Many people and thoughts have been inspirational sources for this work and we are honoured to share and promote at least some of them to inspire other changemakers and innovators in the public sphere.

Inspired by progressive liberal thought such as Cornel West, John Dewey or Roberto Unger it was a small step towards organizational learning theories and group facilitation work. Paulo Freire, Chris Argyris, David A. Kolb, Kurt Lewin and Edgar H. Schein are the fathers of experiential learning and our learning approach is heavily influenced by them. 

Then there is the leadership development work of Ronald Heifetz, Hugh O´Doherty and Peter Senge as well as Claus Otto Scharmers Presencing, which can be easily recognized in the facilitation approach goodroot applies.

When we first got to know Ashokas work back in 2000, Social Entrepreneurship was not a concept that many people would recognize. And certainly not outside the USA. This definitely has changed. Besides the valuable work of the Skoll Forum in Oxford, the Schwab Foundation and all of the other usual (most of them US american) suspects, it is nowadays the german community, that inspires us most. 

Some very admirable people have pushed the Venture  Philanthropy debate in the US, even if nowadays there is a little too much hype about it ... but closely investigating the long term work of foundations such as the VenturePhilanthropyPartners (VPP), Edna McConnell Clark, Annie E. Casey, REDF, the Acumen Fund or Rockefeller one has to be thankful for their pioneering work while testing alternative grant-making. 

Keystone was one of the first organizations, which developed and applied beneficiary led accountability and evaluation systems and they have always been a source of inspiration for us. We have used many of their tools on the ground and learned from them. 

In the US and the UK, philanthropy consultancies and research initiatives are paving the way for more results based programs. The FSG, the Center for Effective Philanthropy and both the New Economics Foundation and New Philanthropy Capital have redefined the way we understand and measure progress in the public sphere.

Stephan Breidenbach - mentor and valued friend - has contributed to the emergence of goodroot through his presence and inspiration but also by actively supporting the first steps towards the evaluation theme in 2004, when we both were working together on the establishment of a new public policy school in Germany.

Without the "Arbeitskreis Demokratie" of the Friedrich-Naumann Stiftung and its former intellectual backbone Raban Daniel Fuhrmann goodroot  would have never emerged. It was exactly there where Susanna  - now almost 13 years ago - started to think about inclusive and direct democracy.