In 2024, SSIR articles covered a wide range of topics that were top of mind for social change leaders. But if you were to assign a theme to this list of most-read articles, it might be that lasting solutions to social problems will need to dig deeper to repair broken systems. Take SSIR’s top story, “Healing Systems,” where authors call for readers to do just that: “To truly transform systems, we must apply a trauma lens to the conditions that hold problems in place, take a healing-centered perspective, and explore experiences that can create collective healing.”
Several articles on this list offer a re-examination of popular philanthropic practices. Others urge us to move forward with new ideas for communicating social change, using AI for social good, and supporting more and better migration. Thank you to the SSIR community for sharing your ideas and your responses to this year’s top stories. We look forward to grappling together with these and more topics in 2025.
1. Healing Systems by Laura Calderon de la Barca, Katherine Milligan & John Kania
The authors of this in-depth article share how leaders and organizations can take steps toward collective healing: “Trauma is a near-universal part of the human experience and an invisible force contributing to the ‘stuckness’ of virtually all social systems … Unless we acknowledge trauma, engage with it, and find ways to support individual and collective healing, our systems will stay stuck.”
2. Where Strategic Philanthropy Went Wrong by Mark Kramer & Steve Phillips
“When it comes to solving our society’s most urgent challenges, strategic philanthropy … has been astonishingly ineffective.” Those words may come as a surprise from two longtime proponents of strategic philanthropy, but in SSIR’s Summer 2024 print magazine cover story, Mark Kramer and Steve Phillips take a critical look at strategic philanthropy—including their own respective roles in its ascent—to unpack its failures.
3. A New Look at How US Nonprofits Get Really Big by Ali Kelley, Darren Isom, Bradley Seeman, Julia Silverman, Analia Cuevas-Ferreras & Katrina Frei-Herrmann
This follow-up to a 2017 SSIR article examines what has changed about the funding schemes of really big US-based nonprofits. Key insight: While recommendations to diversify funding streams abound, large nonprofits tend to be built on a single dominant revenue category.
4. How Movement-Accountable Intermediaries Can Change Philanthropy by Sonya Childress, Sahar Driver, Aldita Amaru Gallardo, Jennie Goldfarb, Allistair Mallillin, Lindley Mease, alicia sanchez gill & angela vo
Leaders of several intermediary organizations share how they envision their role within—and how they ultimately hope to upend—the philanthropic landscape.
5. Investing in Systems Change Capacity by Susan Misra & Marissa Guerrero
Philanthropists must think beyond funding outcomes and invest in the capacity of systems to perpetuate and sustain change: “A strong system accelerates progress in opportune moments, deepens implementation of wins, and better protects gains when they are under threat.”
6. Mapping the Landscape of AI-Powered Nonprofits by Kevin Barenblat & Brigitte Hoyer Gosselink
This kick-off article to an in-depth series Introducing AI-Powered Nonprofits shares a taxonomy of how nonprofits are leveraging AI for social good: “Nonprofits and civil society belong at the forefront of AI. By bolstering communities’ agency to decide when and how to use it, the transformation can happen with them, not to them.”
7. The Strategic Value of Trust-Based Philanthropy by Stacey Faella & Ryan Roberson
“Fundamentally, there is nothing un-strategic about a trust-based approach to philanthropy. The key differences lie not in whether to embrace and respond to evidence but rather in whose time, expertise, and experience are valued most.”
8. Big Bet Bummer by Kevin Starr
Frequent SSIR contributor and Mulago Foundation CEO Kevin Starr set off a debate about big bet philanthropy with this article that generated several responses from other SSIR writers, including “In Defense of Big Bets” by Cecilia Conrad, “Big Bets for the Long Haul” by Matthew Forti and Claire McGuinness, and “Our Best Bet Is a Long Bet” by James Nardella and Maharshi Vaishnav.
Starr also wrote about the role metrics play in philanthropy and how they can build trust in “In Numbers We Trust”: “Numbers are the closest thing we have to a universal language, and as such they contribute to a more level playing field between doers and funders.”
9. Beyond the Broadcasting Model by Sean Gibbons & Tristan Mohabir
Is it possible we’re doing communications work wrong? Sean Gibbons and Tristan Mohabir of The Communications Network kick off an in-depth series on Communication in a New Era of Social Change with an analysis of how social sector organizations can move beyond a broadcast model of mass communication.
10. Betting on Migration for Impact by Jason Wendle
Enabling people to move for opportunity should be an urgent priority for funders and social innovators who want to make a difference in global inequality: “Migration is not a problem in search of a solution; it is a solution waiting to be unlocked by thoughtful investment of resources and effort.”
Honorable Mentions:
11. Impact Investing Should Be Hard by Maoz (Michael) Brown
12. Lessons From a Sustainable Fashion Bankruptcy by Tricia Carey & Robert Antoshak
13. Using Strategic Foresight to Create the Future We Want by Marina Gorbis
14. Funders Fundraising: A New Philanthropic Trend by Valerie Conn & Sofia Michelakis
15. Should We Put Out a Statement? by Seth Chalmer
16. Strategic Philanthropy Is Alive and Well (a response to “Where Strategic Philanthropy Went Wrong”) by Jodi Nelson & Fay Twersky
17. Why Isn’t No-Strings Funding More Common? by Deb Nelson & Tina Beck
18. The Future of Philanthropy Is Trust-Based, a supplement from Trust-Based Philanthropy Project
19. The Hollow Prize for Leaders of Color by Chanda Causer
20. 5 Myths Preventing Catalytic Capital From Going Where It’s Needed by Harvey Koh
SSIR is always seeking new contributors and story ideas. We encourage social innovators of all identities and backgrounds, at all levels of their careers, and in all countries around the world to review our submission guidelines and consider sharing their ideas and experiences with our readers. If you have an idea for an article, we want to hear from you.
Read more stories by SSIR Editors.