Stanford Social Innovation Review

It’s time to rethink the “C” in CSR.

Role ambiguity dampens board member’s commitments.

Leaders should rethink how they treat their subordinates.

By estimating the social return on their investments, funders can deploy their dollars more effectively. To demonstrate the power of these calculations, the authors show how three organizations—the Robin Hood Foundation, Acumen Fund, and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation—use cost-benefit analysis to evaluate their ongoing programs, choose mission investments, and plan long-term strategies.

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

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

STRATEGY FOR SUSTAINABILITY: A Business Manifesto by Adam Werbach

The Rockefeller Foundation is staying at the forefront of new and big ideas, funding new innovation processes, like crowdsourcing and collaborative competitions

The prevailing governance model is fundamentally adversarial, pitting board members in a never-ending struggle with executives. This model may ensure that the legal requirements of oversight and compliance are met, but it does little to advance the organization’s goals. The authors propose a new and more effective framework, one where board members and executives work together to advance the organization’s mission. —By Raymond Fisman, Rakesh Khurana, & Edward Martenson

A vicious cycle is leaving nonprofits so hungry for decent infrastructure that they can barely function as organizations—let alone serve their beneficiaries. The cycle starts with funders’ unrealistic expectations about how much running a nonprofit costs, and results in nonprofits’ misrepresenting their costs while skimping on vital systems—acts that feed funders’ skewed beliefs. To break the nonprofit starvation cycle, funders must take the lead. —By Ann Goggins Gregory & Don Howard

How states can protect nonprofit leaders and infuse more money into the sector.