Center for Social Innovation

Unleash the Hordes

Stanford Social Innovation Review: Summer 2009

MARKET REBELS: How Activists Make or Break Radical Innovations by Havagreeva Rao Review by Carl Schramm

Resource: Stanford Social Innovation Review Article

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Reward Progress, Reduce Poverty

Stanford Social Innovation Review: Summer 2009

We must break the stereotype that low-income communities are unable to help themselves. —By Maurice Lim Miller

Resource: Stanford Social Innovation Review Article

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The Parent of Invention

Stanford Social Innovation Review: Summer 2009

RAMP nurtures local inventors in India, Peru, and Indonesia. —By Aaron Dalton

Resource: Stanford Social Innovation Review Article

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Spence Describes Developing World Growth

"There is, perhaps for the first time in history, a reasonable chance of transforming the quality of life and the creative opportunities for the vast majority of humanity," says Dean Emeritus Michael Spence, describing the report of the Independent Commission on Growth in Developing Countries, which he chaired.

Resource: News Article

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Nonprofit Accounting Rules Not the Solution to For-Profit Accountability

Nonprofit accounting rules should not be forced on anyone.

Resource: Blog Post

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Economic Development, Environment

Jeffrey Ball: China’s Solar-Panel Boom and Bust

[photo - China’s Solar-Panel Boom and Bust]

How a mad dash into a burgeoning sector turned into a scramble for support.

Resource: News Article

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Economic Development, Human Rights

Project Healthy Children: Making Nutrition Their Business

Project Healthy Children works with governments and manufacturers to bring fortified foods to people at risk.

Resource: News Article

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Developing Nigeria With Humility and Hard Work

The cofounder of Pagatech learns to balance the cultures of two countries and expand access to financial services.

Resource: News Article

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Jessica Jackley Discusses Stories of Poverty and Entrepreneurship

[photo - Jessica Jackley, co-founder of Kiva]

The cofounder of a microlending outfit says entrepreneurs need to "wake up each day and say, 'Now what?'"

Resource: News Article

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Economic Development, Human Rights, Leadership

Why Do Women Not Always Realize Their Workforce Potential?

A researcher says at least part of the answer is that people are more than their potential.

Resource: News Article

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Corporate Social Responsibility, Economic Development

Block by Block

Stanford Social Innovation Review: Summer 2005

How one of the world’s largest companies builds loyalty among Mexico’s poor.

Resource: Stanford Social Innovation Review Article

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Economic Development, Philanthropy, Responsible Investing

Polishing Up the Diamond

Stanford Social Innovation Review: Spring 2005

How did the Jacobs Foundation help revitalize a neighborhood? By listening to its residents.

Resource: Stanford Social Innovation Review Article

Topic :

Corporate Social Responsibility, Economic Development

Golden Opportunity

Stanford Social Innovation Review: Winter 2004

When a Canadian multinational laid off hundreds of gold miners in South Africa, it went many extra miles to help them get back on their feet.

Resource: Stanford Social Innovation Review Article

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Economic Development, Government, Nonprofit Management

Pumping Prosperity

Stanford Social Innovation Review: Winter 2004

ApproTEC’s pumps are designed and marketed with an understanding of the culture and psychology of African farmers.

Resource: Stanford Social Innovation Review Article

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Sticking Together

Stanford Social Innovation Review: Fall 2004

A California mayor’s challenge leads to an innovative resource-pooling strategy.

Resource: Stanford Social Innovation Review Article

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Nonprofit Accounting Rules Not the Solution to For-Profit Accountability

Nonprofit accounting rules should not be forced on anyone.

Resource: Blog Post

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Reviewing the Past, Predicting the Future

The author takes a crystal ball to the 2009 economic landscape.

Resource: Blog Post

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Kiva Introduces Lending Team Feature

Kiva, the world’s first person-to-person microlending Web site, has facilitated nearly $40 million in loans to entrepreneurs worldwide.

Resource: Blog Post

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Chinese Activity in Africa, Part 2: The Path of Least Resistance

Africa is finding Chinese investment less demanding than that of the West.

Resource: Blog Post

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Chinese Activity in Africa, Part 2: The Path of Least Resistance

To what degree will Chinese investments in Africa add long-term value?

Resource: Blog Post

Video/Audio : All | Audio | Video

Topic:

Corporate Social Responsibility, Economic Development, Human Rights

International Coffee Markets

Over 125 million people rely on coffee for their livelihood. What are Starbucks, the Fair Trade certification, and other nonprofit initiatives doing to help them out of the coffee crisis? This panel discussion describes the mechanics of the global coffee crisis and explores strategies to address sustainability issues on the economic, social, and environmental levels.

Resource: Audio

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Corporate Social Responsibility, Economic Development, Social Entrepreneurship

Globeshakers

David Bornstein is a leading expert on the global rise of "social entrepreneurism." In this audio interview, Globeshakers host Tim Zak asks how we would know a social entrepreneur if we saw one on the street. More important, why should we care? Who invests in social enterprise and what is at stake for our world if we don't?

Resource: Audio

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Economic Development, Education

Globeshakers with Tim Zak

As a technologist, Ethan Zuckerman has spent much time working with the new generation of African entrepreneurs, programmers, organizers, and young people who are hooking up their continent to the web. In an audio interview with Globeshakers host Tim Zak, Zuckerman explains how these new netizens are changing the way villagers and urban dwellers learn, organize, network, and face the challenges of poverty, AIDS, political strife, and making a living.

Resource: Audio

Topic:

Economic Development, Human Rights, Social Entrepreneurship

Globeshakers

On Pittsburgh's gritty north side, just down the street from where he grew up, Bill Strickland has created a youth development and adult training center like no other. In this audio interview with Globeshakers host Tim Zak, Strickland talks about the environment he has melded over more than 40 years surrounded by stunning art, the sounds of jazz, beautiful orchids, and brilliant architecture, with programs that get kids into college and adults a job with a future.

Resource: Audio

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A Public-Private Partnership that Works

"Moving the World" is a partnership between logistics company TNT and the United Nations World Food Programme, the world's largest humanitarian aid agency. Together they provide food aid to an average of 90 million people, including 56 million hungry children, in more than 80 countries. Speaking at the Stanford Effective Disruption Management Seminar, Moving the World Director Ludo Oelrich explains in this audio lecture how the benefits of this association play out both ways.

Resource: Audio

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Bill Gates Says Foreign Aid is Threatened, but Big Ideas Can Turn the Tide

Just off a plane from Africa, Bill Gates visits Stanford to talk about innovation, but not the software kind. Scientists and engineers, he said, need to focus on products that help improve the lives of the world's poor even though the market directs people to help the wealthiest.

Resource: Video

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Innovative Design Saves Tiny Lives

Jane Chen, MBA '08, has a vision of a place “babies no longer die from being cold, where people no longer die from preventable causes. And where every person has the ability to choose [his or her] own fate.”

Resource: Video

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Optimism for Developing Countries

"There is, perhaps for the first time in history, a reasonable chance of transforming the quality of life and the creative opportunities for the vast majority of humanity."

Resource: Video

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Enhancing Business Education for Rural Entrepreneurs

In 2006, Stanford's Graduate School of Business students Scott Raymond and Katherine Boas took a service learning trip to Thailand and Cambodia. The result? A program that helps to alleviate poverty in Thailand that is now being duplicated at microlending organizations around the world.

Resource: Video

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Fox Sees Bright Future for Mexico

Americans are mostly unaware of the enormous progress Mexico has enjoyed since a devastating collapse in the peso in 1994. Former Mexican President Vincente Fox highlights the opportunities, and also addresses the challenges, resulting from the collapse.

Resource: Video

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Economic Development, Human Rights, Social Entrepreneurship

Starbucks Reinvents the International Coffee Trade

Starbucks has taken environmental sustainability and corporate social responsibility seriously in its work with coffee farmers. In this audio lecture, Dennis Macray discusses how the United States' leading coffee retailer is reshaping its business practices and reinventing the international coffee trade.

Resource: Audio

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Microfinance: Controversies and Promises

Microfinance is bringing the world's poor the kind of service that used to be reserved for bank customers in developed countries. Drawing on the work and philosophy of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, Alex Counts talks in this audio lecture about microfinance's social and financial impact to an audience of Stanford MBA students.

Resource: Audio

Topic:

Economic Development, Environment, Social Entrepreneurship

Reducing Global Poverty

[photo - Dr. Pamela Hartigan, Jacqueline Novogratz, Bruce McNamer]

From clean water to disease control and global climate change, a new breed of business people is designing sustainable solutions to promote international development and reduce global poverty. Hear from the leaders in this panel discussion about how they are applying business discipline to improve livelihood in many different nations.

Resource: Audio

Topic:

Economic Development, Healthcare, Nonprofit Management

Investing in Worldwide Social Change

In the early 1990s, Cheryl Dorsey got a fellowship from Echoing Green to launch the Family Van, a community-based mobile health unit that provides basic medical and outreach services to at-risk residents of inner-city Boston neighborhoods. Now president of Echoing Green, Dorsey talks with Globeshakers host Tim Zak in an audio interview about the challenge of building on the impressive track record of one of the world's leading investors and supporters of worldwide social change.

Resource: Audio

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Urban Villages: Art as Social Innovation

Rick Lowe has given new meaning to the phrase "artist-in-residence." This Heinz Award winner and former Loeb fellow at the Harvard School of Design is the founder of Project Row Houses, an organization that merges art and architecture with social activism. In an audio interview with Globeshakers host Tim Zak, Lowe describes how this experiment in "social sculpture" is redefining the role of art and artists in society.

Resource: Audio

Case Studies : All | Academic Cases

No Results Found

Topics:

Health Care, Economic Development

Can Oil Filters Improve Health Care?

For millions of people across Africa, motorcycles can be a key to effective health care. A well-maintained fleet of vehicles and motorcycles to connect patients, medical expertise, and medicine is sometimes the most vital link in the health delivery supply chain. A new case written for the Stanford Global Supply Chain Management Forum describes one successful program.

Resource: Academic Case

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Social Entrepreneurship: Kiva

Inspired by Professor Muhammad Yunus, Jessica and Matt Flannery experimented with micro-lending connecting Ugandan entrepreneurs to friends and family through a pilot internet trial. Kiva, the first person-to- person microlending organization was born.

Resource: Academic Case

Topics:

Economic Development, Nonprofit Management, Social Entrepreneurship

As Green As It Gets

As Green as It Gets was a nonprofit economic development organization supporting small, independent producers in disadvantaged Guatemalan communities. The founder pondered how to grow and sustain the organization.

Resource: Academic Case

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Endeavor

Endeavor selects promising entrepreneurs and helps them develop and grow their businesses through mentorship and guidance. In 2007, founder and CEO Linda Rottenberg looked at the organization's expansion strategy.

Resource: Academic Case

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Kiva

By 2007, Kiva had gone through a rapid growth phase. The case recounts the debut of the first online person-to-person microfinance organization and looks at the founders' plan for future development.

Resource: Academic Case

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Social Entrepreneurship: Banco Compartamos

Banco Compartamos has been providing microloans to the poor in rural areas of Chiapas and Oaxaca, Mexico, since 1990. It became one of Mexico’s most successful banks. Critics, however, claim that Compartamos departed from the true spirit of microfinance.

Resource: Academic Case

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Equity Bank, a microfinance service

Equity Bank, a microfinance services provider, experienced a remarkable turnaround in the early 1990s. What strategy did the CEO pursue to accomplish such a feat?

Resource: Academic Case

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Corporate Social Responsibility, Economic Development, Healthcare

Gilead Sciences (A): The Gilead Access Program for HIV Drugs

Gilead Sciences designs a strategy for delivering an AIDS drug to developing nations in Africa. This first part of the case describes the organization's initial considerations.

Resource: Academic Case

Topics:

Corporate Social Responsibility, Economic Development, Healthcare

Gilead Sciences (B): Implementing the Gilead Access Program for HIV Drugs

Gilead Sciences designs a strategy for delivering an AIDS drug to developing nations in Africa. This second part of the case explores the company’s experience with a distribution program.

Resource: Academic Case

Topics:

Economic Development, Healthcare, Nonprofit Management

Riders for Health: Health Care Distribution Solutions in Sub-Saharan Africa

Riders for Health is a U.K.-based nonprofit dedicated to the improvement of transportation systems for health workers in Africa. In 2007, after 11 years in existence, the organization was at a critical point and had to decide what strategies were necessary to expand.

Resource: Academic Case

Topic :

Health Care, Economic Development

Can Oil Filters Improve Health Care?

For millions of people across Africa, motorcycles can be a key to effective health care. A well-maintained fleet of vehicles and motorcycles to connect patients, medical expertise, and medicine is sometimes the most vital link in the health delivery supply chain. A new case written for the Stanford Global Supply Chain Management Forum describes one successful program.

Resource: Academic Case

Topic :

Social Entrepreneurship: Kiva

Inspired by Professor Muhammad Yunus, Jessica and Matt Flannery experimented with micro-lending connecting Ugandan entrepreneurs to friends and family through a pilot internet trial. Kiva, the first person-to- person microlending organization was born.

Resource: Academic Case

Topic :

Economic Development, Nonprofit Management, Social Entrepreneurship

As Green As It Gets

As Green as It Gets was a nonprofit economic development organization supporting small, independent producers in disadvantaged Guatemalan communities. The founder pondered how to grow and sustain the organization.

Resource: Academic Case

Topic :

Endeavor

Endeavor selects promising entrepreneurs and helps them develop and grow their businesses through mentorship and guidance. In 2007, founder and CEO Linda Rottenberg looked at the organization's expansion strategy.

Resource: Academic Case

Topic :

Kiva

By 2007, Kiva had gone through a rapid growth phase. The case recounts the debut of the first online person-to-person microfinance organization and looks at the founders' plan for future development.

Resource: Academic Case

Research Papers : All

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Intermediate Goods and Weak Links in the Theory of Economic Development

What explains the enormous differences in incomes across countries? This paper returns to two old ideas: linkages and complementarity. These forces considerably amplify distortions to the allocation of resources, bringing us closer to understanding large income differences across countries.

Resource: Research Paper

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Understand Young Companies in Your Own Backyard, Report Urges Global Leaders

Policy makers need to understand how early-stage companies in their own area work, rather than try to create another Silicon Valley, says Stanford management professor George Foster. He is coauthor of a new report published by the World Economic Forum.

Resource: Research Paper

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Why Do Firms in Developing Countries Have Low Productivity?

In summary, we find evidence that firms in developing countries are often badly managed, which substantially reduces their productivity.

Resource: Research Paper

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Firms in Corrupt Countries Pay a Price in Market Value

Virtue seems to pay according to Professor Charles M.C. Lee whose research shows that publicly-held firms in countries perceived as less corrupt trade at bigger market premiums than those in places deemed more corrupt.

Resource: Research Paper

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Why Bank Equity Is Not Expensive

Since the 2008 market crash, banking interests and economists have clashed over how much of their operations banks should fund with equity as opposed to debt. Bankers and others often say that, "equity is expensive." A recent paper, coauthored by three faculty of the Stanford Graduate School of Business, argues: "Quite simply, bank equity is not expensive from a social perspective, and high leverage is not required in order for banks to perform all their socially valuable functions."

Resource: Research Paper

Courses : All

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Strategic Thinking in Action - In Business and Beyond: STRAMGT 373

This seminar helps participants develop strategically informed action plans that are imaginative, inspiring, and workable in highly dynamic environments. Through informed debate and the writing and presentation of position papers, participants evaluate and hone their views on the seminar's critical themes.

Resource: MBA Course

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Design for Extreme Affordability: OIT 333/4

Students apply engineering and business skills to design product prototypes, distribution systems, and business plans for entrepreneurial ventures in developing countries. The aim is to address challenges faced by the world's poor.

Resource: MBA Course

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The International Economy: Policies and Theory: MGTECON 334

This course gives students an understanding of international trade economics, and analyzes the political processes by which international trade policy is determined. It combines lecture and mini-case studies.

Resource: MBA Course

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Growth and Stabilization in the Global Economy: MGTECON 300

This course gives students the background they need to understand the broad movements in the global economy. Key topics include long-run economic growth, technological change, wage inequality, international trade, interest rates, inflation, exchange rates, and monetary policy.

Resource: MBA Course

Innovators : All

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Farm to Cup Merger Emphasizes Partnership & Economic Empowerment

[photo - Farm to Cup - Root Capital Lending]

A grassroots student effort led by Caroline Mullen, MBA ’12, Catha Mullen, MBA ’13, and Monica Lewis, MBA ’12, now has even more impact through a merger with Pachamama Coffee Cooperative.

Resource: Alumni

Topic :

Economic Development, Healthcare

Cross-Sector Effort Helps People See Better

Vision care is something that is practically taken for granted in the United States, but that’s not the case throughout much of the world. Some 300 million around the globe suffer from correctable vision loss, leading, as Ashanthi Mathai, MBA '04, says, “to people accepting their vision impairment and adjusting their lives around it.” The result? A lower quality of life, restricted job options, and even further economic distress.

Resource: Alumni

Topic :

Economic Development, Environment

How Growth Can Be Green

A Stanford GSB student looks at the value of renewable energy in the developing world.

Resource: Student

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Economic Development, Leadership, Social Entrepreneurship

Creating Peace, One Entrepreneur at a Time

It was the suicide of a young man that turned Vivek Garg toward using business as a means of fostering peace and reconciliation.

Resource: Student

Topic :

Mark Conroe (MBA '85)

Mark Conroe is leveraging his real estate experience and decades of volunteer work to help build the San Francisco House of Hope, a supportive housing project for the homeless.

Resource: Alumni

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Microfinance Needs Regulation

Stanford Social Innovation Review: Winter 2011

The volatile combination of profit-seeking microfinance companies, minimal competition, and vulnerable borrowers has opened up dangerous potential for exploiting the poor. The microcredit industry needs to be regulated—through policies that address transparency, high interest rates, and abusive loan recovery practices.

Corporate Social Responsibility, Economic Development, Healthcare

Resource: Stanford Social Innovation Review Article

Topic :

Disaster Response: Lessons Learned from Haiti

When disaster strikes somewhere in the world, what kind of leadership, nonprofit management, and supply chain expertise are needed? In this university podcast, Stanford professor of surgery, Paul Auerbach, shares lessons learned from the Stanford Emergency Medicine rapid response team's deployment in Haiti after the January 2010 earthquake. His experiences provide a glimpse in to how relevant groups may prepare themselves to better assist in future global catastrophes.

Resource: Audio

Topic :

Global Issues, Economic Development, Environment

Input sought from food researchers hungry for campus collaborations

Faculty and students from all parts of the Stanford University campus, including Professor Sarah Soule from the business school, will gather Nov. 3 for the University's first Food Summit to discuss ways to develop broad-based answers to the world's food problems.

Resource: News Article

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