Inside Social Innovation

Predictive analytics can help organizations iterate rapidly, become more transparent and precise, and pinpoint opportunities to address inequities in their work.

Blockchain can help with a variety of social and economic challenges—from securing identity for refugee or homeless populations to minimizing the presence of conflict diamonds in the industry’s supply chain. But at the end of the day, technology is just a tool serving an end, and one that must be handled carefully to manage the values embedded within it.

What can help the social sector go big on data in the right ways? For one, organizations should stop underestimating their capabilities. And for another, they should build their data strategy around deeper strategic goals as opposed to funding opportunities.

What responsibilities do we have as individuals, organizations, and a society for how we conduct ourselves online? In this recording from our 2019 Data on Purpose conference, Henry Timms, president and CEO of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and former president of 92Y, offers a pledge—a Hippocratic Oath of sorts—to help social sector leaders create digital communities that give people a meaningful role in our society.

In a world where the pace of organizational learning is often slower than the pace of technological change, activists and nonprofit leaders must develop their “technical intuition.” Not everyone needs to become a tech expert, explains Alix Dunn, of the consulting firm Computer Says Maybe, but this ongoing process of imagining, inquiring about, deciding on, and demanding technological change is critical.

In 2016, The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, launched 100&Change—a new grant competition, that would award $100 million to an organization with the best proposal to help solve a critical social problem. The foundation awarded the grant to Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit that produces Sesame Street and other children’s educational programs, in partnership with the International Rescue Committee. The grant supports programming to e /episode/index/show/insidesocialinnovation/id/10934030

In 2016, The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, launched 100&Change—a new grant competition, to award $100 million to an organization with the best proposal to help solve a critical social problem. In 2018, Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit that produces Sesame Street and other children’s educational programs, was named the winner in partnership with the International Rescue C /episode/index/show/insidesocialinnovation/id/10934033

Communication strategy can’t be an afterthought for organizations that want to fully embrace diversity, equity, and inclusion. It requires a careful examination of words, images, ideas, and narrative framing. Where should you start?

“Community-centered” approaches to social change are nothing new. But the term has become a buzzword in the professionalized social impact world, and strategies intended to elevate the needs of grassroots movements often miss the mark. How can nonprofits do better at treating the people they’re trying to support as partners instead of patients? How can organizations shift their approaches from advocating for a population to advocating with them?

Research shows that when talented social innovators lack “invisible capital”—the so-called right pedigree, right passport, right skin color, right gender—they may fail to get the attention and investment they need to succeed. How can leaders in philanthropy improve access to capital? What tools can help nonprofit leaders overcome these barriers and get the support they need? /episode/index/show/insidesocialinnovation/id/10934042

Black women face racial and gender stereotypes and biases that often keep success in the hands of the few—and their experiences working in the social sector are no exception.

Due to her father’s work as an engineer, Paula John moved around a lot in her youth. She often felt seen but not heard in the relationship with her dad. With her own family, she tried hard to listen, and she expected the same consideration from her local Houston health agency, she told former NPR host Bill Littlefield. When she reached out to the agency for help with an illness, and it sent her home empty-handed after a four-hour wait, she gave it harsh feedback. “She was right,” said C /episode/index/show/insidesocialinnovation/id/10934048

What practices make the arts more or less inclusive? At Stanford Social Innovation Review’s 2018 Nonprofit Management Institute conference, leaders from three San Francisco Bay Area arts organizations discuss how they are shaping both their organizations and their performances to make them more diverse and welcoming to all.

When Shannon Revels came home to Oakland after nearly 15 years in prison, he found his criminal record made it difficult to get a job. But through the Center for Employment Opportunities (CEO), he found a role first as a janitor then resident services counselor in transitional housing for the formerly homeless. In this interview with former NPR host Bill Littlefield, Revels discusses the importance of his being heard by a teacher he met in prison, giving feedback to CEO and seeing it acted upon, and how /episode/index/show/insidesocialinnovation/id/10934054

The nonprofit Color of Change was formed after Hurricane Katrina to use online resources in the fight for the rights of Black communities in America. Since then, Color of Change has grown into the nation’s largest online racial justice organization, with more than 1.4 million members.

Technology can magnify the power of grassroots organizing and social innovation, but it can sometimes bring about societal harm, whether intentionally or not.

Artificial intelligence (AI), once a niche discipline within computer science, has blossomed over the past decade—including in the social sector. In this recording from our 2018 Frontiers of Social Innovation conference, Johanna Mair, academic editor at SSIR and a professor at the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin, speaks with AI expert Lab Fei-Fei Li about the growing importance of AI to the social sector and /episode/index/show/insidesocialinnovation/id/10934063

Emerging technologies like biotech and artificial intelligence have the potential to transform so many of the systems that make up the world around us.
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In the mid-1990s, NGO activists began shining a spotlight on the concentrated use of slave child labor in Pakistan to produce soccer balls for the global market. The attention prompted the industry to make deep changes in its supply chain to eliminate the problem. Today, the campaign is viewed as a model for improving labor standards, with the gains a result of government, NGO, and donor involvement.
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