a publication — it’s the intellectual heart of Social Ventures Partnership’s practice.
Every coaching programme, every piece of consultancy, every social venture we support, including Social Ventures Inc., is grounded in the principles laid out here:
- Human-centred, coaching-led development
- Entrepreneur-focused, not enterprise-led
- Systemic advocacy and inclusion
- Building networks that multiply impact
"Getting Out of the Way" captures the theory, practice, and purpose that underpin how SVP helps communities build capacity that lasts.
