Many organizations claim to be innovative, but few have actually taken the time to learn and master the process of innovation. In the fall 2016 issue of Stanford Social Innovation Review we are thrilled to publish an article, “When Innovation Goes Wrong,” that explores the process. One of the most interesting parts of the article is its in-depth look at the ways that social innovation can go awry.
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Organizations often stumble when it comes to turning innovation into impact. Here’s a guide to diagnosing and preventing several “pathologies” that underlie this failure.
The key to creating a vibrant and sustainable company is to find ways to get all employees personally engaged in day-to-day corporate sustainability efforts.
By transforming municipal volunteering programs into “impact volunteering” efforts, leaders and citizens can lay a foundation for civic renewal.
Philanthropists should create collaborative relationships with grantees that cultivate critical thinking, learning, and adaptation.
A New York City nonprofit aims to re-engage kids with creative, risky outdoor activities.
The White House, manufacturing, e-commerce, and nonprofits team up to get diapers to families in need.
A free food project on New York's waterways challenges residents to imagine how we might adapt to a more resource-constrained world.
A partnership between a ride-sharing company, a municipal transportation authority, and Ford is expanding transit access in Kansas City.
Farmers in the Cordillera region of the Philippines prosper by selling heirloom rice, with help from a company called Eighth Wonder.
Four years ago, a Northern California bookstore reinvented itself as a hybrid social enterprise—and its story continues to unfold.
After a period of war and genocide, Rwanda launched a national health insurance program that is now delivering sharply improved outcomes.
Behind the success of Triodos Bank success lies a pattern of refusing to take easy or obvious steps to drive growth.
There is an urgent need to expand the infrastructure for results-based policymaking at all levels of the US government.
A pilot project in China aims to give the country’s family-planning agency a new mission: supporting early child development.
Through a new initiative, Ashoka hopes to make the field of US social entrepreneurship more diverse, geographically and otherwise.
In Belgium, leaders of a nonprofit are using a pay-for-success mechanism to fund a program for young migrant job seekers.
A shift in the language used to describe and report social impact reflects the influence of an elite group of financial professionals.
During a critical period in its history, Greenpeace restructured its organization in order to leverage gains made at a local level.
When a for-profit company partners with an NGO, it must carefully manage employees’ adjustment to a new organizational context.
The demographic profile of Airbnb users doesn’t quite reflect the egalitarian goals of the “sharing economy.”
How social services agencies are squeezing revenue from the poor and vulnerable people they’re meant to serve.
When we pay people to do things that they know they should be doing as good citizens, they tend to devalue the moral basis for acting that way.
We should be more concerned about foundations’ outsized role in education policy.
The sharing economy can help us coordinate economy activity, but that’s not the same thing as building interpersonal trust and understanding.
Many of the more than 355,000 smallholder coffee farmers in Rwanda are members of producer co-ops.
