Grow Your Own
Forget about luring big companies with tax incentives and subsidized space. Chris Gibbons focuses Littleton, Colorado's efforts on growing home-town businesses.
Social Policy
Latest
Helping the Poor Save More
To enrich the bottom of the pyramid, bankers to the poor should make saving money easier by using the latest findings from economics and psychology.
Q&A: Fred Krupp
Under Fred Krupp’s leadership, the Environmental Defense Fund has become one of the most important power brokers in the environmental arena. Krupp has helped accomplish what some thought was impossible—getting businesses to go green voluntarily.
Podcast
Mitch Landrieu and Andrew Wolk - Social Entrepreneurship in Louisiana
How is New Orleans rebuilding after Hurricane Katrina? In this Stanford Center for Social Innovation sponsored presentation at the Social Enterprise Alliance 2009 Summit, Louisiana Lieutenant Governor Mitch Landrieu discusses the role of tourism in the city's rehabilitation with Root Cause founder, Andrew Wolk. Landrieu details his work to found the nation's first government-run Office of Social Entrepreneurship, and emphasizes how New Orleans and the entire state are being strengthened by the development of their cultural assets.
Most Popular
Microfinance Misses Its Mark
Despite the hoopla over microfinance, it doesn't cure poverty. But stable jobs do. If societies are serious about helping the poorest of the poor, they should stop investing in microfinance and start supporting large, labor-intensive industries.
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.
Romanticizing the Poor
Market solutions to poverty, which include services and products targeting consumers at the “bottom of the pyramid,” portray poor people as creative entrepreneurs and discerning consumers. Yet this rosy view of poverty-stricken people is not only wrong, but also harmful.
Beyond the Poverty Line
A new approach to measuring poverty is needed, one that accounts for multiple factors such as housing, and regional economic differences.
Jeffrey Sachs
Jeffrey Sachs believes we must lift a billion-plus people out of poverty while reducing our impact on the environment.