Stanford Social Innovation Review

Matching grants work – but not for everyone.

How Changemakers’ “collaborative competitions” harness the wisdom of crowds.

Few microfinance institutions articulate what, exactly, their ultimate goals are and how to achieve them. If the goal of microfinance is to alleviate poverty, the authors say, then MFIs should focus on helping their clients build successful enterprises, rather than on making more and bigger loans.

Donors’ money isn’t going where they think it is.

Most Americans give roughly the same percentage of their incomes.

To ensure that baby boomers’ wealth does not fall short of its philanthropic potential, Randall Ottinger suggests applying portfolio theory to make wiser social investments.

A growing number of foundations are offering low-interest loans, buying into green business ventures, and investing in other asset classes to advance their missions. To bring about real change, foundations need to make strategic mission investments that complement their grantmaking and leverage market forces.

Human-caused climate change, sharply declining conventional energy sources, and population growth are threatening the very platform of human life. Yet only 5 percent of U.S. foundation spending goes to the environment, and a paltry 2.9 percent goes to science and technology.

SSIR Managing Editor Eric Nee met with Emmett Carson to discuss his bold plans for the newly merged Silicon Valley Community Foundation, which is now the fourth largest community foundation in the country.

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.

Some books ought to be read as pairs. Joel L. Fleishman’s and Martin Morse Wooster’s recent offerings are such a duo, offering sometimes diametrically opposed perspectives on philanthropic successes and failures. 

How the John M. Olin Foundation Changed America.

Greenlight is a nonprofit catalyst: It identifes a local need, scours the country for the best program to meet it, and then establishes a chapter in its hometown.