Spring 2015

Issue

Spring 2015

Volume 13, Number 2

The spring 2015 issue of Stanford Social Innovation Review features two articles about social enterprises that went through difficult times, and what one can learn from their experiences. The first, “Cause for Reflection,” is about a “philanthropub” in Washington, D.C., that failed. The second, “Entrepreneurship and Ebola,” is about an ethically sourced apparel company in Liberia that is struggling to survive amidst the Ebola outbreak.

Features

Human Rights

Empowering Women at the Grassroots

By Marissa Wesely & Dina Dublon 17

In many parts of the world, corporations today are cultivating partnerships with locally rooted organizations that promote a multi-faceted approach to women’s empowerment. Includes magazine extras.

Philanthropy

Disruption for Good

By Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen 4

Rapid advances in technology are changing philanthropy in fundamental ways—making it potentially more rational, effective, collaborative, transparent, and democratic.

Government

Co-Creation in Government

By Francis Gouillart & Tina Hallett 1

Bringing innovation to the public sector is famously difficult. But efforts that open up the public sector value chain to multiple stakeholders can deliver impressive results.

Environment

Using Economic Forces to Conserve Nature

By John Reid, Aaron Bruner, & Alfonso Malky 3

Conservationists are devising new ways to strategically use financial incentives—such as conservation easements—to preserve nature.

What’s Next

Economic Development

An Incubator for Labor

By Suzie Boss

Through the Workers Lab, union leaders aim to nurture “audacious ideas” that might reinvent the US labor movement.

Health

The Barber Will See You Now

By Suzie Boss

Researchers are exploring an unlikely venue for serving the critical health needs of African-American men.

Nonprofit Management

Leveling the Internship Field

By Suzie Boss 3

In Boston, a new program will give low-income college students an alternative to toiling as unpaid interns.

Technology & Design

Data Game

By Suzie Boss

To leverage data science for social good, one company is working to foster a bit of healthy competition.

Field Report

Socially Responsible Business

Entrepreneurship and Ebola

By Brandon Keim

Creating an ethically sourced apparel company in West Africa is hard enough, but when Ebola strikes, the challenges become almost insurmountable.

Education

Engaging Teens

By Corey Binns 2

A financial literacy program created by the Charles Schwab Foundation and the Boys and Girls Clubs of America has reached a half million teens.

Education

Bursaries for Girls

By Alicia Clegg

The relatively simple act of providing African girls with the money they need to stay in school has achieved significant results.

Case Study

Social Entrepreneurship

Cause for Reflection

By Michael Cobb, Caitlin Rosser, & Andreas Vailakis, with Robert Tomasko 2

The story of Cause, a “philanthropub” that closed 14 months after it opened, offers vital lessons for aspiring social entrepreneurs. Includes magazine extras.

Viewpoint

Social Entrepreneurship

The Embedded Enterprise

By Ted Ladd 1

To reach base-of-the-pyramid markets, entrepreneurs need to align their business models with customers’ lives.

Foundations

Adventures in Adaptation

By Anne B. Stanton & Alison Powell

One funder’s willingness to shift course strategically has been crucial to sustaining a decade-long education initiative.

Health

School for Scaling

By Jessica Harrison 2

A highly focused effort in Kenya to treat worm infections in children delivers lessons on how to expand a proven program.

Board Governance

Training in Progress

By Lalita Advani & Julia Chu

A program at Credit Suisse helps high-level employees—and valued clients—to master the art of nonprofit board service.

Research

Individual Giving

If It Does Good, Feel It

By Adrienne Day

Benefiting emotionally from altruistic behavior doesn’t lessen—indeed, it increases—other people’s regard for that behavior.

Education

A “Value Added” Evaluation

By Adrienne Day

Teachers who help boost students’ test scores also have a notable impact on students’ long-term outcomes.

Impact Investing

Sharing the Stage

By Adrienne Day 1

The example of venture philanthropy in Europe shows how old and new forms of practice can coexist.

Health

Ends and Means

By Adrienne Day

In the way that people think about end-of-life care, moral and economic motives converge and commingle.

Book Reviews

Review

Economic Development

Past Isn’t Always Prologue

Review By Michael Weinstein

For policy makers today, earlier efforts to promote local community organizing yield relatively few lessons.

Review

Economic Development

A More Perfect Union?

Review By Thomas A. Kochan

New ideas on how to empower US workers involve breaking free of current labor law.

Review

Foundations

Uncertain Legacy

Review By Peter Frumkin

Can the history of a century-old foundation amount to more than the sum of its grants?

Review

Technology & Design

Misdiagnosing Science

Review By Maryann Feldman

A survey of obstacles to innovation focuses erroneously on the supposed caution of university-based scientists.

Last Look

Human Rights

Becoming a Woman

By Eric Nee

A growing number of Maasai in Kenya are ending female circumcision and replacing it with other coming-of-age rituals.

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  Insights from the front lines
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