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.

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....

Closing the Feedback Loop
June 20, 2016Wong, a Bay Area-based journalist, reports on a new program that aims to give nonprofits the resources to listen more closely to the people they serve....

Using Data for Action and for Impact
May 24, 2016Despite the many challenges associated with it, the data imperative is here to stay and will make the work of social change organizations and agents more effective over time, writes Benetech's Jim Fruchterman....

New Approaches to Ed-Tech Funding
April 27, 2016In the latest installment of our SSIR@PND series, Julie Petersen and Shauntel Poulson look at how "blended capital" is helping to grow the ed-tech field....

Who Will Pay for Data?
March 21, 2016The measurement of social impact has become a widely shared objective, writes Rick Jacobus, yet among nonprofit groups, social enterprises, and other social-purpose organizations, the use of impact data remains surprisingly limited....

A Checkup on PRIs
February 22, 2016Margaret Laws, director of the Health Innovation Fund at the California HealthCare Foundation from 2010 to 2015, looks at how program-related investments are being used to fund "disruptive innovation" in healthcare delivery....

Making Big Bets for Social Change
January 28, 2016Bridgespan Group's William Foster, Gail Perrault, Alison Powell, and Chris Addy explore why many individual high-net-worth donors are unwilling to "bet big" on social change....

Tech and Innovation to Re-Engage Civic Life
December 30, 2015Open government expert Hollie Russon Gilman argues that inclusive governance will require civil society, government, and industry to work together to empower citizens....

The Power of Lean Data
November 30, 2015In the latest article in our SSIR@PND series, Sasha Dichter, Tom Adams, and Alnoor Ebrahim describe international projects that demonstrate how the social sector can gather high-quality impact data quickly and inexpensively….

Migrating a Partnership Ethos
October 26, 2015The Orfalea Foundation's communications manager explains how the culture of cooperation at Kinko’s informed Paul and Natalie Orfalea’s philanthropy….

Building Disaster-Ready Philanthropy
September 30, 2015The Center for Disaster Philanthropy's Bob Ottenhoff and Regine Webster argue that the unique practice of disaster philanthropy can become more effective, even in a world likely to face more frequent and greater disasters....

Architecting for Data
August 24, 2015In our latest SSIR@PND article, Rahul Bhargava, research scientist at the MIT Center for Civic Media, shares four strategies that nonprofits can use to support the effective, secure, and intentional use of data….

Zone of Impact
July 30, 2015Sacha Litman, founder and managing director of Measuring Success, explores how nonprofits can incorporate big data into their collective impact initiatives....

The Promise of Lean Experimentation
June 25, 2015Peter Murray and Steve Ma of Accelerate Change, a nonprofit incubator that uses lean experimentation, examine the potential of the popular management model to launch, test, and implement new programs and services more efficiently and effectively....

Who’s Afraid of DAFs?
May 21, 2015California Community Foundation president emeritus Jack Shakely explains why people in the philanthropic community need to move beyond their fear of donor-advised funds….

Adventures in Adaptation
April 22, 2015In the latest article in our SSIR@PND series, Anne B. Stanton and Alison Powell examine the James Irvine Foundation's Linked Learning initiative for insights into how adaptive philanthropy works in practice....