This paper examines Social Design not as an applicative method or pragmatic toolkit, but as a critical analysis tool for interpreting existing practices in community development and social innovation. Rather than extending the theory of Social Design, the paper investigates insights gained by using Social Design as an analytical lens to evaluate real-world community practices, highlighting both successful examples and common failures. The paper employs a conceptual and comparative approach to explore community development benchmarks beyond the corporate realm, as identified in the existing literature. By reinterpreting these benchmarks through the lens of Social Design theory, the study conducts a comparative analysis to uncover common patterns related to participation, agency, relational infrastructures, and the creation of social value, as well as issues of legitimacy and reputation. The analysis reveals that Social Design makes a crucial distinction between practices that only simulate participation and those that truly encourage collective agency and relational value. Best practices show coherence among social practices, supportive infrastructures, and positive social outcomes. Conversely, recurring failures demonstrate patterns such as participation without agency, digital solutionism, and metrics-driven engagement. These patterns help clarify why similar community-oriented interventions can lead to vastly different social outcomes. As a conceptual paper, the study does not provide empirical validation. Future research could operationalise Social Design as an evaluative and diagnostic framework and test its analytical capacity across different cultural, institutional, and community contexts. For policymakers, designers, and community practitioners, the paper proposes Social Design as a diagnostic lens for critically assessing existing and proposed community interventions, thereby helping identify ineffective participatory models and reducing the risk of symbolic or superficial forms of engagement. The paper contributes originality by positioning Social Design as a critical interpretative framework rather than a prescriptive method. It demonstrates its value in making visible otherwise overlooked social dynamics, recurrent failure patterns, and the conditions under which community practices can generate legitimacy, well-being, and resilience.