Everybody loves social entrepreneurship, and everybody wants to be one, too. Unfortunately, with popularity comes confusion—all sorts of activities are now being called social entrepreneurship. In the spring 2007 issue of Stanford Social Innovation Review, Roger L. Martin and Sally Osberg make “The Case for Definition,” arguing that there must be some distinction between those who are truly practicing social entrepreneurship and those who just wish they were.
Since 1970, more than 200,000 nonprofits have opened in the U.S., but only 144 have reached $50 million in annual revenue. They got big by doing two things: They raised the bulk of their money from a single type of funder. And just as importantly, these nonprofits created professional organizations that were tailored to the needs of their primary funding sources.
Grantees of foundations have little control over which program officer takes their case. Yet program officers make or break grantees’ experiences with foundations. To trigger social change, foundations must give program officers better training, clearer expectations, and regular performance feedback.
Most nonprofits don’t know how to lobby and, worse, think that it entails cutting shady deals with sleazy characters. Yet lobbying is nothing more than educating legislators – a right that our democracy guarantees. To make change, nonprofits must learn to lobby. And who knows? They may even learn to love it.
Social entrepreneurship is attracting growing amounts of talent, money, and attention, but along with its increasing popularity has come less certainty about what exactly a social entrepreneur is and does.
The traditional approach among human rights groups in Nigeria had been accusatory: publicize injustices or sue the government. But in January 1998, on the eve of democracy, an NGO called the CLEEN foundation set out to reform law enforcement from within.
Greenlight is a nonprofit catalyst: It identifes a local need, scours the country for the best program to meet it, and then establishes a chapter in its hometown.
Find out why Method home products keep their eco-friendliness under very attractive wraps.
Much public affairs lingo, such as "capacity," signifies nothing in particular. The nonprofit and public sectors have more than their share of this vocabulary. There are a handful of toxic words and phrases that have a way of polluting any stream of consciousness, muddying the concepts and making it impossible to see what facts and arguments (if any) lie below the surface.
How to identify your IT needs and get money for them.
What nonprofits and donors can learn from the closing of a venture philanthropy firm.
Step aside, Stephen Covey. Kent Buse and Andrew M. Harmer have discovered seven new highly effective habits. And theirs may help rid the world of its more deadly diseases, rather than just upping people's productivity.
Recent neuroscience research confirms that people - and the brains they contain - view drug addicts as not quite human.
Why nonprofits should let donors give back their fundraising incentives.
When hiring executives, many nonprofits should seek marketing expertise.
Why the powerful have a hard time taking other people’s perspectives.
Enterprising orgs fare better on the fringes of nonprofit networks.
Some books ought to be read as pairs. Joel L. Fleishman’s and Martin Morse Wooster’s recent offerings are such a duo, offering sometimes diametrically opposed perspectives on philanthropic successes and failures.
Twenty Great Leaders on Strategic Corporate Philanthropy.
SSIR Academic Editor Jim Phills sat down with former NBA superstar Kevin Johnson to discuss how he's revitalizing his old inner-city neighborhood.
