In 2025, SSIR authors grappled with the world as it is. This year’s top articles examine the fallout from massive cuts to USAID, how to reevaluate the impact we can have when systems collapse, taking a collective approach to solving global challenges, and philanthropy’s response to the radical changes we’re living through.
Other articles shared new perspectives on recurring topics: communications and narrative change, leveraging new technology for social good, donor engagement, partnering with government, and randomized controlled trials.
During a year when the social sector and our communities have been under attack, social change leaders are stepping forward with courage and hope to face these challenging and disruptive times.
To answer the question posed in SSIR’s top article of 2025, “Are you building something?” The SSIR community responds in these articles with an emphatic, “Yes!” Thank you for sharing your insights, challenges, and points of light with us in 2025. We look forward to seeing what this community of social change leaders builds together in 2026.
1. Are You Building Something? An interview with Marshall Ganz
“Structural change is rooted in people, human beings, and the power we can create with each other when we find values we share, and our capacity to turn those values into sources of power.” After the US presidential election at the end of 2024, Marshall Ganz, longtime community organizer and lecturer at Harvard University, sat down with Tomás R. Jiménez, professor at Stanford University, to discuss what the social sector gets wrong about power and structural change. Don’t miss this inspiring interview, still insightful and relevant a year later.
2. Gather, Share, Build by Nithya Ramanathan and Jim Fruchterman
Social sector organizations need to be thinking about how to address one of the biggest challenges to harnessing AI to solve social problems: insufficient data. In this article, two experts detail concrete actions to take now to gather better data, bring data together, and collaborate for AI innovation to help the social sector reap the benefits of AI's emergent power for the greater good.
3. From Fixers to Builders by Trabian Shorters
In this article, Trabian Shorters, cofounder of BMe Community, shares four narrative shifts proven to get people of all parties to support progressive goals without compromising anyone’s values. Part of the Communication in a New Era of Social Change article series, co-produced with our partners at Comnet.
4. Big Aid Is Over by Kevin Starr
Big Aid is over. What’s next? Mulago Foundation’s Kevin Starr looks ahead to what, where, and how philanthropy can work with African governments, specifically, to become not only the doers-at-scale but the payers-at-scale following massive cuts to foreign aid.
5. How to Measure Narrative Change by Yewande O. Addie, David Hanson, Emily Melnick, Melody Mohebi, and Annie Neimand
This informative article presents a flexible framework for measuring narrative change efforts that organizations can creatively adapt to their unique work: “The framework offers a way (versus the way) to document impact and learnings related to stories that aim to drive change.” The authors also collaborated on an SSIR webinar on the same topic in 2025. You can access this webinar here.
6. Grappling With Systems Collapse by Liz Ruedy, Tom Glaisyer, and Rachel Reichenbach
What happens when the systems we work in fail? The authors present four models for achieving social impact in a collapse scenario: protective, blocking, disruptive, and creative. They explain how organizations can move forward and conclude that the social sector needs “to engage in deep and humble listening about what comes next.”
7. Are Women Donors the Key to Unlocking More Giving? by Heather McLeod Grant and Jessica Robinson Love
According to the data, yes, they are: “The future of philanthropy is female—and women are a critical leverage point to unlocking more, more impactful, and more equitable giving over the next decade.” The authors of this article explain how wealth managers, donor advisors, and the social sector writ large still aren’t serving women well and offer advice for engaging women donors more effectively.
8. Helping NGOs and Funders Make the ‘Big Shift’ to Working With Government by Rakesh Rajani and Tim Hanstad
Nonprofits, NGOs, and their philanthropic partners often overlook the most effective pathway to scale solutions to our planet’s biggest challenges—partnering with government. The authors explore the gaps to effective collaboration and share insights on how to navigate the ‘big shift’ from direct-service delivery to working directly with governments to scale. Don’t miss the extended discussion with the authors in the comments at the bottom of the article.
9. The Future of Innovation Is Collective by Cynthia Rayner, Sophia Otoo, and François Bonnici
In this SSIR cover story, the authors examine what they call “collective social innovation” and analyze the ways collective social innovators organize their work, including the architectures, pathways, and activities that bring stakeholders together repeatedly over time to advance large-scale change, as well as the infrastructure that sustains the work logistically.
10. In-Depth Series: Philanthropy’s Response to the Radical New Reality
Leaders and thinkers from a wide variety of funding institutions, beginning with MacArthur Foundation President John Palfrey, reflect on the current funding crisis facing nonprofit organizations, explain the strategies their organizations are taking, and highlight both urgent challenges and reasons to have hope.
Honorable Mentions:
11. An Opportunity to Build, In the Crisis by David S. Beckman, president of the Pisces Foundation
12. Learning From a Decade of Collaborative Philanthropy by Alison Powell, Chris Addy, and Gayle Martin of The Bridgespan Group
13. Fueling Innovation to Navigate the Wildfire Challenge Ahead by California leaders across government, science, business, and philanthropy
14. Co-Leadership as Practice for an Equitable Future by Sandhya Nakhasi, Jennifer Swayne Njuguna, and Jess Yupanqui Feingold, co-leaders of Common Future
15. Mergers and Acquisitions as a Strategic Tool for Nonprofit Growth by George Tsiatis, president and CEO of Resolution Project
16. Investing in Creativity as Social Infrastructure by Laura Zabel, executive director of Springboard for the Arts
17. The Nonprofit Sector Has an RCT Problem by Nicole P. Marwell and Jennifer E. Mosley, scholars and researchers at the Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice at the University of Chicago
18. To Bot or Not to Bot? How AI Companions Are Reshaping Human Services and Connection by Julia Freeland Fisher of the Clayton Christensen Institute
19. Open Board Search by Cleveland Justis, Susan S. Boren, Stephanie Duncan Karp, and Daniel Student
20. A New AI Career Ladder by Bruno V. Manno, former US Assistant Secretary of Education for Policy
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.
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