Center for Social Innovation

In the spring of 2003, the Center for Social Innovation at the Stanford Graduate School of Business launched the Stanford Social Innovation Review. Our first “Editors’ Note” defined social innovation as “the process of inventing, securing support for, and implementing novel solutions to social needs and problems.” That same manifesto also described the publication’s unique approach to social innovation: “dissolving boundaries and brokering a dialogue between the public, private, and nonprofit sectors.”

Over the last 20 years, we have seen an explosion in applications of business ideas and practices to nonprofit and government works.¹ We have also watched businesses take up the cause of creating social value under the mantle of corporate social responsibility, corporate citizenship, and socially responsible business. Indicative of growing cross-sector exchanges, we ... Read more