Center for Social Innovation

10 Years of Educating Leaders to Solve the World's Toughest Problems

In the late 1990s GSB faculty, the dean’s office, students, and alumni recognized an opportunity for the GSB to play a critical role in developing leaders to help solve global social and environmental challenges. In 1999, they came together to create the Center for Social Innovation and reinforce the GSB’s leadership in educating global leaders.

Jim Phills, professor of organizational behavior, joined in 2000 as the first faculty director to champion this ambitious agenda. Under Jim’s leadership, the center developed a robust strategic plan and created an extensive array of programs that would establish the Center for Social Innovation as the academic leader.

Leveraging the assets of Stanford and the Graduate School of Business, CSI expanded the work of the school to a larger audience of executives around the globe through research, education, and community outreach. The Center set on a course to create a field of social innovation, a journey that led to the launch of multiple academic centers for social innovation around the world and the creation of the White House Office for Social Innovation in the United States.

Feeling confident that the work of the Stanford community will be supported by a larger global movement, the Center focusses its future efforts at home to nurture and support the efforts of Stanford's social innovators, a robust and vibrant community of leaders who are actively engaged in building a more just, sustainable, and prosperous world.

Interactive timeline

New Directions

2010

The Center focuses on the school's core constituents...

• The Public Management certificate for SLOAN and MBA students is revised to provide a richer academic experience aligned to interests in international development, education, healthcare, energy & the environment, social entrepreneurship, corporate responsibility and ethics, public policy and nonprofit management. The certificate requirements include a practicum and ensure students are better prepared for and demonstrate more commitments to solving social and environmental problems. 
• The Social Innovation Fellowship is extended for 3 years and can now be granted to Stanford GSB alumni 3 years out.
• The Stanford Social Innovation Review, a venture the Center seeded and started-up over the past 5 years, transitioned to the Center for Philanthropy and Civic Society at Stanford where it will expand and flourish.

Growth

2009

The Center supports social innovators with resources...

• Social Innovation Fellowship: a yearlong program provides a stipend to Stanford MBA students or teams to enable them to devote 100 percent of their first year after graduation building their vision for social change into a viable social enterprise.
• Research by Topic: the center launches a new Web site and contributes to the field of social innovation a new online database of case studies, research papers, inspirational talks, and articles on the most pressing issues our world is facing.

2008

... develops its offering...

• Corporate Social Responsibility program (CSR): the center’s first international executive program launched in collaboration with ESADE business school explores new ways in which companies can incorporate societal and environmental perspectives into strategic thinking.
• Executive Program for Social Entrepreneurs (EPSE): the sixth program in the center’s Executive Education portfolio tailored to the needs and challenges facing successful social entrepreneurs. EPSE is designed to help social entrepreneurs take their enterprises and innovative models to the next level by refining their ideas and leveraging their impact.

...and defines social innovation...

• The Stanford Social Innovation Review publishes a seminal article defining Social Innovation.

2007

The Center launches new programs...

• Conversations in Philanthropy, an anthology on the purposes, accountability, and practices of 21st-century philanthropy.
• Socially and Environmentally Responsible Supply Chain Program: a new research initiative launched at the inaugural Social and Environmental Supply Chain conference in collaboration with the Stanford Global Supply Chain Forum.
• Business Strategies for Environmental Sustainability (BSES): a new executive education program for leaders in business, government, nongovernmental organizations, and political action organizations delivers strategies to gain competitive advantage through environmentally sustainable practices.
• Solving the world’s toughest social and environmental problems favors leaders with an ability to bridge academic disciplines and tap into expertise spanning multiple areas. Stanford offers the opportunity to combine and strengthen the academic experience through the following joint degrees for MBA students:
  • Master of Public Policy/MBA for students interested in pursuing careers in public policy or at the intersection of business and government. Offered in conjunction with the School of Humanities & Sciences.
  • MS in Environment & Resources/MBA for students interested in a career addressing environmental issues. Offered in conjunction with the School of Earth Sciences.

2006

• Social Innovation Conversations: a new podcast channel delivers to the world the voices of the people at the forefront of creating social change.
• The Service Learning Initiative: a new opportunity for MBA students to learn about pressing global issues in depth, and to study pioneering models of social impact.
• First Annual Nonprofit Management Institute: hosted by the Stanford Social Innovation Review attracts 200 nonprofit executives.
• Program Related Investment Conference: a gathering of foundation leaders to explore new ways to leverage their assets for social change.

2005

• Executive Education for Philanthropy Leaders (EPPL): a new executive education program focused on the strategy and management of grantmaking institutions.
• Bridging the Gap—Leading Social Innovation Across Sectors, the Stanford/Net Impact conference attracts a record-breaking 1,300 MBA students from across the United States.

…shares its research findings…

• Stanford Project on the Evolution of Nonprofits (SPEN) publishes its report, and shares its findings at conferences with foundation and nonprofit executives.

…and gets involved...

• The Nonprofit Innovation Award, a competition cosponsored by the center with Amazon.com grants prizes to innovative nonprofits in the United States.

2004

• Effective Disruption Management: a one-day seminar features business and nonprofit leaders and academics around lessons in humanitarian disaster relief.
• Leading Constructive Public Engagement: a Stanford Educational Leadership Institute (SELI) conference brings 16 school district teams to focus on district leadership.

As the center shifts from a start-up to an organization poised for growth, Kriss Deiglmeier is hired as its first executive director.

Integration

2003

The center develops its offerings...

• Building Capacity in School Systems: the center’s first institute organized in partnership with Grantmakers for Education.
• Stanford Social Innovation Review: a new quarterly magazine presents the best in research and practice-based knowledge to help those who do the important work of improving society do it even better.
• Environmental Sustainability Initiative: the MBA curriculum integrates environmental concepts both in core courses and via the creation of new courses on environmental sustainability.
• Philanthropy Discussions Series: a multiyear speaker series, hosted in collaboration with the Stanford Haas Center for Public Service, engages practitioners and academics on the public obligations of philanthropy.

2002

• Dale Miller, social psychologist and professor of organizational behavior, joins as faculty co-director

Business School programs find new potential and synergies by becoming part of the center...

• The business school’s Alumni Consulting Team (ACT) integrates into the center, offering pro bono management consulting services to nonprofits around the Bay Area.
• The three-decade old MBA academic and leadership development program, the Public Management Program (PMP), becomes part of the center and continues to offer its unique Certificate in Public Management while expanding its activities.

The center launches new initiatives…

• Stanford Educational Leadership Institute (SELI): a collaboration with Stanford School of Education focused on bringing knowledge from the business and education fields to support current and emerging education industry leaders.
• Stanford Project on Emerging Nonprofits (SPEN): the center’s first major research initiative—a five-year study that examined how nonprofit leaders appropriate, adapt, or reject management ideas and practices as they create and shape social purpose institutions.

…and expands its program portfolio...

• Strategy for Nonprofit Organizations (SNO), a team-based Executive Education program focused on mission and strategy.
• Executive Program for Educational Leaders (EPEL), an executive program developed by the SELI initiative for school leadership teams engaged in redesigning school districts.
• Executive Program for Nonprofit Leaders-Arts (EPNL-Arts), a leadership development program created in collaboration with National Arts Strategies and tailored to the unique dynamics of arts organizations.

Start-up

2001

• First two Executive Programs for social sector leaders:
  • The Executive Program for Nonprofit Leaders (EPNL), a first-of-its-kind endeavor that will become the center’s flagship leadership development program.
  • High-Impact Philanthropy (HIP), focused on helping individual donors maximize philanthropic impact.

2000

• First public conference: High-Impact Philanthropy, focused on maximizing philanthropic impact.