Center for Social Innovation

Stanford researchers bring life to high school history classes with a curriculum built around historical documents

Students who used the "Reading Like a Historian" curriculum outperformed their peers in traditional history classrooms, study finds.

Resource: News Article

Topic :

Changing Lives By Changing Mushroom Farming And Consumption In Rwanda

Sustainable farming requires growing enough product to sell at a reasonable price in reachable markets. Entrepreneur Laurent Demuynck hopes to increase the yield of mushrooms for Rwandan farmers, thereby making this nutritious, but expensive, food a staple in the country.

Resource: News Article

Topic :

Gratitude: The Gift that Keeps on Giving

Expressions of gratitude motivate others’ prosocial behavior. When people are thanked for their efforts, they experience stronger feelings of social worth, which inspires them to engage in further helpful acts. In short, gratitude proves to be the gift that keeps on giving because it makes others feel valued.

Resource: News Article

Topic :

West Bank Program For Children Takes Holistic Approach

An investment banker looks to build a sustainable model for alleviating poverty in a Middle East village.

Resource: News Article

Topic :

Knight Management Center Awarded LEED Platinum Rating For Environmental Sustainability

The Knight Management Center at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, an eight-building complex designed to support an innovative MBA curriculum, has achieved the LEED Platinum rating for environmental sustainability from the U.S. Green Building Council.

Resource: News Article

Topic :

Stanford researchers bring life to high school history classes with a curriculum built around historical documents

Students who used the "Reading Like a Historian" curriculum outperformed their peers in traditional history classrooms, study finds.

Resource: News Article

Topic :

Changing Lives By Changing Mushroom Farming And Consumption In Rwanda

Sustainable farming requires growing enough product to sell at a reasonable price in reachable markets. Entrepreneur Laurent Demuynck hopes to increase the yield of mushrooms for Rwandan farmers, thereby making this nutritious, but expensive, food a staple in the country.

Resource: News Article

Topic :

Gratitude: The Gift that Keeps on Giving

Expressions of gratitude motivate others’ prosocial behavior. When people are thanked for their efforts, they experience stronger feelings of social worth, which inspires them to engage in further helpful acts. In short, gratitude proves to be the gift that keeps on giving because it makes others feel valued.

Resource: News Article

Topic :

West Bank Program For Children Takes Holistic Approach

An investment banker looks to build a sustainable model for alleviating poverty in a Middle East village.

Resource: News Article

Topic :

Investing at the Bottom of the Ladder

Stanford Social Innovation Review: Winter 2011

Companies that invest in their lowest-level employees are more productive and more profitable.

What’s Next: Here Comes the Neighborhood

Resource: Stanford Social Innovation Review Article

Topic :

Social Entrepreneurship

Stanford Social Innovation Review: Winter 2011

Social network and professional network combined: a low-income neighborhood works together to meet the needs of the community in an environmentally responsible way.

Resource: Stanford Social Innovation Review Article

Topic :

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.

Resource: Stanford Social Innovation Review Article

Topic :

Government

Employment Power

Stanford Social Innovation Review: Winter 2011

How a private-public-academic partnership is helping people with serious mental illnesses find and keep jobs.

Resource: Stanford Social Innovation Review Article

Topic :

What’s Next: Mentoring India’s Youth

Stanford Social Innovation Review: Winter 2011

The Indian higher education system centers on one test, given on one day. Avanti Fellows seeks to make the system more accessible to talented but underprivileged students.

Resource: Stanford Social Innovation Review Article

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Nonprofit Management, Social Entrepreneurship

New Year’s Resolution

Effective philanthropy requires risk taking.

Resource: Blog Post

Topic :

Climate Change

Social entrepreneurism should focus less on charismatic personalities, and more on ideas that work.

Resource: Blog Post

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Government, Nonprofit Management

Everybody’s Got an Idea for the Transition Except for Me and My Monkey

The new administration needs to support nonprofits with expert advice and access to money.

Resource: Blog Post

Topic :

Nonprofit Management, Philanthropy, Responsible Investing

Foundations Need to Kick Fixation on Themselves

Foundations need to work harder to improve the operations and impact of the giving sector.

Resource: Blog Post

Topic :

Nonprofit Management, Philanthropy, Responsible Investing

Making Nonprofit Collaboration a Foundation Strategy: The Lodestar Foundation

The Lodestar Foundation supports nonprofit collaborations, mergers, and other cooperative activities as a major strategy.

Resource: Blog Post

Video/Audio : All | Audio | Video

Topic:

Environmental Sustainability and Clean Energy

A new green industrial revolution is necessary to improve America's competitive position, reduce dependence on oil, and mitigate climate change. So says Secretary of Energy and Nobel in Physics winner Steven Chu in this talk at Stanford University. Chu talks about the scientific realities of global warming, technology solutions to address it, and how such efforts may stimulate the U.S. economy.

Resource: Audio

Topic:

Nonprofit Management, Philanthropy, Responsible Investing

The Power of Leadership in Social Enterprise

Habitat for Humanity is an exemplary social enterprise that has helped build more than 350,000 houses for low-income people in thousands of communities worldwide. In this university podcast, Jonathan Reckford, the organization's CEO, talks about what it takes to be a great leader. He shares lessons learned from his own career, and how he put his knowledge to work in successfully guiding Habitat for Humanity since 2005.

Resource: Audio

Topic:

Social Innovations, Social Entrepreneurship

Innovations in Global Health

A breakthrough for global health: double fortified salt has been recognized as a social innovation that delivers small but crucial daily amounts of iodine and iron to individuals at a very low cost. In this audio interview, Stanford Center for Social Innovation correspondent Sheela Sethuraman talks with Venkatesh Mannar, 2010 Tech Award winner in Health, as he shares his process of bringing this innovation from lab to market, with the potential to reach billions of people worldwide.

Resource: Audio

Topic:

Fusions et Acquisitions dans l'Economie Sociale

[photo - Nicolas Mottis, Jean-Marc Borello, Philippe Calmette, Dominique Giry]

Les fusions et acquisitions ne sont plus des pratiques cantonnées au secteur capitaliste. Pour développer leur impact, pour venir en aide à des structures en difficulté, pour diversifier leurs interventions, certaines entreprises sociales et associations a but non lucratif se lancent dans l'aventure de la croissance externe. Avec quels succès ? Avec quels enjeux et à quel prix ?

Resource: Audio

Topic:

Global Issues, Philanthropy

Education for the Real World

How do we get the brightest minds to become interested in social enterprise and philanthropy in order to solve the world's most intractable problems? In this audio lecture, sponsored by the Stanford Center for Social Innovation, Bill Gates, co-chair of his now famous foundation, calls on Stanford students to become part of the solution. He talks about his own path, pressing social challenges, and opportunities for addressing them.

Resource: Audio

Topic:

Competitiveness and the Global Labor Force

Consumers can wield great influence over working conditions under which goods are manufactured, Professor Huggy Rao tells a Stanford audience. "You've got to influence consumers so they're willing to pay more," he says.

Resource: Video

Topic:

Service Learning Trip to East Africa

Stanford GSB students explore innovative models for poverty alleviation in East Africa.

Resource: Video

Topic:

Corporate Social Responsibility, Environment

Resource Scarcity Will Force Change

A new era of global environmental threats is changing the work of the world’s largest conservation organization. World Wildlife Fund President and CEO Carter Roberts describes how the organization is changing.

Resource: Video

Topic:

Corporate Social Responsibility, Nonprofit Management

Ask ACT: 20 Years of Nonprofit Management Experience

April Gilbert, former executive director of the Stanford Alumni Consulting Team, presents ACT's approach to knowledge management.

Resource: Video

Topic:

Nonprofit Management, Social Entrepreneurship

The Next Social Leaders

Social entrepreneur veteran Laura Scher and more recent entrants, Kirsten Gagnaire and Jenny Shilling Stein, offer advice on what it takes to create a successful for-profit or nonprofit organization with a social purpose.

Resource: Video

Topic:

Education, Healthcare

Reengineering Aid: Sir Richard Feachem

What impact has aid had on health in developing countries? Has it had an impact?

Resource: Video

Topic:

Government, Healthcare

Pharmaceutical Innovation

What can pharmaceutical companies do to contribute to global health?

Resource: Video

Topic:

Healthcare

The Global Tobacco Epidemic: Robert Proctor

How did the global tobacco epidemic start? And what can we learn from it?

Resource: Video

Topic:

Healthcare

How the Food Industry Is Impacting Global Health: David Kessler

Why has American obesity increased so dramatically in the past four decades? How can this trend be reversed?

Resource: Video

Topic:

Mode d'emploi pour réussir dans l'entrepreneuriat social

[photo - Amandine Barthelemy - Romain Slitine]

L'économie sociale en France est un secteur à part entière qui regroupe les initiatives économiques d'utilité sociale et d'intérêt collectif. Mais peut-on tous devenir des entrepreneurs sociaux? Une étude a donc été réalisée sur les facteurs de réussite et les obstacles. Dans cet enregistrement audio, Amandine Barthelemy et Romain Slitine, experts associés de l'Institut de l'Innovation et de l'Entrepreneuriat Social, nous commentent les résultats de cette enquête et esquissent le profil type du bon entrepreneur social.

Resource: Audio

Case Studies : All | Academic Cases

Topics:

Nonprofit Management

Breaking New Ground: Using the Internet to Scale

Commissioned by KaBOOM! and authored by Katherine Fulton and alumna Heather McLeod Grant of the Monitor Institute, this case study looks at the challenges KaBOOM! faced and lessons the organization learned while pioneering an online strategy to scale its impact. This strategy involves giving away the nonprofit model online for free to empower others to act on KaBoom's behalf.

Resource: Practitioner Case

Topics:

Nike: Managing the Non-Market Environment

In the late 1990s, Nike had to deal with allegations that its subcontractors were running sweatshops that were marked by poor working conditions, worker abuse, and below-subsistence wages. Nike responds to the public scrutiny, and takes actions that have an impact on the company and the brand.

Resource: Academic Case

Topics:

The San Francisco Foundation: The Dilemma of 1998 The Buck Trust (A)

Upon her death, Beryl Buck left $7.6 million for various charitable purposes in Marin County, Calif. The case discusses what happened to the Buck Trust money and the constituents involved.

Resource: Academic Case

Topics:

Nonprofit Management, Philanthropy, Responsible Investing

Asian Neighborhood Design A

The executive director of Asian Neighborhood Design, a housing and community development organization, attempts to quantify the potential financial and social return for investors in his nonprofit enterprise. The director applies innovative tools, including a true cost accounting framework and a social return on investment analysis.

Resource: Academic Case

Topics:

Nonprofit Management

Career Action Center

The Career Action Center started as a nonprofit to help mid-life women reenter the workforce, but due to various demands found itself catering to men and individuals in a host of age ranges. The leadership realized it needed to address the contradiction in the organization’s mission as a center for women that was open to all.

Resource: Academic Case

Topic :

Economic Development, Healthcare, Nonprofit Management

Neighborhood Health Clinic

Neighborhood Health Clinic is a nonprofit health center located in an ethnically diverse, underserved, and complicated community. These cases explore the challenges that staff began to face in working together effectively and efficiently, and what course of action the executive team took to address the problems.

Resource: Academic Case

Topic :

Economic Development, Social Entrepreneurship

Obesity and McLawsuits

After successful litigation against tobacco companies, lawyers turned their attention to the fast-food industry and its possible connection to obesity. The case details McDonald’s response to the litigation.

Resource: Academic Case

Topic :

Rubicon Program's Corporate Strategy

In response to the closure of California state psychiatric hospitals, Rubicon Programs was established in 1973 to provide social services for recently deinstitutionalized individuals. In this videocase, the program’s top managers deliberate about their corporate strategy.

Resource: Academic Case

Topic :

Environment, Social Entrepreneurship

TerraMai: Reclaimed Woods from Around the World

Silicon Valley entrepreneur Ken Westrick became a partner in TerraMai, a company that reclaims discarded wood and sells it to consumers. In 2003, the partners embark on an ambitious growth plan.

Resource: Academic Case

Topic :

Nonprofit Management, Philanthropy, Responsible Investing, Social Entrepreneurship

The Blended Value Proposition

The Center for Blended Value is a think tank that promotes the concept of “blended value” investments. The founder wondered how to overcome the challenges associated with encouraging more foundations to adopt a value-mixing strategy of financial asset management.

Resource: Academic Case

Research Papers : All

Topics:

Arts, Culture, and Religion, Nonprofit Management

The Economic Environment of American Symphony Orchestras

This study collects facts about cyclical and trend-related economic developments in the symphony orchestra industry. It also examines influences on performance and nonperformance revenues and expenses of orchestras.

Resource: Research Paper

Topics:

Arts, Culture, and Religion

From Sucker to Saint: Moralization in Response to Self-Threat

The authors show that moral judgments can be more deeply embedded in judges' immediate social contexts--and are driven more by motivations to maintain self-image--than is typically appreciated in contemporary moral psychology research.

Resource: Research Paper

Topics:

Financial Reporting Transparency

This article raises issues concerning financial reporting transparency and supports the notion that transparency is a desirable characteristic of financial reports.

Resource: Research Paper

Topics:

Economic Development, Government

Governance in the Gullies: Democratic Responsiveness and Leadership in Delhi’s Slums

This ethnographic study examines the processes by which residents of Delhi's slums gain access to formal government services and develop their own (informal) modes of leadership.

Resource: Research Paper

Topics:

Real Wages and Productivity Thrive in Developing Countries That Open Their Markets

When a developing country opens its stock market to foreign capital, the resulting economic effect usually helps more than just big business. Manufacturing workers find their salaries rise rapidly while the nation realizes an even more rapid growth in productivity, according to a study of 18 developing nations, says professor Peter Henry.

Resource: Research Paper

Courses : All

Topic :

Healthcare

Biodesign Innovation: OIT 581/3

The two-quarter Elective Course series provides lectures from a diverse group of faculty that expose students to the practical aspects of technology invention and development. The class features a presentation or discussion from one of the guest speakers or faculty. Students work in small project teams in the Biodesign prototyping lab or bench space, collaborating with the fellows of the program.

Resource: MBA Course

Topic :

Social Entrepreneurship

The Power of Social Technology: GSBGEN 358

The goal of this seminar is to investigate how social technology (e.g., blogs, websites, podcasts, widgets, community groups, social network feeds) can change attitudes and behaviors in ways that cultivate social change. We study the strategies and tactics used by companies and causes that have successfully catalyzed social persuasion.

Resource: MBA Course

Topic :

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

Topic :

Social Entrepreneurship

Social Entrepreneurship: STRAMGT 369

This course focuses on the efforts of private citizens to create effective responses to social needs and innovative solutions to social problems. It equips students with frameworks and tools that will help them be more effective as a social entrepreneur.

Resource: MBA Course

Topic :

Nonprofit Management

Strategic Management of Nonprofits: STRAMGT 368

This course surveys strategic, governance, and management issues facing a wide range of nonprofit organizations in an era of venture philanthropy and social entrepreneurship. It introduces students to core managerial issues in the nonprofit sector, such as development/fundraising, investment management, performance management and nonprofit finance.

Resource: MBA Course

Innovators : All

Topic :

Kate Surman, MBA '04

Kate Surman, MBA '04, Administrative Director of Strategic Operations, Stanford Hospital & Clinics, discusses how she has leveraged the Public Management and Social Innovation certificate to take her career into a new direction.

Resource: Alumni

Topic :

Economic Development, Social Entrepreneurship

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 :

Water World

Leading a Social Innovation Study Trip lands Robyn Beavers, MBA '10, in a new industry.

Resource: Alumni

Topic :

Economic Development, Healthcare

Jeremy Sokulsky, MBA '04

Jeremy Sokulsky, MBA '04, President, Environmental Incentives, discusses how he's drawing upon the tools and training he received from the GSB to help make a difference.

Resource: Alumni

Topic :

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 :

James Sweeney: A Sustainable Energy System

James Sweeney, director of Stanford's Precourt Energy Efficiency Center, discusses green cities at a Stanford GSB conference.

Resource: Video

Topic :

Arts, Culture, and Religion, Nonprofit Management

Environmental Sustainability Through Recycling

Messaging that makes meanings easier to understand leads people to recycle more. That's the conclusion of a study reported on by Canadian Scholar Kate White in this University podcast. White says that negative messages about the dangers of not recycling work best when paired with concrete action steps, showing how to recycle. White spoke at the Stanford Prosocial Briefing.

Resource: Audio

Topic :

Creating Solidarity Through Unusual Acts of Kindness

What inspires people to act selflessly, help others, and make personal sacrifices? Unusual acts of kindness—like giving something away to someone you don’t even know and getting nothing in return—happens numerous times every day, in the form of blood donation, providing online reviews, and so on. In each case, someone provides a useful good, service, or bit of advice free of charge. In academic circles, this type of giving is referred as “generalized exchange.” Generalized exchange stands in contrast to “direct exchange,” in which payments are made or reciprocity is expected. Professor Frank Flynn and colleagues, Robb Willer and Sonya Zak, looked at these unusual acts of kindness and examined whether generalized exchange systems can create more solidarity than direct exchange systems.

Resource: News Article

Topic :

Environment, Government

Stanford's George Shultz on Energy: It's Personal

George Shultz leads a group preparing to propose a federal tax on carbon to slash U.S. greenhouse gas emissions and oil consumption, a seemingly unlikely policy from a Republican Party statesman.

Resource: News Article

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