SSIR@PND

Through an agreement with the Stanford Social Innovation Review, PND is pleased to be able to offer a series of articles and profiles related to the "business" of improving society.

How Field Catalysts Galvanize Social Change
December 28, 2017As funders and nonprofits increasingly recognize that no single organization or strategy can solve a complex social challenge at scale, they are joining forces with a type of intermediary organization built to serve as a hub for advocacy and action and roll all stakeholders toward a defined goal....

Unconventional Wisdom
November 27, 2017In the latest installment of our SSIR@PND series, Sarah Murray explains how the Rockefeller Foundation's "scan and search" approach casts a wide net to identify the issues it is best suited to tackle....

The Motivations Behind Giving
October 25, 2017The way that individual donors think about themselves shapes their charitable giving preferences; your job is to figure out who they are and what they care about....

Capital for Creativity
September 28, 2017While investments in the creative economy have the potential to stabilize threatened communities and generate quality jobs, argues Laura Callanan, the impact investment community has been confoundingly slow to recognize the opportunity....

Marginalized Returns
August 28, 2017Impact investing originally was created to improve the lives of others, but nowadays achieving predefined financial returns has become the primary goal; that needs to change, write Mara Bolis and Chris West....

Caught in a Fake Debate
July 25, 2017Innovations for Poverty Action's Duflo and McAnnally-Linz argue that impact evaluations should always help decision making, whether immediately or in the longer term, and should also add to an existing body of evidence....

Dance Revolution
June 26, 2017In the latest installment of our SSIR@PND series, management consultant Kathy O. Brozek explains how The Wooden Floor is licensing its successful arts education model to break the cycle of poverty....

Against "Big Bets"
May 24, 2017Strategic philanthropy entails risk no less than big bets, and we should acknowledge its importance and effectiveness — and encourage more of it, says Hewlett Foundation president Larry Kramer....

Marine Conservation 2.0
April 25, 2017By prioritizing the needs of coastal communities, we have a better chance of mobilizing the hundreds of millions of people who work in and around fishing worldwide to support ocean conservation rather than oppose it, writes Blue Ventures' Steve Rocliffe....

In Defense of Pet Causes
March 27, 2017Effective altruists have a revolutionary idea, writes Createquity's Ian David Moss, but their rhetoric and inflexibility are limiting its potential...

Stop Raising Awareness Already
February 24, 2017For those working on a cause they care about, the first instinct is often to make sure that as many people as possible are aware of the problem, write Ann Christiano and Annie Neimand. But is that the best approach?...

Seeking and Solving
January 24, 2017Kiko Suarez, vice president of communications at the Lumina Foundation, and Alph Bingham, a co-founder of InnoCentive, explain how the low cost of crowdsourcing and the high value of crowdsourced solutions can translate into a high return on investment for foundations....

Selling Social Change
December 19, 2016The mere fact that your organization has built an innovative program doesn't mean there's a demand for it. The Bridgespan Group's Tazz Hussein and Matt Plummer explain why it's time for nonprofits to develop a more sales-driven approach to social change....

Let’s Redraw the Map
November 22, 2016Social entrepreneurship in the United States is a strikingly homogenous affair. Michael Zakaras, director of partnerships at Ashoka US, explains what his organization is doing to change the equation....

A New Model for Citizen Engagement
October 26, 2016To meet their challenges, communities in the United States need to increase the scale and the quality of citizen engagement. One way to do that, write Myung J. Lee and Peter Levine, is through "impact volunteering" initiatives....

When Innovation Goes Wrong
September 27, 2016Social change organizations often stumble when it comes to turning innovation into impact. In the latest installment of our SSIR@PND series, Christian Seelos and Johanna Mair identify — and explain how to prevent — several "pathologies" that underlie this failure....

How Grantmaking Can Create Adaptive Organizations
August 18, 2016Easterling, a former director of research and evaluation at The Colorado Trust, argues that philanthropists should create relationships with grantees aimed at fostering critical thinking, learning, and adaptation....

A Big New Market?
July 20, 2016In the latest installment of our SSIR@PND series, Nick O'Donohoe explains how UK-based Big Society Capital has helped "primed the pump" for the impact investment market in the United Kingdom and beyond....