The Mother Lode
MomsRising is tapping a vast resource to improve the lives of American families.
MomsRising is tapping a vast resource to improve the lives of American families.
When the Salk polio vaccine proved to be effective in 1955, the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis had to choose whether to close up shop or to pursue a new agenda. The foundation first broadened its mission, but lost donations, volunteers, and public support. After honing its mission to birth defects, however, it recovered. Here's how the organization that eventually became the March of Dimes planned – and survived – its transitions.
In parts of Nicaragua, nearly 80 percent of the population goes without electricity, leaving them cut off from critical opportunities for betterment and development. In this audio interview, Kriss Deiglmeier, the Center for Social Innovation executive director, converses with Mathias Craig who created blueEnergy to bring electricity to marginalized communities in this region of the world.
First Book is a not-for-profit organization that provides books to low-income students. In this audio interview, founder Kyle Zimmer discusses with Design for Change host Sheela Sethuraman the evolution of her startup from a mere idea in 1992 to an organization with hundreds of employees and millions of books. She also outlines how she's applied best business practices to create a scalable entrepreneurial model.
In nonprofit management, implementing organizational changes can be a huge challenge. In this audio lecture, Susan Colby shares the Bridgespan approach to nonprofit strategy by taking the example of one of her clients, the Harlem Children's Zone. Speaking at the 2006 Nonprofit Management Institute at Stanford, she walks her audience of high-level nonprofit executives through a rather challenging process to tactfully institute radical organizational changes.
Large-scale social change requires broad cross-sector coordination, not the isolated intervention of individual organizations.
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.
A veteran social entrepreneur provides a guide to those who are thinking through the thorny question of whether to create a nonprofit, a for-profit, or something in between.
Why Kiva chose to be a 501(c)(3), what this tax status buys the organization, and how being a nonprofit poses challenges.
Social entrepreneurs have taken the hybrid model to a new level, crafting it into a single structure that can operate as both a for-profit and a nonprofit.