Skip to Content
Change lives. Change organizations. Change the world.

Center for
Social Innovation

Center for Social Innovation

Social Entrepreneurship

Search Resources:

Research Resources


Jane Chen, MBA '08, is co-founder and CEO of Embrace, a nonprofit company dedicated to creating low-cost portable incubators to save the lives of low birthweight babies in developing countries. The Embrace infant warmer was launched in India in the spring of 2011 she told the annual Women in Management banquet at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Resource: News Article
Stanford Social Innovation Review: Summer 2011

One Acre Fund feeds the world’s poor by helping them feed themselves.

Resource: Stanford Social Innovation Review Article
Stanford Social Innovation Review: Summer 2011

A look at what’s needed next to create the right policy environment for innovation and results.

Resource: Stanford Social Innovation Review Article
Stanford Social Innovation Review: Summer 2011

The owner of the only certified B Corporation in Kentucky assesses the pros and cons of the certification.

Resource: Stanford Social Innovation Review Article
Stanford Social Innovation Review: Summer 2011

The founder of the Kashf Foundation argues that microfinance can improve the lives of Pakistan’s next generation.

Resource: Stanford Social Innovation Review Article

Project Redwood, a new venture philanthropy fund of the Stanford GSB Class of 1980, has distributed $400,000 over the past 3 years to organizations that use entrepreneurial approaches to fight poverty.

Resource: News Article

Troubled by the fact that an estimated 20,000 educated professionals leave Africa every year, Fred Swaniker, MBA '04 and Chris Bradford, MBA '05 founded the African Leadership Academy in Johannsburg, a secondary school they hope will help change the face of the continent.

Resource: News Article
[photo - Sam Goldman and Ned Tozun, co-founders of D.light]

Sam Goldman, MBA '07, CEO of D.light Design, finds himself running an international company whose customers are some of the poorest people in China, India, or Tanzania. The firm grew out of the Business School course Design for Extreme Affordability. Goldman talked to the Stanford Reporter.

Resource: News Article
[photo - Professor Jim Phills]

The wealth generated by the dot-com boom of the 1990s produced a new generation of philanthropists, determined to use their capital and their business savvy to solve social problems. A decade later, have they transformed the world of philanthropy?

Resource: News Article
[photo - Beatriz Gutierrez]

Lorenzo Zambrano, MBA '68, took the family's cement business from regional player to the industry's third-largest supplier.

Resource: News Article
Stanford Social Innovation Review: Spring 2011

Social entrepreneurs have taken the hybrid model to a new level, crafting it into what is in effect a single structure that can operate as both a for-profit and a nonprofit.

Resource: Stanford Social Innovation Review Article
Stanford Social Innovation Review: Spring 2011

Several social enterprises are attempting to provide eyeglasses to the 500 million to 1 billion poor people in the world who need them. Some enterprises see the provision of trained optometrists as the key to solving the problem; others are focused on cost reduction; others still are focused on technological innovations. Why haven’t any of these approaches succeeded on a large scale?

Resource: Stanford Social Innovation Review Article
Stanford Social Innovation Review: Spring 2011

Impact Investors at Toniic aim to create an ecosystem for impact investing that mirrors the Silicon Valley way of doing deals. They know relationships are the key to keeping money moving.

Resource: Stanford Social Innovation Review Article
Stanford Social Innovation Review: Spring 2011

Sambazon’s commitment to social entrepreneurship creates a fair market for farmers in the Amazon

Resource: Stanford Social Innovation Review Article
Stanford Social Innovation Review: Spring 2011

DRIVING SOCIAL CHANGE: How to Solve the World’s Toughest Problems by Paul C. Light

Resource: Stanford Social Innovation Review Article

First Social Enterprise World forum talks about how to use business to accomplish social outcomes.

Resource: Blog Post

Strategies for following one’s social enterprise bliss.

Resource: Blog Post

A new project is building a toolkit to enable nonprofits to use social media strategies effectively.

Resource: Blog Post

Computer access costing less than $70 a person.

Resource: Blog Post

“Cause-related” video games don’t go far enough in helping to solve social problems.

Resource: Blog Post
Video/Audio : All | Audio | Video
[photo - Picture: Mannar]

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.

You are missing some Flash content that should appear here! Perhaps your browser cannot display it, or maybe it did not initialize correctly.

Resource: Audio
[photo - Picture: Shea]

Got a great business idea? Consider taking it to Chile, where the government is now offering $40,000 grants and one-year visas to help early-stage entrepreneurs develop their companies, through a program called Start-Up Chile. In this audio interview, Stanford Social Innovation correspondent Ashkon Jafari talks with Nicolas Shea, innovation advisor to the Chilean minister of economy, about the program's genesis, goals, and progress so far.

You are missing some Flash content that should appear here! Perhaps your browser cannot display it, or maybe it did not initialize correctly.

Resource: Audio
[photo - Picture: Nelson]

Giving things away for the prize people are willing to pay sounds like corporate suicide. In this audio lecture sponsored by the Center for Social Innovation at Stanford, Leif Nelson shows it's a pathway to corporate citizenship, increased revenue, and an enhanced company image. He walks us through field experiments he conducted at major theme parks manipulating various aspects of the purchasing experience for souvenir action photos.

You are missing some Flash content that should appear here! Perhaps your browser cannot display it, or maybe it did not initialize correctly.

Resource: Audio

In the arena of social enterprise, a California collaboration is creating a high yield. In this university podcast, executives Diane Del Signore and Maisie Greenwalt share how Community Alliance with Family Farmers and Bon Appétit Management Company have partnered to create a local distribution system to get locally grown products into institutional settings. They also talk about efforts to help farmers become more organic.

You are missing some Flash content that should appear here! Perhaps your browser cannot display it, or maybe it did not initialize correctly.

Resource: Audio
[photo - Picture: Mic]
Technological progress has fostered new opportunities for teaching and learning, inside and outside of the classroom. From Sesame Street to netbooks to social networks, the students of today are using technology in numerous ways to enrich their learning experience and prepare them for the challenges of tomorrow. This panel of educational entrepreneurs from the NewSchools Summit explores the ideas, outcomes, and possibilities that result from technology-enabled solutions that transform a student's approach to learning.

You are missing some Flash content that should appear here! Perhaps your browser cannot display it, or maybe it did not initialize correctly.

Resource: Audio
[Video-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
[Video-Fill Classrooms with Committed Teachers]

Teach For America places thousands of energetic and committed college graduates as teachers in under-resourced schools for their first jobs. Founder Wendy Kopp shares why and how she started the organization in 1980, and the progress Teach For America has been making ever since.

Resource: Video
[Video-Stanford's Guatemala Service Learning Trip, 2008-9]

There Must Be a Better Way: "We saw their coffee operation. ... Individuals picked through their coffee beans to get the high premium quality beans. ... It made you think: There MUST be a better way," says Tom Mercer, Class of '09, of his experience in Guatemala.

Resource: Video
[Video-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
[Video-What Does It Take to Get Off the Ground?]

Have you ever thought about launching your own social venture? This panel discussion brings together people from both sides of the "start-up" fence—those who started with large financial backing and those who had none.

Resource: Video
[photo - Picture: Lee]
Though the resources may be adequate in the Philippines, 13 million people do not have access to clean and safe water due to issues of infrastructure. In this audio interview, Stanford Center for Social Innovation correspondent Sheela Sethuraman talks with A Single Drop for Safe Water (ASDSW) Executive Director Kevin Lee, the 2010 Tech Award winner in the Equality category. He shares their social entrepreneurship model prioritizing effective water and sanitation systems in communities.

You are missing some Flash content that should appear here! Perhaps your browser cannot display it, or maybe it did not initialize correctly.

Resource: Audio
[photo - Sara Chamberlain]

"People can learn from mobile phones," says Sara Chamberlain, Head of Interactive for BBC World Trust and developer. She launched BBC Janala to "raise the language skills of 25 million people in Bangladesh by 2017". She speaks with host Sheela Sethuraman about how 3 million people already started learning English with in some cases the most basic handsets. According to Chamberlain, making English accessible affordably could be "a ticket out of poverty" for the people of Bangladesh.

You are missing some Flash content that should appear here! Perhaps your browser cannot display it, or maybe it did not initialize correctly.

Resource: Audio
[Video-Gaming for the Greater Good]

What if games were used to solve real-world problems?

Resource: Video
[photo - Picture: Mannar]

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.

You are missing some Flash content that should appear here! Perhaps your browser cannot display it, or maybe it did not initialize correctly.

Resource: Audio
[photo - Picture: Shea]

Got a great business idea? Consider taking it to Chile, where the government is now offering $40,000 grants and one-year visas to help early-stage entrepreneurs develop their companies, through a program called Start-Up Chile. In this audio interview, Stanford Social Innovation correspondent Ashkon Jafari talks with Nicolas Shea, innovation advisor to the Chilean minister of economy, about the program's genesis, goals, and progress so far.

You are missing some Flash content that should appear here! Perhaps your browser cannot display it, or maybe it did not initialize correctly.

Resource: Audio
Case Studies : All | Academic Cases
No Results Found
[photo - Laura K. Arrillaga]

Practitioners and academics at a 2004 Stanford University conference discussed the field of venture philanthropy. The overview includes topics such as capacity building, relationships between grantors and grantees, and performance measurement.

Resource: Academic Case
[photo - William F. Meehan III]

The chief investment officer of Acumen Fund, an international venture philanthropy fund, is reviewing the performance of a portfolio organization. Against the backdrop of Acumen’s own evolution, he is trying to determine how much additional support to provide an organization that has faced similar challenges.

Resource: Academic Case
Multimedia Case
[photo - James A. Phills]

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

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
[photo - Laura K. Arrillaga]

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
[photo - Chip Heath]

PBS had asked for the strategy group Stone Yamashita Partners for help with branding. These cases detail PBS’s challenges and the organization’s need to transform its longstanding structure and change-averse culture.

Resource: Academic Case
[photo - H. Irving Grousbeck]

Julie and her investor set up a holding company, Prospect Colleges, with which they plan to acquire and operate multiple small schools. As president of the first Prospect college, Julie faces challenges regarding ageism among her employees and whether to give in to her investor’s preference and hire an experienced COO.

Resource: Academic Case
[photo - Laura K. Arrillaga]

The Skoll Foundation funds individuals and organizations with good ideas that can quickly grow in scale and impact. In 2002, as the leaders looked to the future, they pondered how they could act as leading social entrepreneurs themselves in terms of how they structured the foundation’s work.

Resource: Academic Case
[photo - Hau L. Lee]

With increasing pollution and congestion, European car manufacturers were concerned that governments might eventually ban cars from city centers. The producer of Swatch watches came up with the novel idea of an environmentally friendly, but stylish, super-compact car.

Resource: Academic Case
[photo - John McMillan]

This note outlines the business climate for entrepreneurs in reform-era Vietnam around 1996. Entrepreneurs had to overcome a host of impediments in gaining access to markets, and in dealing with licensing and corruption.

Resource: Academic Case
[photo - James A. Phills]

Unitus focuses on accelerating the growth of the microfinance industry. While case A examined Unitus options to expand the capital it provides to partners, this second case reveals the decisions Unitus leaders made.

Resource: Academic Case
[photo - William F. Meehan III]

Ashoka was a professional organization that identified and invested in leading social entrepreneurs globally. The organization faced challenges as it updated its mission to “make things happen in a bigger way.”

Resource: Academic Case
[photo - H. Irving Grousbeck]

David Dodson started the septic company Green River Environmental after mixed results in his previous entrepreneurial ventures. This case tracks three difficult mangerial situations Dodson faced during his tenure as CEO and chairman of the company.

Resource: Academic Case
[photo - James A. Phills]

Minnesota Public Radio had evolved from a small public radio station to a network of 38 stations, mainly through social purpose capitalism. The founder came under criticism after creating for-profit ventures to support and build the enterprise.

Resource: Academic Case
[photo - Robert B. Chess]

Napo was developing a compound to treat diarrhea while arranging an innovative public-private partnership to distribute it in the developing world. When that partnership proved difficult to arrange, the founder had to decide whether to continue pursuing it.

Resource: Academic Case
Research Papers : All
[photo -  J. Gregory Dees]

This seminal paper defines the term social entrepreneurship and helps shape, what was in 1998, the nascent field of social entrepreneurship.

Resource: Research Paper
Courses : All
[photo - Jennifer Aaker]

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
[photo - Rick Aubry]

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
[photo - Jane Wei]

This course explores the challenges and opportunities related to social entrepreneurship. Students study nonprofit, for-profit, and hybrid organizational forms, and examine issues from a variety of perspectives, including that of entrepreneur, CEO, funder, and board member.

Resource: MBA Course
[photo - Jim Patell]

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
[photo - Debra Meyerson]

This course is designed to help students understand and manage human systems, exercise leadership, and work effectively with other people, specifically within the context of culturally diverse groups and organizations. The underlying premise is that diversity can present unique challenges and opportunities.

Resource: MBA Course
Innovators : All
[photo - Chari Ratwatte]

One of the first two Stanford GSB Social Innovation fellows, Chari works to provide economic opportunities to farmers in Sri Lanka.

Resource: Alumni , Fellow

Dave DeForest-Stalls wants to help kids stay out of gangs. He's providing mentorship and hip ways to keep youth on the straight and narrow.

Resource: CSI Affiliates

Mark Cafferty is passionate about empowering individuals to be all they can be. He channels funds to employment and youth service programs.

Resource: CSI Affiliates
[photo - Court Gould (EPNL '06)]

Court Gould is pushing for Pittsburgh to grow sustainably. He's working hard to inform decision makers about to accomplish that most effectively.

Resource: CSI Affiliates

Ruth Bolan is giving voice to indigenous peoples of the Pacific Island. She funds documentaries that bring their culture and challenges to millions of viewers.

Resource: CSI Affiliates
[photo - Jeff Skoll]

The March/April edition of Stanford magazine features a profile of alumnus Jeff Skoll, one of only 20 people who've ever given away $1 billion. He hopes to engage everyone in the planet's survival by leveraging the power of Hollywood.

 

Resource: Innovators

Social entrepreneurs, those organizations and individuals who work to improve major social issues, don't have the networks and financial systems of traditional entrepreneurs, Sally Osberg, president of the Skoll Foundation told a Stanford MBA audience. Like Ginger Rogers dancing in a 1940's musical, they face the same issues as traditional entrepreneurs, but must do it backwards in high heels.

Resource: News Article
[photo - Jane Chen (MBA '08)]

Jane Chen's passion for helping others has taken her on an incredible journey from doing social work in China to founding Embrace, a company that sells premature infant incubators.

Resource: Innovators
[photo - Yohei Iwasaki (MBA '10)]

Yohei Iwasaki and mOasis are enabling farmers to grow more crops from less water and to cultivate previously underutilized land, producing a sustainable environment that significantly reduces food and water shortages.

Resource: Innovators
[photo - Jacqueline Novogratz]

In turbulent times like ours, we need “hard-edged hope,” says Jacqueline Novogratz, the much-celebrated founder of the Acumen Fund. Affirming that the world is indeed a better place now than it was 40 years ago, she traces her own journey from a childhood witnessing racial inequities all around her in Detroit to a career leading the field of social impact investing.

Resource: Innovators
Corner