Stanford Social Innovation Review

Social entrepreneurs are inventing new technologies to solve the world’s problems – disease, malnutrition, pollution, and illiteracy – to name just a few. But it takes more than a fancy new gadget to make life better. That’s why the organizations profiled here are working with businesses, NGOs, and governments to get their inventions into the hands of those who need them most.

How CitiStat’s hard data and straight talk saved Baltimore.

A Guide to Reclaiming the Commons.

SSIR Academic Editor Jim Phills sat down with former NBA superstar Kevin Johnson to discuss how he’s revitalizing his old inner-city neighborhood.

Find out why Method home products keep their eco-friendliness under very attractive wraps.

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.

As the wall between the nonprofit and corporate worlds crumbles, many social change organizations are asking themselves: Do we stick to our activist guns, or do we cross the divide and work with business? Research suggests that social movements need both kinds of organizations to make the changes they seek.

Five tips for designing workplaces that nurture great ideas.

How the next president of the United States can spur social entrepreneurship.

Financial aid discourages innovative solutions to poverty.

Social entrepreneurship and social enterprise have become popular rallying points for those trying to improve the world. These two notions are positive ones, but neither is adequate when it comes to understanding and creating social change in all of its manifestations. The authors make the case that social innovation is a better vehicle for doing this. They also explain why most of today’s innovative social solutions cut across the traditional boundaries separating nonprofits, government, and for-profit businesses.

CSR as competitive advantage

THE POST-AMERICAN WORLD by Fareed Zakaria

In this interview with James A. Phills Jr., the Stanford Social Innovation Review‘s academic editor, former presidential advisor David Gergen discusses his views on social innovation, why social entrepreneurs should be more engaged in politics, and how the federal government can work with and even fund social entrepreneurs.

GreenNote helps students with no credit history obtain college loans.

ICONOCLAST: A Neuroscientist Reveals How to Think Differently by Gregory Berns

THE STRUCTURE OF SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTIONS by Thomas S. Kuhn

Grab a mocha and brainstorm.

National Instrument’s partnerships not only energize science education, but also boost the company’s brand and employee morale.

Left: An engineer readies her robot at the 2008 FIRST Lego League World Festival, an annual competition that brings together teams of students to show off their engineering chops. Powering her robot was sophisticated software developed by National Instruments. Her team, the Power Peeps of Swartz Creek, Mich., placed third.

New leaders are initially given special license to shake things up.