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.

MacArthur “genius” prize winner creates drugs for the developing world.

How Lutherans are transforming their love of coffee into global good.

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.

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.

Peter Liu started his working life as an engineer at the oil giant Chevron Corp. The experience turned him into an avid environmentalist. Several years later, it also led him to co-found the New Resource Bank, which calls itself the nation’s first “green” commercial bank. 

An innovative federal project turns retiring military personnel into teachers.

Social entrepreneurs not only must understand the broad environment in which they work, but also must shape those environments to support their goals, when feasible. Borrowing insights from the field of ecology, the authors offer an ecosystems framework to help social entrepreneurs create long-lasting and significant social change.

Who are social entrepreneurs and why does what they do matter?

Social enterprises combine the best of the nonprofit and for-profit worlds, but that very innovation has made it difficult for them to raise money. Philanthropists are reluctant to give grants to profit-making organizations, and commercial investors are wary of investing in organizations that are driven by a social mission. The authors explore the social enterprise capital market and offer short- and long-term solutions to this funding gap.

Dancing Deer Bakery helps most when it keeps its eye on the bottom line.

(left): CEO Patricia Karter (right) and employees ice cookies. The company hires heavily from its surrounding low-income neighborhood of Roxbury.

Polak offers entrepreneurial solutions to poverty in Asia and Africa.

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.

MBA students turn their attention to social enterprise.

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.

Two new players in the world’s social investing scene seek financial returns along with social impact. 

GreenNote helps students with no credit history obtain college loans. 

How one company deals with the fallout over giving something back.

Almost half of revenue-seeking organizations are in the black.

A California mayor’s challenge leads to an innovative resource-pooling strategy.