Stanford Social Innovation Review : Informing and inspiring leaders of social change

Philanthropy

The Value of High Stakes Donor Collaboration

Collaboration is a hot topic in philanthropy and a common practice, but one form remains uncommon. Few foundations and philanthropists pool their time, expertise, and financial resources around multiyear goals beyond the reach of any one participant. When they do, their unified action can yield impressive results. So why don’t such collaborations happen more often? Join Willa Seldon, a partner at Bridgespan, when she reviews the barriers to high stakes collaboration and how to work around them, and discusses the three types of collaborations that work best. She will be joined by Oak Foundation’s Kristian Parker, a founding board member of the European Climate Foundation and the Oceans 5 donor collaborative. Parker will add first-hand insights and explain how new donors can benefit from joining forces with those, like the Oak Foundation, that have expertise in a particular area.

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Related Story: High Stakes Donor Collaborations

Nonprofits

Collective Impact: Embracing Emergence

Join us to explore how to address the next phase in the collective impact dialogue, complexity, and create an intentional process that allows for effective solutions. John Kania, coauthor of SSIR’s Embracing Emergence: How Collective Impact Addresses Complexity, will discuss this next phase and define “emergence,” a term that describes events that are unpredictable and which no one organization or individual can control. He will be joined by Blair Taylor, who shares from experience the implications of complexity and emergence in Memphis Fast Forward’s work, and Mark Cabaj, who will cover developmental evaluation in collective impact. This lively discussion will focus on why collective impact is a relevant approach for complex problems and how leaders of successful collective impact initiatives have embraced a new way of collectively seeing, learning and doing that marries emergent solutions with intentional outcomes. The webinar will help participants understand the implications of complexity and emergence in their work and how developmental evaluation can advance collective learning to reach better and more robust outcomes.

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Related Story: Embracing Emergence: How Collective Impact Addresses Complexity

Nonprofits

Listening to Beneficiaries

To become more effective, nonprofits and foundations are turning to various sources for advice. Some look to experts, others turn to crowdsourcing. Experts and crowds can produce valuable insights, but too often nonprofits and funders ignore the constituents who matter most, the intended beneficiaries. Join Fay Twersky, Phil Buchanan, and Valerie Threlfall as they discuss the reasons why surveying beneficiaries is so important, how the feedback can be used, and some of the challenges to doing this and how to overcome them. They will also provide real-world examples of organizations that are effectively surveying beneficiaries, including their own experience trying to elicit the voices of high school students through YouthTruth, a nonprofit that the three of them co-founded. YouthTruth has gathered feedback from close to 150,000 students across the United States.

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Related Story: Listening to Those Who Matter Most, the Beneficiaries

Fundraising

How to Use Social Media to Engage Donors

Social media and the Internet have permanently disrupted the traditional donor-engagement process through online competitions, viral video campaigns, and mobile giving, to name a few. With each new way for organizations and donors to interact come increasingly complex entry points into the traditional models of donor engagement, greater variation in movement along the pathway to deeper engagement, and more opportunities for a person to be influenced by forces outside an organization’s control. Join Georgetown University’s Julie Dixon and Denise Keyes as they discuss this impact. They’ll also provide insights on these trends gleaned from a nationwide research project that their Center for Social Impact Communications conducted with Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide, and will explain a new model of donor engagement they have created that takes advantage of social media and the Internet—one that is more fluid and continuous, and that better reflects the growing importance that a person’s influence plays in the process.

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Related Story: The Permanent Disruption of Social Media

Nonprofits

How Successful Nonprofits Develop Their Future Leaders

On every CEO’s “worry list” is whether he or she has the leaders the organization needs to thrive in the future. Will current managers be ready to step up? If not, then what? In this webinar, Kramer and Nayak of The Bridgespan Group will share key findings in Plan A: How Successful Nonprofits Develop Their Future Leaders, a new Bridgespan guide that provides a step-by-step approach to creating and executing a leadership development program at nonprofits of any size and budget. The presenters will identify essential steps to develop and increase your organization’s talent and build a best practice.

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Government

Social Impact Bonds in the United States: Their Promise and Future

Social Impact Bonds increasingly are being adopted with the idea that one way to fund successful social service programs is to raise capital from private investors. Investors are repaid through the savings a government accrues if a preventative program, such as one that reduces recidivism or keeps children out of foster care, succeeds in achieving its targets. Join Palandjian and Shah as they explore the early days of Social Impact Bonds in the United States, why they are promising, and the various risks they present. This webinar is ideal for any and all stakeholders in the nonprofit, government, or corporate sectors who seek to know more about Social Impact Bonds and alternative financing for social service programs.

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Related Story: Private Investment in Social Impact Bonds

Nonprofits

We’re Getting Data, Now What?

Thanks to rapid advances in computer and communication technologies, it is possible for stakeholders in the nonprofit sector to disclose more, to know more, and to demand more through increased transparency and collaboration. In October, a group of the largest US foundations committed to release their grant information in a consistent, open, and frequent manner. Dubbed the “Reporting Commitment,” 15 large foundations have agreed to report at least quarterly to the Foundation Center’s transparency-centered website, Glasspockets.org. In addition, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and the financial firm LiquidNet announced in October a “New Markets for Good” effort, focused on helping donors—individuals and foundations—use data about different organizations to inform their giving choices. This webinar will explore the repercussions of these moves toward big and open data. Presenters will analyze how more timely grant reporting from foundations can allow other foundations and nonprofits to look for relevant patterns, identify potential partners, scan a field of activity, and potentially develop strategies that take into account other philanthropic resources.

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Socially Responsible Business

The Hybrid Ideal: Combining Nonprofit and For-Profit Models

Hybrid organizational models can be a fountain of innovation, but hybrid organizations also face distinct challenges that may prevent them from thriving. When organizations combine social mission with commercial activities, they create unfamiliar combinations of activities that require a supportive environment. Hybrids also must strike a delicate balance between social and economic objectives to avoid a focus on profits to the detriment of the social good. To better understand hybrids, a team from Harvard Business School and Echoing Green reviewed more than 3,500 Echoing Green Fellowship applications. Join Battilana, Walker, and Lee as they report the key findings of the Harvard-Echoing Green study on hybrid organizations, featured in the Summer 2012 Stanford Social Innovation Review, and examine the specific challenges hybrids face in terms of legal recognition, funding, pricing of goods and services, and creating a balanced organizational culture. The webinar also will explore solutions to these challenges.

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Related Story: In Search of the Hybrid Ideal

Technology & Design

Leading in a Hyperconnected World: Driving Innovation & Impact with Digital Media

New digital media platforms and social networks have radically democratized the ways people produce, share and consume information, yet our understanding of what it means to be a leader in this new, networked society has not kept pace. Join leaders from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Twitter, and Living Cities during this free webinar to understand how these trends are changing previous notions of leadership and learn more about ways your organization can harness new technologies to accelerate innovation, adaptation, and ultimately impact. This webinar is complimentary to viewers, thanks to the generous sponsorship of Living Cities.

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Related Story: Leading in a Hyperconnected World

Nonprofits

The Role of Brand in the Nonprofit Sector

Join Christopher Stone and Nathalie Kylander Kylander from Harvard Kennedy School and the Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations, and Emily Brew from the Nike Foundation and Girl Effect, as they discuss the changing role of brand in the nonprofit sector, and describe a new conceptual framework they have created—Nonprofit Brand IDEA—in which “IDEA” stands for brand integrity, brand democracy, brand ethics, and brand affinity. This new framework is designed to help nonprofit leaders create brands that contribute to sustaining their organization’s social impact, serving their organization’s mission, and staying true to their organization’s values and culture. The webinar will present the results of that research and the Nonprofit Brand IDEA framework.

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Related Story: The Role of Brand in the Nonprofit Sector