In virtually every for-profit industry, success hinges on producing more goods or services at a lower cost without compromising quality. But increasing productivity can work in the nonprofit world, too, as an examination of three healthy nonprofits shows.
Few microfinance institutions articulate what, exactly, their ultimate goals are and how to achieve them. If the goal of microfinance is to alleviate poverty, the authors say, then MFIs should focus on helping their clients build successful enterprises, rather than on making more and bigger loans.
Corporations that violate human rights not only inflict suffering, but also hurt their bottom line. The authors suggest five principles that corporations can follow to improve their human rights footprint.
Social entrepreneurs not only must understand the broad environment in which they work, but also must shape those environments to support their goals, when feasible. Borrowing insights from the field of ecology, the authors offer an ecosystems framework to help social entrepreneurs create long-lasting and significant social change.
Multinational corporations are in a quandary: Stakeholders are imposing higher standards than ever, but businesses are confused about what their global social responsibilities actually are.
Funders are calling for more program evaluation, but nonprofits are often collecting dubious data, at great cost to themselves and ultimately to the people they serve.
Large-scale social change requires broad cross-sector coordination, not the isolated intervention of individual organizations.
With an understanding of these 10 funding models, nonprofit leaders can use the for-profit world's valuable practice of engaging in succinct and clear conversations about long-term financial strategy.
Social entrepreneurship is attracting growing amounts of talent, money, and attention, but along with its increasing popularity has come less certainty about what exactly a social entrepreneur is and does.
By working closely with the clients and consumers, design thinking allows high-impact solutions to social problems to bubble up from below rather than being imposed from the top.
