A growing number of foundations are offering low-interest loans, buying into green business ventures, and investing in other asset classes to advance their missions. To bring about real change, foundations need to make strategic mission investments that complement their grantmaking and leverage market forces.
Ashoka's founder, Bill Drayton, believes that everyone can be a changemaker. In this audio lecture, he reflects on many of the early influences that helped him understand how to advance true social progress. From these beginnings, he traces his own path in public service, and describes the founding of Ashoka, which has grown into a flourishing network of social entrepreneurs who can serve as role models for further progress in promoting social justice around the globe.
How can philanthropy have a greater impact on social problems? In this audio lecture, Katherine Fulton, Monitor Institute president, envisions a new era in which philanthropy will reclaim the American dream for communities that have been left behind. In a talk sponsored by the Stanford Social Innovation Review, Fulton reviews how philanthropy has changed over the last 10 years, and how the public and private sectors can work together to create social change.
In the field of philanthropy, are foundations' grantmaking and reporting processes aligned with nonprofits' strategies? In this panel discussion exploring data from a Center for Social Innovation study on nonprofit accountability practices and the costs of conflicting demands, experts debate ways in which evaluation requirements may help or hinder mission delivery.
Grantees of foundations have little control over which program officer takes their case. Yet program officers make or break grantees’ experiences with foundations. To trigger social change, foundations must give program officers better training, clearer expectations, and regular performance feedback.
Our understanding of community can help funders and evaluators identify, understand, and strengthen the communities they work with.
Too many people believe social value is objective, fixed, and stable, when in fact it is subjective, malleable, and variable.
These leaders’ assets go beyond experiences of oppression or marginalization to include the connection, meaning, and joy they can draw on from their respective cultures and communities.
A few nonprofits are using social media to fundamentally change the way they work and increase their social impact.
A clear definition of equity would seem paramount to galvanizing philanthropy into action around this increasingly used term—but the field is only beginning to explore what it really means.
