Social Innovations
Do Companies that Engage in BoP Markets Outperform the Market?
A new index is creating a benchmark for comparing large-scale companies serving the markets for the very poorest.
Solutions - Most Popular
Podcast
Alana Conner - Evaluation for Normal People
In the frenzy over accountability, funders, donors, and the general public are calling for more program evaluation. Yet few understand how expensive and complex good evaluation is. Speaking at the 2006 Nonprofit Management Institute at Stanford, Alana Conner, senior editor of the Stanford Social Innovation Review illustrates how half-hearted evaluation can do more harm than good. Rick Aubry and Victor Kuo join her to give nonprofit and foundation perspectives.
Podcast
Global Issues
Paul Farmer - Scaling Up Healthcare in Rwanda
AIDS, malaria, and maternal mortality are some of the chronic public health issues that plague Africa. Invited to Stanford, Paul Farmer talks about how his Boston-based organization, Partners In Health, is spending donor dollars to bring the lessons garnered from its work in Haiti to scale up healthcare services in war-torn Rwanda. As dicussed in this audio lecture, his organization seeks to fill the gap that exists between medical R&D and healthcare delivery so preventions and cures can be brought to more of the people who need them.
Social Innovations
Reimagining Microfinance
Critics of microfinance institutions (MFIs) ask them to choose between helping the poor or making money for investors, but this is a false choice. MFIs can have their impact and profit, too, says the author, the CEO of the Grameen Foundation. He sketches a new vision of microfinance as a platform, not a product; one that relies on high volumes, not high margins, and that uses limits on private benefit, holistic performance standards, and third-party certification to help MFIs meet both their bottom lines.
Nonprofits
Achieving Breakthrough Performance
From the Girl Scouts, to Partners In Health, to the city of Providence, R.I., great organizations have one thing in common: great managers. These managers, in turn, share four simple management principles that they use to guide organizations from mere mediocrity to stand-out stardom.
Podcast
Linda Rottenberg - Taking Entrepreneurism International
Ten years ago, "entrepreneur" didn't exist in the lexicon of many parts of the world. Now, thanks to the work of a nonprofit called Endeavor, entrepreneurs are emerging in countries where such activity was once impossible. Invited to speak at the Center for Social Innovation at Stanford, Linda Rottenberg shares in this audio lecture how her organization has gone from a "crazy" idea of two business school graduates to an important engine for empowering entrepreneurs in Latin America and beyond.
Podcast
Networked Governance - Multilateral Institutions of the Future
As global leadership evolves from siloed hierarchies to multilateral approaches, networked governance has important potential and faces significant challenges. In this panel discussion, panelists, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Ashraf Ghani, Ambassador John Bruton, Ambassador Harriet Babbitt, and Sir Ian Forbes, address the factors, from the practical to the philosophical, at play.
The Toughest Job You’ll Never Get
Would-be EDs cite inadequate mentoring, low pay, and poor lifestyle as career obstacles.
Podcast
Rafael Alvarez - Preparing Students to Succeed
While volunteering at a charter school, Rafael Alvarez was confronted with some shocking information—hardly any students in the senior class had plans to attend college. So, in true social entrepreneurial fashion, he decided to match up this under-served market with another under-served market, entry level IT. Talking with Design for Change host Sheela Sethuraman in this audio interview, he explains how Genesys Works prepares students technically and professionally to enter a corporate environment and change their lives.