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Individual Giving
Can Individual and Institutional Donors Be Friends?
These groups' perspectives are closer than most think—and it’s good news for philanthropy. -
Health
How Evaluation Can Strengthen Communities
Including community members in decisions about evaluation can improve the community’s capacity to effectively manage and control change. -
Economic Development
Lifting Up Day Labor
By Derek SnookA social enterprise called In Every Story brings better pay—and a spirit of empathy—to a highly marginalized workforce. -
Global Issues
Collective Impact: The Missing Link
Three ways to create an environment where interdependent stakeholders can perform their individual roles optimally and collaborate with each other effectively. -
Social Entrepreneurship
Bringing Social Entrepreneurship into the Classroom
By Kathleen Kelly Janus | 3Why we must leverage hands-on experience and service learning to encourage the next generation of social innovators. -
Nonprofit Management
The Promise of Lean Experimentation
By Peter Murray & Steve Ma | 4By adopting a model from business, nonprofit organizations can launch, test, and implement new programs and services more efficiently. Includes magazine extras. -
Philanthropy
Challenging the Orthodoxies of Philanthropy
Are traditional assumptions about how we “do” philanthropy preventing us from finding new and better ways of working? -
Philanthropy
Like the Vacuuming, Nonprofit Work Is Women’s Work
By Kristen Joiner | 5If we want the nonprofit sector to innovate, we need to acknowledge the gender gap between nonprofits and the private sector. -
Business
Beyond Shared Value: Character as Corporate Destiny
A new approach to enhancing corporate performance by upgrading the character of an organization. -
Nonprofit Management
The Charity Trap
By Matthew Scharpnick | 10Why a recent exposé on Red Cross failures in Haiti highlights unrealistic expectations for social sector organizations. -
Nonprofits
Moving Beyond Vanity Metrics
To achieve greater impact, membership and advocacy organizations must find new ways to measure engagement.
Current Issue
All Articles-
To create a healthy society the plural sector needs to take its rightful place alongside the private and public sectors.
By Henry Mintzberg | 3 | May. 13, 2015 -
By adopting a model from business, nonprofit organizations can launch, test, and implement new programs and services more efficiently.…
By Peter Murray & Steve Ma | 4 | May. 13, 2015 -
Supplements to the article “The Promise of Lean Experimentation.”
By SSIR Editors | May. 13, 2015 -
For decades, time banking has been a relatively small-scale movement. But signs are emerging that it may be an idea whose time has come.
By Edgar S. Cahn & Christine Gray | May. 13, 2015 -
Financiers represent a growing percentage of board members at some of America’s most prestigious nonprofits, resulting in poorer governance.
By Garry W. Jenkins | 8 | May. 13, 2015 -
Listening closely to users has enabled developers to create digital tools that support responses to the recent Ebola outbreak.
By Suzie Boss | May. 13, 2015 -
A group in Lebanon deploys a wide range of methods—from mobile apps to street theater—to thwart bribe-taking by officials.
By Suzie Boss | May. 13, 2015 -
In a classic leapfrogging initiative, Libya has enabled its citizens to complete voter registration via digital messaging technology.
By Suzie Boss | May. 13, 2015 -
A combination of fresh funding and e-book technology will enable publishers to give new life to out-of-print scholarly works.
By Suzie Boss | May. 13, 2015 -
Sama Group, a social enterprise that connects disadvantaged people with digital work, is expanding its reach to the United States.
By Suzie Boss | May. 13, 2015
Blog
All Posts-
These groups' perspectives are closer than most think—and it’s good news for philanthropy.
By Chris Cardona, Hilary Pennington, & Paul Shoemaker | Jun. 19, 2015 -
Including community members in decisions about evaluation can improve the community’s capacity to effectively manage and control change.
By Kien Lee & David M. Chavis | 1 | Jun. 18, 2015 -
Are traditional assumptions about how we “do” philanthropy preventing us from finding new and better ways of working?
By Gabriel Kasper & Jess Ausinheiler | 3 | Jun. 17, 2015 -
Three ways to create an environment where interdependent stakeholders can perform their individual roles optimally and collaborate with each…
By Neera Nundy & Ann Paisley Chandler | 4 | Jun. 16, 2015 -
Four ways to improve community evaluation so that it helps build, rather than erode, social progress.
By Kimberley Sims | 2 | Jun. 16, 2015 -
Why we must leverage hands-on experience and service learning to encourage the next generation of social innovators.
By Kathleen Kelly Janus | 3 | Jun. 15, 2015 -
If we want the nonprofit sector to innovate, we need to acknowledge the gender gap between nonprofits and the private sector.
By Kristen Joiner | 5 | Jun. 12, 2015 -
A new approach to enhancing corporate performance by upgrading the character of an organization.
By Julian Gresser, Patricia Bader-Johnston, & William Moulton | Jun. 11, 2015 -
Three principles for solving complex, systemic problems like improving community health.
By Jeff Cohen | Jun. 11, 2015 -
As the momentum of impact investing builds, the lack of proper taxonomy poses a significant risk to the movement, especially given recent growth.
By Paula Goldman & Lauren Booker | 1 | Jun. 10, 2015
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Podcasts
All PODCASTS-
Educational reformers discuss the importance of innovation in education through social entrepreneurship, with case studies of post-Hurricane Katrina education policies.
Featuring Kevin Chavous, Ted Mitchell, Lindsay Neil, | Jun. 5, 2015 -
Asia's water systems are struggling in the face of climate change; a significant water availability gap seems imminent.
Featuring Arjun Thapan | Jun. 5, 2015 -
How can defaults help you save money, save the environment, and save lives?
Featuring Eric Johnson | Jun. 5, 2015 -
Ned Breslin talks about performance metrics, planning, and financing practices for a longer term vision for water and sanitation.
Featuring Ned Breslin | Jun. 5, 2015 -
Money doesn't make you happy, but giving it away does
Featuring Mike Norton | Jun. 5, 2015 -
Marketing professor Jennifer Aaker shows how stereotypes can be reframed to influence consumer behavior for nonprofits.
Featuring Jennifer Aaker | Jun. 5, 2015 -
Practical solutions to problems such as how to ask people for help, how to motivate people to ask for help, and what to do after people have refused to help.
Featuring Francis Flynn | Jun. 5, 2015 -
CEO Joel Sadler about the company’s initial product,an artificial knee joint that is dramatically changing the lives of amputees in developing countries
Featuring Joel Sadler | Jun. 5, 2015 -
How small business and "green" business came hand-in-hand with eBay and Intuit.
Featuring Amy Skoczlas Cole & Rupesh Shah | Jun. 5, 2015 -
How to maintain membership lists without a lot of operations money: Whitcanack on BigTent.
Featuring Laney Whitcanack | Jun. 5, 2015
Webinars
All WEBINARS-
This webinar is part of a two-webinar package on Advancing Women. With growing data on the powerful impacts of increased gender equality in…
Marissa Wesely, Dina Dublon, Daniel Jae-Won Lee, & Muadi Mukenge | Jul. 21, 2015 -
This webinar is part of a two-webinar package on Advancing Women. The world is waking up to the economic power of women. A growing number of…
Jackie VanderBrug, Sarah Kaplan, Sharon Vosmek, & Catherine Gill | Jul. 14, 2015 -
For nonprofits and other social purpose organizations, the work of developing, testing, and launching new programs and services for…
Peter Murray, Steve Ma, Palak Shah, & Justin Ruben | Jun. 16, 2015 -
Nonprofits need money—to expand their reach, to increase their impact. And they never have enough of it. At many boldly ambitious nonprofit…
William F. Meehan III, Kim Starkey Jonker, Ernie Iseminger, & Johann Koss | May. 19, 2015 -
How we communicate is changing—rapidly. Every day, it seems, a new innovation comes along that transforms the way people connect and share…
Sean Gibbons, Fred Mann, Daniella Gibbs Léger, Kevin Nix, & Andrew Sherry | Apr. 7, 2015 -
What does it mean to be a system leader? What does it take to catalyze collective leadership? Join Peter Senge, author of The Fifth…
Peter Senge, Darcy Winslow, & Molly Baldwin | Feb. 11, 2015 -
How do you scale up? How, in other words, do you increase the size of your organizations in an effort to achieve greater impact? It’s a…
Alice Gugelev, Andrew Stern, Mitchell Besser, Willy Foote, & Taz Tagore | Jan. 22, 2015 -
An increasing number of philanthropists and foundations are considering a limited-life strategy as a way to maximize impact in their own…
Christopher Oechsli, David La Piana, & Sherrilyn Ifill | Dec. 11, 2014 -
Talent matters! It’s widely accepted that people, not programs, drive the success of nonprofits and other social sector organizations. Yet…
Monisha Kapila, Liz Maw, & Linda Wood | Dec. 3, 2014 -
This webinar is part three of a three-part series on Core Components for Driving Greater Impact, moderated by Alexa Cortes Culwell, founder…
Alexa Cortes Culwell, Antony Bugg-Levine, & Janet Gless | Nov. 13, 2014
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Collective Impact | 94
Large-scale social change requires broad cross-sector coordination, not the isolated intervention of individual organizations.
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The Wall Street Takeover of Nonprofit Boards | 8
Financiers represent a growing percentage of board members at some of America’s most prestigious nonprofits, resulting in poorer...
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Ten Nonprofit Funding Models | 47
For-profit executives use business models—such as "low-cost provider" or "the razor and the razor blade"—as a shorthand way to describe...
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The Problem with Fair Trade Coffee | 22
Fair Trade-certified coffee is growing in sales, but strict certification requirements are resulting in uneven economic advantages for...
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Redefining Education in the Developing World | 18
A new approach that builds relevant marketplace, entrepreneurship, and health care skills is needed.
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The Charity Trap | 10
Why a recent exposé on Red Cross failures in Haiti highlights unrealistic expectations for social sector organizations.
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Are Nonprofits Getting in the Way of Social Change? | 21
Solving major social problems is now possible, but not unless the organizations that have been most responsible for making a difference...
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Moving Beyond Vanity Metrics | 2
To achieve greater impact, membership and advocacy organizations must find new ways to measure engagement.
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GiveDirectly? Not So Fast. | 16
We are mistaking an important experiment for a proven solution.
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The Strategic Plan is Dead. Long Live Strategy. | 58
In today’s fast-changing world, why freeze your strategic thinking in a five-year plan?
Browse Past Issues
About SSIR
Stanford Social Innovation Review is an award-winning magazine and website that covers cross-sector solutions to global problems. It is written for and by social change leaders in the nonprofit, business, and government sectors who view collaboration as key to solving environmental, social, and economic justice issues. SSIR bridges academic theory and practice with ideas about achieving social change. It covers a wide range of subjects, from microfinance and green businesses to social networks and human rights. SSIR's aim is both to inform and to inspire.
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