Social Innovations

Lose the Marketing Department

By Jeff Brooks 30

If marketing isn't built into your entire organization, you're lost.

Nonprofits

Getting Everyone on the Bus

By Peter Manzo 5

Offshoring of jobs will be disruptive, but can be managed.

Business

Green for Green

By Carolyn Said

Peter Liu started his working life as an engineer at the oil giant Chevron Corp. The experience turned him into an avid environmentalist. Several years later, it also led him to co-found the New Resource Bank, which calls itself the nation’s first “green” commercial bank.

Podcast

Dr Muhammad Yunus - Reaching the Full Potential of Microfinance

Microfinance, the extension of small loans to entrepreneurs too poor to qualify for traditional bank loans, has proved to be an effective strategy for raising millions of families from poverty worldwide. Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus, who pioneered the microloan revolution in Bangladesh, explains in this audio lecture how he saw rural poor and women struggle against deeply institutionalized economic systems, and realized the massive change that small loans could provide.

Government

Ownership Costs and Service Requirements

By Mark Rosenman

Compulsory national service can be an important, legitimate, and reasonable expectation for citizens.

Podcast

Oded Grajew - Beyond Corporate Social Responsibility

As a leading thinker on corporate social responsibility, Oded Grajew is challenging businesses, consumers, and governments to join in acting ethically towards a sustainable social good. With early roots in the Brazilian toy business, Grajew now heads the Ethos Institute for Business and Social Responsibility. In this audio lecture, he shows that business can be a powerful force for positive change and shares methods of enlisting everyone's help to build a sustainable society.

Philanthropy

15 Minutes with Emmett Carson

By Eric Nee 1

SSIR Managing Editor Eric Nee met with Emmett Carson to discuss his bold plans for the newly merged Silicon Valley Community Foundation, which is now the fourth largest community foundation in the country.

Nonprofits

The True Test of Leadership

By Peter Manzo 3

Discussions of leadership and accountability in the nonprofit sector are usually overly narrow.

Nonprofits

Money for a Song

By Alessandra Bianchi

The Public Radio Fund gives investors a chance to protect nonprofit airwaves. With its help, KTOO-FM in Juneau, Alaska, recently debuted a 24-hour news show and two locally-hosted Alaska-flavored music stations.

Podcast

Alice Tepper Marlin - Setting the Standard for the Global Economy

Social Accountability International President Alice Tepper Marlin has been leading the push to create a credible, comprehensive, and efficient verification system for assuring humane workplaces around the world. In this audio lecture, she describes the strategies the Social Accountability International's SA-8000 standard has used to get global supply chain stakeholders operating on the same page when it comes to providing employees with safe, equitable, and financially beneficial working conditions.