When Nau, an outdoor clothing start-up from Portland, Ore., launched in 2005, word on the street had it that the company would push socially responsible business to new heights. But barely a year after putting its earth-toned parkas and virgin merino wool sweaters up for sale in its übercool “webfront” stores, Nau pulled the plug. Find out how Nau tried on too much, too fast.
When an earthquake hits, what should you do? Should you get out of the house? The answer, says Elizabeth Hausler, founder of Build Change, depends upon where you live. In this audio interview with host Sheela Sethuraman, Hausler describes how the strategies of Build Change are helping villages in Indonesia and China to build earthquake-resistant housing.
In this audio interview, Asia Society President Vishakha N. Desai speaks with Nobel Prize winning economist and globalization "rockstar" Joseph Stiglitz on matters concerning international development. The conversation focuses on Stiglitz's concept of "the economics of information," and his latest book, Making Globalization Work. In this fascinating in-depth interview, Stiglitz discusses intellectual property rights, the shifting global balance of power, challenges facing Africa, and much more.
The author reviews Jacqueline Novogratz's book The Blue Sweater: Bridging the Gap Between Rich and Poor in an Interconnected World and draws insight from the book's in depth presentation of social enterprise.
When huge disasters like Hurricane Katrina strike, who better to help out than the companies that provide many of the goods and services that relief agencies depend on? In this audio interview, Eric Nee, co-host of Social Innovation Conversations, converses with Tom Lehner, manager of the Partnership for Disaster Response, on how business has been providing an organized response to some of the most disruptive natural catastrophes occurring around the world over the past four years.
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.
For NGOs, impact comes in different forms and to track the cycles of social change work, we must think across the tangibility and the speed of emergence of change.
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.
