SSIR Online Article With Editors' Highlights

A white man sitting at a table with Black and Brown people. He's pointing his finger, tilting his head and has lines for emphasis around his head while the others at the table look down, away, and off into the distance.

(Illustration by Nyanza D)

Racism Is Our Problem

Online Series: This Is What Racism Looks Like

A variety of authors show how racism manifests through organizational policies, practices, and cultures. The 10 articles—exploring the intersection of systemic racial injustices with maternal care, hiring practices, labor unions, and other topics—offer detailed and often very personal accounts of bias and discrimination that will help people recognize, understand, and address this pernicious social issue.

(Illustration by iStock/bombuscreative)

Making the Economy Work for People

Online Series: European Perspectives on the Emerging Social Economy

As the social economy has grown to encompass social tech, impact investing, and collaborative innovation in addition to its traditional inclusion of welfare organizations, cooperative enterprises, mutual aid societies, and civic associations, the understanding of its place in society is changing rapidly. Can it replace the many roles that the market and the state play? Leading academics and scholar-practitioners share a European perspective in their answers to that and many other questions in nine articles that will help policy makers, international institutions, civil society action networks, and others understand the connections between the economy and social transformation.

Deb Van Dyke prepares an infant and mother for a film shoot of Global Health Media’s Small Baby series at a rural hospital in northwest Bangladesh in 2015.

Deb Van Dyke (blue sari) prepares an infant and mother for a film shoot of Global Health Media’s Small Baby series, at a rural hospital in northwest Bangladesh in 2015. (Photo by Global Health Media Project)

Narratives From the Front Lines

Podcast: Uncharted Ground

Hosted by journalist Jonathan Levine, the Uncharted Ground podcast tells the stories of nonprofit and social entrepreneurs at the forefront of global development. The deeply reported episodes, released monthly, explore the how and why of the organizations’ successes, the personal journeys of the founders, and insights for governmental, business, and civil society leaders and practitioners around the world who are taking on tenacious social problems. Look for it on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Calico Hills near Las Vegas, Nevada, made up of Red Aztec Sandstone, also called Navaho Sandstone

(Photo by iStock/Gerald Corsi)

Reconnecting to Our Land

An Indigenous Systems Approach to the Climate Crisis by Jade Begay

Climate justice means centering the Indigenous communities who have been on the ground implementing regenerative solutions for thousands of years. Jade Begay, climate justice campaign director at NDN Collective, describes how removing Indigenous people from their land took away their ability to carry and pass on traditional ecological knowledge, modes of regenerative land management, and traditional economic structures. Citing examples such as kelp farming and renewable energy generation, Begay argues that the Green New Deal and other regenerative solutions and progressive policies around climate justice are actually Indigenous models.

Close-up photo of dandelion seeds on a black background

(Photo by iStock/ihsanyildizli)

Getting Back to Grassroots

The Social Sector Needs a Meta Movement by Laura Deaton

Most social sector organizations and coalitions continue to pursue their goals in silos, advocating only for their own narrow band of policy prescriptions. This problem is happening both within and across movements, and it draws down the power of the sector as a whole. Laura Deaton, executive director of Multiplier, argues that it’s well past time to apply tried-and-true templates for grassroots-movement building to the entire social sector and create demand for public policy changes that will help achieve long-term, shared prosperity. By creating a network of grassroots movements and calling out connections across issues, the social sector can drive demand for solutions and spur policy makers to act.