Financial Backbones for Strategic Capital Orchestration
A new kind of infrastructure for collective impact initiatives.
Social Enterprise Innovative ways that organizations are using and adapting business strategies to advance social and environmental well-being
Latest
Excerpt
Kill the Dinosaurs
An excerpt from Technology for Good on using technology to create innovative and cost-effective ways to deliver programs
We Tested AI Impact Assessments. Here’s What We Learned.
High-quality impact data and assessments are vital for allocating capital effectively, yet they are resource-intensive for investors and social innovators. Can generative AI speed up and strengthen impact-performance assessment of venture investments?
Shelter From the Storm
As an ideas magazine, SSIR offers a sanctuary for deep thinking on the issues of our time, including President Donald Trump's attempts to disrupt the social sector in ways that will be felt for years.
SSIR Online, Fall 2025 Issue
A collection of standout pieces published online about handling systems collapse, measuring narrative change, and helping NGOs shift to working with government.
Most Popular
Social Entrepreneurship: The Case for Definition
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.
Design Thinking for Social Innovation
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.
The Problem With Fair Trade Coffee
Fair Trade-certified coffee is growing in sales, but strict certification requirements are resulting in uneven economic advantages for coffee growers and lower quality coffee for consumers.
Rediscovering Social Innovation
Social entrepreneurship and social enterprise have become popular and positive rallying points for those trying to improve the world, but social innovation is a better vehicle for understanding and creating social change in all of its manifestations.
ESG Is Not Impact Investing and Impact Investing Is Not ESG
Understanding these six important differences will both facilitate better conversations and help channel funds appropriately.