Impact Investing
Buying and Selling Social Impact
OutcomesX aspires to level the playing field for nonprofits seeking funding.
Sarah Murray
Education
Unlocking Africa’s Human Potential
A change-management program on human resources development aimed at mid-career professionals is helping African companies expand.
sponsored
What Business Leaders Bring to Tough Social Challenges
Many hold strong opinions about translating private-sector experience to social impact. Four pioneering founders have figured out how to make it work.
Economic Development
Expediting Digital Giving
Every.org is turbocharging a new wave of philanthropy by eliminating costly technological barriers for nonprofits.
Advocacy
Legal Aid Brokers
Global charity A4ID boosts the ability of NGOs to fight poverty and corruption by connecting them to law firms.
Technology
Bank You
BanQu is the world’s first non-cryptocurrency blockchain app to help the world’s poorest people establish a verifiable economic identity. A Field Report from the Summer 2020 issue.
Business
The Dawn of Responsible Finance
Since the Great Recession, leaders in finance and investing have aimed to make their industries more equitable, sustainable, and socially productive. Has the fight for financial reform found its moment amid the economic crisis sparked by the COVID-19 pandemic? A Case Study in the Summer 2020 issue.
Economic Development
A Farmer’s Market
The Ecosystem Services Market will enable farmers to use improvements in soil health—the key to water conservation and soil carbon sequestration—to generate ecosystem-service credits that they will be able to sell. A What's Next article from the Winter 2020 issue.
Social Enterprise
Insuring Impact
By delivering innovation services to the insurance industry, Ninety Consulting aims to generate and give away a billion pounds ($1.32 billion) over 30 years.
Impact Investing
A New Local Movement
Benefit Chicago demonstrates how place-based impact investing transforms a community by seeing the investment potential in everyone.
Impact Investing
A New Form of Capitalism
The Peterborough Social Impact Bond was the first of its kind. Does its success in improving recidivism rates while rewarding investors herald a new way of using finance for social impact?
Foundations
Unconventional Wisdom
The Rockefeller Foundation’s “scan and search” approach casts a wide net to identify the issues it’s best suited to tackle.
Health
Step by Step
ChildObesity180 is combating the nation’s child obesity epidemic by incubating and promoting the best ideas.
Arts & Culture
Collaborative Fundraising
The Contributor Development Partnership is revitalizing public broadcasting with a fundraising model that can help other large nonprofits with local affiliates.
Human Rights
Two Countries, One Vision
From fraternity houses in the American Midwest to villages in rural India, Breakthrough is experimenting with novel approaches to reducing violence against women and girls.
Business
Fellowship for Change
A network sponsored by the Aspen Institute is enabling corporate social intrapreneurs to become less lonely—and more effective.
Nonprofits & NGOs
Upgrading a Network
Girl Scouts of the USA has overhauled everything from its federated structure to its information technology systems to the way that Girl Scouts sell their fabled cookies.
Business
Big Blue Volunteers
From Mumbai, India, to Mérida, Mexico, IBM employees are applying
their professional skills to a wide range of social challenges.
Health
Nature Meets Nurture: A New Approach to Childhood Mental Illness
By predicting vulnerability, biological science can help families, communities, clinicians, and policymakers develop more effective responses to a troubling health challenge.
Nonprofits
Recipe for Impact
Delivering nutritious school lunch fare on a large scale is the social mission—and the business model—of Revolution Foods.
Foundations
Casting a Tight Net
Humanity United is pursuing a strategy that combines carrots and sticks—collaboration and activism—to confront human rights abuse in the seafood industry. Includes magazine extras.