Stanford Social Innovation Review

By 1998, thousands of people had contracted HIV and hepatitis C from Canada’s tainted blood supply. To restore the supply and the public’s trust, the federal, provincial, and territorial governments of Canada created a new organization, Canadian Blood Services. Despite the public health tragedy that it inherited, Canadian Blood Services rebuilt Canadians’ faith in the nation’s blood supply by infusing transparency into its structure, culture, and operations. —By Moe Abecassis, David Benjamin, & Lorna Tessier

To propel young folks to the polls, a political organization mixed Web 2.0 tools with social science savvy. —By Lee Bruno

Over the past few years, Washington, D.C., has witnessed two explosive nonprofit scandals. Both scandals invited embarrassing publicity and congressional scrutiny. Both exposed the governance flaws of experienced and well-intentioned board members. And both could have been avoided. —By Pete Smith

Our economy is in bad shape and will only get worse. So what can fundraisers do to minimize the impact of this difficult period on our organizations, and at the same time maximize income? —By Mal Warwick

Using social networking tools, the author reveals the intricate web of relationships that exist between business and environmentalists and suggests ways that these relationships could become even more fruitful in the environmental movement. —By Andrew J. Hoffman

If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there, the Cheshire Cat tells Alice when she asks for directions in Wonderland. But what if Alice had known exactly where she wanted to end up, and just didn’t know which road would get her there? That is the challenge that entrepreneurs with a social mission face every day. In her autobiography, The Blue Sweater, Acumen Fund founder and CEO Jacqueline Novogratz engagingly tackles this question.

For-profit executives use business models—such as “low-cost provider” or “the razor and the razor blade”—as a shorthand way to describe and understand the way companies are built and sustained. Nonprofit executives, to their detriment, are not as explicit about their funding models and have not had an equivalent lexicon—until now. —By William Landes Foster, Peter Kim, & Barbara Christiansen

Voluntary carbon offsets allow people to invest in projects that allegedly counteract their greenhouse gas emissions. But can voluntary offsets help slow global warming? Or are offsets simply a way for guilt-ridden consumers to buy their way out of bad feelings? —By Matthew J. Kotchen

Research finds that men in busy jobs are the most likely to donate their time to volunteer.

Many philanthropists refrain from online giving.