Center for Social Innovation

Published: August 05, 2010

The award-winning Stanford Social Innovation Review, the magazine covering best practice and ideas at the intersection of nonprofit and corporate management, migrates to a new home at the School of Humanities and Sciences at Stanford University in September.

The magazine was launched seven years ago by the Center for Social Innovation at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. It has been part of the center's mission to foster creative cross-sector solutions to pressing social problems by public, nonprofit, and private entities.

The magazine, including a related series of webinars and conferences, will become part of the Center for Philanthropy and Civil Society at the School of Humanities and Sciences. "In the spirit of entrepreneurship and collaboration that characterizes management education at Stanford, we are proud to see the venture we seeded embraced by the larger university where it can expand and flourish," said Garth Saloner, Dean of the Stanford Graduate School of Business. "At the Graduate School of Business, we remain committed to our center, and this move will enable us to increase our focus on teaching and research in the emerging field of social innovation."

The Center for Social Innovation will continue to provide a broad portfolio of programs and activities aimed at educating leaders to find solutions to the world's global challenges. New effort is being directed into reinforcing social innovation in the MBA curriculum. Three new electives will launch in the new academic year: Sustainability for Market Strategy; Social Innovation Through Corporate Social Responsibility; and Poverty, Entrepreneurship, and Development. These cutting-edge courses complement the existing 25 courses that comprise eligibility for the Public Management Program (PMP) certificate that recognizes student concentrations in social innovation, including public management, corporate social responsibility, and nonprofit management. In addition to its robust MBA academic offering, the center supports career services, a nonprofit Board Fellows program, a venture fellows program, a summer social-purpose internship program, an annual lecture on the environment, and a dozen MBA clubs. Through service learning trips in countries across the globe, students gain a deeper understanding of social and environmental issues and how sector convergence is laying the foundation for new social innovations.

To ensure its research and teaching efforts inspire action and have an impact in the world, the center will continue to invest in programs that prepare its participants for future professional years, such as the Social Innovation Fellows, Executive Education for social and environmental impact, conferences, and Social Innovations Conversations, a podcast channel that had more than 1.3 million downloads from around the world last year. With over 20 faculty members engaged, and the field of social innovation growing worldwide, the center is increasing its efforts to support faculty cases, research, conferences, and courses.

Through the Center for Social Innovation's efforts, the Stanford Social Innovation Review was built from an idea into a highly successful publication with a circulation of 13,000 academics and practitioners. SSIR articles are distributed as instructional materials at major institutions including Brown University, Duke University, Northwestern University, and the University of Michigan.

In the past year, SSIR has been honored by two publishing organizations for design and overall excellence. In 2009, Folio: magazine awarded SSIR a silver Ozzie for best redesign and a bronze Ozzie for best overall design for a nonprofit publication.

"We are excited at the opportunity for SSIR to launch into a new phase of growth and to do even more good in the world," says Kriss Deiglmeier, executive director of the Center for Social Innovation. "As the field of social innovation grows, there is a need for a publication like SSIR to spur important discussions. By spinning out SSIR to the larger university, the efforts seeded by the GSB are expanded, as more centers integrate a social innovation philosophy into their portfolio of programs. The GSB and the Center for Social Innovation remain committed to leading the social innovation field through educating principled leaders capable of working across silos to solve our most important global issues."

For further information, contact Barbara Buell, Director of Communications, Stanford Graduate School of Business at 650 723-1771.

For comment, contact Kriss Deiglmeier, Executive Director, Center for Social Innovation at the Stanford Graduate School of Business at 650 725-9419.