Inside Social Innovation (Stanford Social Innovation Review)

Powering Needs, Empowering Lives from Uncharted Ground, a podcast series produced by SSIR and Jonathan Levine. Each episode of Uncharted Ground tells a documentary-style story about one nonprofit or social entrepreneur’s journey to solve a daunting global problem. This episode travels to India where a social enterprise called SELCO has been transforming the lives of the rural poor with affordable solar power for 25 years. Now, SELCO is expanding its impact by helping other entrepreneurs replicate its model around the world. It’s a story full of lessons about how to design products and services that dramatically improve lives and build sustainable businesses at the same time.

Listen and subscribe to Uncharted Ground here, and leave us a review or a comment letting us know what you think.

For show notes and a full transcript of this episode go to ssir.org/podcasts.

The entertainment industry has become an important partner to the nonprofit sector, inspiring people to become active around social issues such as climate, poverty, and human rights. What can campaigns for change learn from narrative storytelling experts? How can nonprofit leaders successfully partner with entertainment companies?

In this recording from SSIR’s 2019 NMI conference, the writer, director, and actor Jessica Blank moderates a discussion with Nicole Starr, vice president for social impact at Participant Media; Marya Bangee, executive director of Harness; and Courtney Cogburn, associate professor at Columbia University School of Social Work.

“It's about how you create an ecosystem that can allow for authentic stories to be told,” says Marya Bangee. “Culture change precedes policy change."

“Crisis and Change: Conversations With Leaders” is produced in partnership by The Pew Charitable Trusts and Stanford Social Innovation Review. In this final episode of this special series, Dr. Rajiv J. Shah, president of the Rockefeller Foundation, and Mark Suzman, CEO of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, share how they’re redefining the role of philanthropy in addressing public health crises and preparing for future pandemics.  

A full transcript is available here.

Even as nonprofits are put on the defensive by political polarization, inequality, climate change, and other threats, many of them still seek out opportunities to expand their impact. For those dissatisfied with small steps forward, mergers present the chance to leap ahead. But it won't be easy.

"It takes a lot of time," says David La Piana, managing partner of La Piana Consulting. "There are opportunity costs, things you could be doing but you won't because you're dedicating energy to the merger. And it is risky."

In this recording from SSIR's 2019 NMI conference, La Piana discusses common roadblocks to successful mergers and strategies for surmounting them.

“Crisis and Change: Conversations With Leaders” is produced in partnership by The Pew Charitable Trusts and Stanford Social Innovation Review. In the series, leaders from across the social sector share insights about how they contend with challenging times and societal division.

In this episode, Susan Urahn, Pew’s president and CEO, and Sarah Rosen Wartell, president of the Urban Institute, discuss the deepening political polarization, increasing misinformation, and growing mistrust that has affected public debate—and how they find common ground to forge meaningful change for the good.

Political polarization. Climate change. Racial reckoning. Income inequality. A global pandemic. Since 2020, all five of these immense challenges have emerged or deepened, commanding our attention and prompting major societal and cultural shifts. In this special series produced in partnership by The Pew Charitable Trusts and the Stanford Social Innovation Review, we talk with leaders from across the social sector. They take us behind the scenes, sharing approaches and case studies of innovation and resilience during these unprecedented times. 

Scholars have noted that most new ideas are poor ones that won’t be adopted. So how can organizations integrate innovation productively and prevent it from having unintended consequences? 

In this recording from SSIR’s 2019 NMI conference, Christian Seelos, coauthor of the best-selling book Innovation and Scaling for Impact and co-director of the Global Innovation for Impact Lab at Stanford PACS, explores the “innovation pathologies” that can derail the best intentions. He also discusses the ways organizations such as Aravind and BRAC have sidestepped these threats by blending innovation with scaling.

Seelos argues that process is what's important: "If you operate innovation from an attitude of learning ...  you cannot be frustrated and you will never fail. Innovation is just replacing uncertainty with knowledge.”

In this episode, Crystal Hayling, executive director of The Libra Foundation, and Sonal Shah, founding president of The Asian American Foundation, discuss how their organizations are transforming the way race is discussed in America and how to improve understanding about racial concerns that will lead to a more inclusive society.

“Crisis and Change: Conversations With Leaders” is produced in partnership by The Pew Charitable Trusts and Stanford Social Innovation Review. In this episode, Larry Kramer, president of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and La June Montgomery Tabron, president and CEO of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, discuss the origins of wealth inequality and its impact on American democracy. They also share how their institutions are creating new pathways for all communities to access secure and vibrant futures.

A full transcript is available here.

What do mayors look for and ask from nonprofit managers? What do they wish leaders in the sector would ask of them, and how can public servants and nonprofit leaders learn to better communicate and collaborate?

In this recording from SSIR’s 2019 NMI conference, Mayors Libby Schaaf of Oakland and Michael Tubbs of Stockton spoke with Autumn McDonald, director of New America CA, about the best ways to build mutually beneficial partnerships between local government and nonprofits.

"I've seen fear around collaboration—how is this going to take something away from me?” Mayor Schaaf says. “We have got to think big. We have got to be less afraid."

“Crisis and Change: Conversations With Leaders” is produced in partnership by The Pew Charitable Trusts and Stanford Social Innovation Review. In this episode, Tonya Allen, president of the McKnight Foundation, and John Palfrey, president of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, address the growing threat of a changing climate. They discuss how they’re answering the global call for solutions that promote equity and protect vulnerable communities and encourage others in the philanthropic sector to act at this critical time.

A full transcript is available here.

The end came for the styrofoam clamshell container twenty years ago, thanks to the innovative partnership of McDonald’s and the Environmental Defense Fund as part of a landmark project that reduced packaging waste for the company, and rippled to the entire industry.  Seen risky at the time, the collaboration was a business and environmental success.  Over the past two decades, we have seen many cross-sector partnerships in environmental and social innovation that stemmed from this groundbreaking work.  In this audio interview, host Jerry Michalski of the EDF speaks with McDonald’s Bob Langert and EDF’s Gwen Ruta as they celebrate their 20 year partnership and look ahead at opportunities for business leadership in sustainability. The Future of Green open call series is an initiative of EDF in collaboration with the Center for Social Innovation at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Gwen Ruta directs Environmental Defense Fund’s Corporate Partnerships program. She spearheads its work with leading multinational companies to develop innovative, business-based solutions to environmental challenges and to drive change through the corporate value chain.

Prior to joining Environmental Defense Fund, Ruta was Vice President at Metcalf & Eddy, an international environmental engineering firm. She has also held senior management positions at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.  She has authored numerous articles on environmental issues and is a frequent speaker at business conferences.

Bob Langert is the vice president of Corporate Social Responsibility at McDonald’s. Prior to joining the McDonald’s family, Langert was an operations manager for a McDonald’s distributor, Perlman Rocque, and served as Midwest logistics manager for the American Hospital Supply Corporation. Langert is a graduate of Northwestern University’s MBA program.

Nazava Water Filters was recently recognized as the winner of Tech Awards 2013 in the Health category for its innovative solution to lack of clean water accessibility in Indonesia. In this interview with co-founder Lieselotte Heederik, we learn more about Nazava’s success in combating the issues associated with limited access to clean water.

Heederik talks about how Nazava’s filters are not only addressing the obvious health risks associated with unpurified water, but also making clean water more affordable, as well as reducing the toxic emissions from boiling water. The conversation covers Nazava’s logistical methods for measuring impact, her goals for the scaling and success of the company, and challenges Nazava has faced in its journey. Heederik also speaks about her personal experience as an entrepreneur, including lessons she has learned and advice she has for aspiring entrepreneurs.

Whether we are struggling to generate fresh ideas or staring at problems with no solutions in sight, the spark of creative genius often seems out of reach. In this audio lecture from Stanford Social Innovation Review’s Nonprofit Management Institute, Stanford Professor Tina Seelig discusses how we can unlock our creative genius through a set of tools and conditions we each have in our control—our “innovation engine.” Based on real-world examples and a dozen years of experience teaching courses on creativity and entrepreneurship in the Stanford School of Engineering, Seelig challenges traditional assumptions about creativity to show us how we can seek out the right resources and environment to fuel our innovation engines. She contends that just as the scientific method demystifies the process of discovery, there is a formal process for unlocking the pathway to innovation.

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.

“We need to move past the 'move fast and break things' philosophy and shift to 'move thoughtfully and improve things,'” Timms says. “People want to be part of a larger mission and larger idea.”

The world-wide need for more usable water is a critical issue in environmental sustainability. Current water technologies are not effectively delivering the quantity of low-cost, energy-efficient, clean water needed. In this panel discussion, experts discuss why there are so few investments in water, where the opportunities lie for entrepreneurs and information technology, and what cleantech startups need to know about this sector. This program is edited from an MIT/Stanford Venture Lab event entitled “Blue Tech: Is Water’s Dry Spell Over?”

Taproot is a nonprofit that engages millions of business professionals in pro bono services both through its award-winning programs and by partnering with companies to develop their pro bono programs. In this audio interview, founder Aaron Hurst speaks with Stanford Center for Social Innovation correspondent Ashkon Jafari about how the organization started and how it creates its cross-sector collaboration. He discusses how nonprofits can qualify for grants, and offers his vision for the organization.

The Saudi Arabian Oil Company exemplifies how an organization may go from good to great through a focus on innovation. In this audio lecture, CEO Abdallah Jum'ah shares with an audience of Stanford MBA students how he has harnessed the brainpower of his people to come up with breakthrough solutions in areas such as technology, tools, processes, and organizational management. His talk demonstrates how living the values of innovation, insight, and principle can transform an organization and change the world.

McDonald’s corporate social responsibility efforts have traveled all the way to India. In this university podcast, Abhijit Upadhye, an executive with the company’s Indian enterprise, details the ordeal to set up a supply chain that could meet the corporation’s stringent quality and food safety standards while also appealing to the mostly vegetarian population. He outlines how McIndia has endeavored to respect local culture, develop local partners, and identify local sources in bringing the famous fries and other Micky D favorites to millions on the subcontinent, while also forging some infrastructural and culinary innovations. Upadhye spoke at the fourth annual Socially and Environmentally Responsible Supply Chain Conference hosted in partnership by the Stanford Global Supply Chain Management Forumand the Center for Social Innovation at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Aspirational communication focuses on mobilizing ordinary people to support a cause. In this audio lecture, recorded during the 2013 Nonprofit Management Institute, Doug Hattaway of Hattaway Communications outlines the components of an effective communication campaign: crafting an exciting goal, motivational and non-technical language, and a compelling call to action. Drawing on psychological and anthropological studies, Hattaway describes the types of messages that appeal to a nonprofit’s audience. Such messages are emotion-based, intuitive, and communicated in simple language that can be easily spread via word-of-mouth. Hattaway argues that an organization must speak to the heart before it speaks to the mind; it must connect with audiences by using aspirational communication to place human stories in the context of a larger narrative.

Doug Hattaway is president of Hattaway Communications. In his 25 years of experience in the field of communication, Hattaway has served as a spokesperson and consultant to high-profile leaders in politics, government, business, advocacy, and philanthropy. He has worked closely with many global leaders, such as Hillary Clinton and Al Gore, and has traveled extensively to work with government leaders, political parties, and civil society organizations all over the world. Hattaway earned a bachelor of science degree in Journalism from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism and a master’s degree in English from Florida State University.

Adele Martz explains in this audio lecture how risk management puts GM at a competitive advantage to an audience of disaster relief operation actors gathered for the Stanford Effective Disruption Management Seminar.

The industrialized world is on a collision course with nature, says environmental sustainability hero and Nobel Peace Prize winner Al Gore. In this audio lecture, he presents the realities of global warming with alarming clarity and conclusiveness and passionately urges a Stanford Business School audience to take action.

Promoting environmental sustainability is the responsibility of every world citizen, says Nobel Laureate and former Vice President Al Gore in this audio lecture. Speaking at the 2009 Tech Awards, he urges his audience to consider how they may make changes and press for policies that will address global warming. He asks Westerners, in particular, to consider how the consequences of their own actions may be causing suffering for millions displaced by climate change.

In the frenzy over accountability, funders, donors, and the general public are calling for more program evaluation. Yet few understand how expensive and complex good evaluation is. Speaking at the 2006 Nonprofit Management Institute at Stanford, Alana Conner, senior editor of the Stanford Social Innovation Review illustrates how half-hearted evaluation can do more harm than good. Rick Aubry and Victor Kuo join her to give nonprofit and foundation perspectives.

Bats’il Maya is a micro-industry that was started in September 1993 in Chilo, Chiapas, Mexico. The enterprise organizes indigenous coffee producers so they are not subject to pricing abuse. In this audio interview, COO Alberto Irezabal speaks with Ashkon Jafari, Stanford Center for Social Innovation correspondent, about the social environment in Chiapas that led to the founding of the organization, and how the co-op works. He discusses the process for organic and fair trade certification, the establishment of coffee stores in Mexico City, and goals for expansion.

Latin America may be poised to become a much bigger player on the world economic stage, yet 54 percent of its citizens would choose an autocratic regime over a democratically elected government if it meant more jobs. Former Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo reflects on the challenge of democratic development and consolidation in Latin America in this audio interview sponsored by the Stanford School of Education and moderated by Stanford sociology and political science professor, Larry Diamond.

Microfinance is bringing the world's poor the kind of service that used to be reserved for bank customers in developed countries. Drawing on the work and philosophy of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, Alex Counts talks in this audio lecture about microfinance's social and financial impact to an audience of Stanford MBA students.

As "chief architect" of PixelCorps, Alex Lindsay created a guild for the next generation of craftsmen: digital craftsmen. In this audio interview, Lindsay describes to Globeshakers host Tim Zak how PixelCorps is currently transferring skills in digital imaging and animation to regions in the developing world so that their workforces can capitalize on the coming media revolution.

It is not surprising to learn, as the population of the world expands at an ever-increasing rate, that the demand for clean and affordable energy is placing unreasonable expectations on our fragile ecosystem. Alexis Belonio has accomplished the seemingly impossible and developed a clean burning cooking stove and continuous-flow industrial flow burner. Belonio’s cooking stove uses a finely tuned gasification process that produces a clean-burning fuel. The Rice Husk Gasifier’s simple and elegant design allows rural communities to build the stove themselves, sourced from accessible resources and local talent, while potentially saving two million metric tons of energy loss each year.

Alice Tepper Marlin created some of the most innovative models for corporate social responsibility. Her energetic work over decades has helped provide concrete research and practical methods for bringing companies, investors, consumers, and workers together to address issues of environmental and economic justice worldwide. In this audio lecture, Tepper Marlin traces her own history from her early days on Wall Street to her ongoing work in the not-for-profit sector, providing blueprints for social entrepreneurs.

Social Accountability International President Alice Tepper Marlin has been leading the push to create a credible, comprehensive, and efficient verification system for assuring humane workplaces around the world. In this audio lecture, she describes the strategies the Social Accountability International's SA-8000 standard has used to get global supply chain stakeholders operating on the same page when it comes to providing employees with safe, equitable, and financially beneficial working conditions.

Amory Lovins continues his discussion on environmental sustainability through a focus on energy efficiency in transportation. In this University podcast, he presents the business case for lighter, more slippery vehicles and criticizes automobile manufacturers for not fully embracing the radical changes necessary to transform the commercial transportation industry.

Better design integration and materials innovation can lead to big energy and cost savings, and rapid return on investment, particularly in the automotive and housing industries. Amory Lovins, one of America's most influential energy speakers, offers some profitable business-led solutions to climate, oil, and nuclear proliferation problems in this Stanford Center for Social Innovation sponsored audio lecture. Lovins offers strategies to reduce US oil dependence through a menu of renewable and fossil fuel types.

Oil dependence is an unnecessary problem, argues Amory Lovins, an internationally recognized expert in energy policy. In this audio lecture, Lovins demonstrates how, by the mid 2040s, the United States could reduce its need for oil completely and strengthen its economy in the process. Addressing the 2005 Stanford Net Impact conference audience, he talks about the fundamental shifts that the American society needs to undergo to make this scenario a reality.

Throughout the Energy Efficiency series, Amory Lovins, has diligently presented countless statistics and case studies to support the need for, and demonstrate the benefits of, improved energy services. In this audio lecture, he now identifies a significant number of formidable barriers to energy efficiency, and prescribes a variety of ways to overcome these barriers, including sexy marketing campaigns and a direct appeal to the bottom line.

Well-designed buildings not only conserve energy and reduce costs but also create conditions for better health and wellness. In this audio lecture, Amory Lovins uses several examples to show how the right mix of materials, resources, and expertise can create structures that celebrate living.

In this audio lecture, Amory Lovins discusses conservation and efficiency strategies that enable industry to eliminate waste, achieve cost savings, lower capital outlays, identify additional capacity, and increase profit. A simple commitment to new energy policies, combined with innovative design strategies and the implementation of cheaper, more powerful, and readily available technologies can provide manufacturing enterprises with a wide array of material and financial benefits.

Where do you save the most energy and capital costs? In this audio lecture, Amory Lovins challenges Industry leaders to consider a different approach for systems analysis, and identifies four target areas where the greatest savings are to be found.

In this audio lecture, Amory Lovins demonstrates the value of the "whole system optimization approach" to energy efficiency in the industrial sector. He provides examples of system designs and integration that produce the greatest savings, efficiencies, and optimization.

"The United States can break its dependency on oil by 2040." So says Amory Lovins, who discusses in this audio lecture the strategy outlined in his book, Winning the Oil Endgame, through which the country can eliminate its use of oil and have a much stronger economy. Most significantly, this plan does not rely on big government programs, but leans primarily on the for-profit business sector to lead the way.

Buildings represent an ideal opportunity for reducing energy use through clever design. In this audio lecture, Amory Lovins explores the many possibilities that building design offers us to "think outside of the box" in order to save energy. He shares numerous examples of effective design and even a few cases where smart energy design actually costs less to build, not more.

Talking with Globeshakers host Tim Zak, Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute argues that the United States can operate on a fourth of the energy it now uses, while still providing the same or better services. This may seem far-fetched, but Lovins has been accused of taking off on flights of fancy before, though time has a remarkable way of proving his assertions correct.

In this audio lecture, Amory Lovins argues for a sound energy policy that rewards innovation, and for a serious commitment to implementing energy-efficient technological improvements. These combined efforts could subsequently result in saving half of our oil, half of our gas, and three-fourths of our electricity. They would also decrease our dependence on foreign resources and would indirectly alleviate some of the world's biggest problems.

India has one of the highest child mortality rates in the world. This points to an underlying economic problem: poverty. Most poor women in that country simply cannot afford adequate health care. In this audio interview with Stanford Center for Social Innovation correspondent Sheela Sethuraman, Anant Kumar talks about how Lifespring Hospital in India provides quality care to women and children, regardless of their level of income. He talks about how the effort was launched, how it is sustained, and future goals.

Many areas of rural Africa suffer from a lack of healthcare delivery. In this audio interview with host Sheela Sethuraman, Andrea Coleman explains how she and her husband founded Riders for Health to provide life-saving assistance to such regions. She outlines how the organization uses motorcycles, in particular, to transport healthcare providers and medical goods, and how it has created a sustainable approach.

The global shift towards outsourcing and offshoring have posed new challenges and opportunities for retailers and suppliers. Taking into consideration “capable suppliers”, companies are able to exert their leverage in sustainability by adding social and environmental criteria when considering their sourcing options. Host Jerry Michalski of the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) is joined by Andrew Hutson of EDF’s Corporate Partnerships Program and Gary Gereffi of Duke University’s Center on Globalization, Governance & Competitiveness, in a conversation about the broad trends in global supply chains and their ongoing work with sustainable development. The Future of Green open call series is an initiative of EDF in collaboration with the Center for Social Innovation at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

In 2005, Wal-Mart's CEO announced a corporation-wide environmental sustainability initiative to go green. The company would take drastic measures to cut down on waste, energy consumption, and greenhouse gas emissions, thus generating savings that would be passed on to the customer. Andrew Ruben, who spearheads the effort supported by consultant Jib Ellison, explains to a Stanford MBA audience in this University podcast why Wal-Mart is engaging in sustainability.

Futurist, design strategist, and author Andrew Zolli specializes in helping people and institutions see, understand, and act upon complex change. In this audio interview with Globeshakers host Tim Zak, Zolli discusses some of the grand challenges facing the globe, as well as emerging technologies that may address them.

When nonprofits set out to look for funding they usually start with a PowerPoint presentation and hard-to-articulate data about the issue they are trying to address. In this audio lecture, Andy Goodman argues that all they have to do is tell a story. Goodman addresses social innovators over the age of 60. His ambition is nothing less than to inspire the generation of baby boomers to contribute their experience to a better world.

In the developing world, healthcare is often a scarce commodity. That’s why innovative products such as those being produced by re:motion designs are so important. In this audio interview, Stanford Center for Social Innovation correspondent Ashkon Jafari talks with CEO Joel Sadler about the company’s initial product, the JaipurKnee, an artificial knee joint costing less than $20 that is dramatically changing the lives of amputees in developing countries. He describes how he became invovled in the field of medical devices, how his engineers have approached design and prototyping, and how the company has secured funding and created partnerships. He also offers advice for the aspiring engineering or design student.

Joel Sadler is the co-founder and CEO of re:motion designs. A former product designer at Apple, he is currently a fellow and lecturer at the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford University. A Jamaican native, Sadler was inspired to work on low-cost medical devices after an MIT fellowship to design affordable wheelchairs in Mexico. He holds degrees in mechanical engineering from MIT and Stanford.

With numerous examples of success in social innovation from the education sector to draw from, the U.S. Administration and Congress propose to scale proven models of excellence to school systems across the country. This is the opportunity to make a dramatic shift away from the status quo and rapidly transform public education through federal reform.  CEO of NewSchools Ted Mitchell has a conversation with U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and Chairman of the House Committee on Education and Labor Congressman George Miller, addressing a gathering of thought leaders, practitioners and entrepreneurs in the field of education at the NewSchools Summit 2010, an event convened by the NewSchools Venture Fund.  They speak on policy changes and practices that are part of a full-fledged effort to turn schools around.

From solar shingles to locally implemented environmental waste collection, companies are creating products and corporate infrastructures that are about more than just profit. Aron Cramer, an advisor on corporate responsibility, points out several benefits in the revolution in this open-call conversation. He explains the need to bridge the gap between businesses for profit and nonprofit organizations, and how any working combination of the two would bring about social change, environmental improvements, and technological innovations.

This open phone call challenges the stereotypes of business and philanthropy, as well the degree of separation between the two sectors. Cramer explains that a synthesis between the two, with an emphasis on the results-based movement of corporations and the socially-based goals of nonprofit organizations, would create investment in small businesses and corporate-social responsibility.

Impact investing, social entrepreneurs, and locally-based businesses are part of a newly growing trend that supports local and international social goals, environmental awareness, and minimization of poverty. This trend, Aron Cramer proves through several examples and in answers to callers’ question, is making the world better, and will continue to improve environmental and social standards as businesses and non-profits continue to merge and cooperate.

Audrey Seagraves has a passion for international development and social enterprise. In this audio interview with Stanford Center for Social Innovation correspondent Sheela Sethuraman, the director of programs at World of Good talks about the creation of Fair Wage Guide software, a free tool that tells the viewer how wages being paid to any artisan worldwide compare to international wage standards.

Behavior change is a step-by-step process, and psychologist and innovator Dr. BJ Fogg guides designers and researcher with “The Behavior Wizard,” which maps routes to the 15 ways to achieve behavior change. With specific health targets, whether it be to “eat quinoa for the first time” or “to stop smoking permanently,” his model outlines techniques to stop or decrease behaviors that are unhealthy or start or increase more healthful habits. Fogg is the Director of the Persuasive Technology Lab at Stanford and has taught the course Creating Health Habits with Social & Mobile Technologies, where students gained expertise in using technology to create habits in everyday people. He speaks in the 2011 Global Health Series organized by the Stanford Global Health Center in partnership with the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

How can nonprofits leverage social media technology such as Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, and blogs to support philanthropy? In this audio lecture, nonprofit consultant Beth Kanter talks about how she has done just that, thereby raising thousands of dollars to help children in Cambodian orphanages get to school. Learn how to get people involved in your cause, donate, volunteer, and solicit friends—all with a few keystrokes.

Beulah Thumbadoo talks about her experiences promoting adult literacy, first from within the South African government and university system, and then through her own organization. Talking with Design for Change host Sheela Sethuraman in this audio interview, she also shares advice from her experience on social entrepreneurship.

If sustainability is to be woven into all human activities, tomorrow's leaders will be required to understand how their organization interacts with its environment. In this audio lecture, Stanford Graduate School Professor Bill Barnett looks at the new leadership challenges facing executives in business, government, and nonprofit organizations with an environmental purpose. Barnett now offers the first of its kind executive education leadership program designed to advance environmental responsibility across sectors.

An entrepreneur combines the vision to see the next thing over the horizon with the restless energy and problem-solving skills needed to set that change in motion. These qualities are shared by business and social entrepreneurs alike, representing a positive force that can help address the world's toughest problems. In this audio lecture, Bill Drayton takes a thoughtful look at Ashoka's mission and highlights its programs designed to nurture the current and future generations of talented entrepreneurs making a difference all over the world.

Ashoka's founder, Bill Drayton, believes that everyone can be a changemaker. In this audio lecture, he reflects on many of the early influences that helped him understand how to advance true social progress. From these beginnings, he traces his own path in public service, and describes the founding of Ashoka, which has grown into a flourishing network of social entrepreneurs who can serve as role models for further progress in promoting social justice around the globe.

"Once in a very rare while in history there is a fundamental pattern change.  We're in one of those right now," says Bill Drayton in this audio lecture. Before our eyes the social sector is transforming to adopt the business sector's entrepreneurial architecture, where productivity and innovation are absolutely essential. Drayton explains how he sees the merging of pieces from both worlds as the way social entrepreneurs will flourish.

Bill Drayton has aptly been called the “godfather of social entrepreneurship.” In this university podcast, Drayton, founder and CEO of Ashoka, the world’s oldest support organization for social entrepreneurs, identifies key skills of change makers and lays out a plan to teach these skills around the world. He critiques the social sector for not having improved quality and reduced costs in education and welfare. His remarks were part of the Stanford Business School’s Global Speaker Series. Rick Aubry, a lecturer at the business school, is the interviewer.

Microsoft founder Bill Gates transformed the world through his role in personal computing; now, he is transforming philanthropy, contributing to the betterment of those who live in poverty worldwide. In this audio lecture, Gates challenges Stanford MBA students to take on the world’s difficult problems as a focus of their career or life mission. He tells a bit about his own story, overviews the problems that face us globally, and suggests paths people can take to contribute to solutions. Gates spoke at the 2010 Stanford University commencement ceremony.

On Pittsburgh's gritty north side, just down the street from where he grew up, Bill Strickland has created a youth development and adult training center like no other. In this audio interview with Globeshakers host Tim Zak, Strickland talks about the environment he has melded over more than 40 years surrounded by stunning art, the sounds of jazz, beautiful orchids, and brilliant architecture, with programs that get kids into college and adults a job with a future.

Towera Jalakasi is an entrepreneur in every sense of the word. She has made the jump from being a consultant advising entrepreneurs to transforming sectors with enterprises of her own. She has helped small producer communities in her native Malawi access fair prices for their products and materials by creating links between them and outside markets. Even with all her success she still faces an uphill battle as a female entrepreneur in Africa, where the glass ceiling has yet to give way. In a business environment where women are constantly questioned on their ability to lead and have difficulty accessing traditional funding sources, Towera is a beacon of hope and a confident leader articulating a vision of success. Join Ned as he speaks with Towera Jalakasi, a successful and innovative entrepreneur as we talk about the struggles and rewards of entrepreneurship in a developing economy.

Edward D. (Ned) Breslin is the CEO of Water For People, widely considered a force for positive change by challenging status quo approaches to water and sanitation, philanthropy and aid transparency and offering concrete alternatives, and received the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship in 2011.

Towera Jalakasi is a business consultant, entrepreneur and fair-trade expert who works with small producer communities in Malawi helping them to access fair prices for their materials, and creating links between them and outside consumer markets.

What fuels the creation of a nonprofit organization? In this panel discussion, sponsored by the Stanford Center for Social Innovation, panelists talk about their experiences founding an education-related nonprofit in the United States and a microenterprise in Africa. They explore how they came up with the ideas for their enterprises, how they focused and manifested those ideas, and what smart and not-so-smart choices they made along the way. A portfolio manager adds her insights on what elements make a startup appealing to potential funders.

Our Winter 2018 cover story, “The Investment Gap that Threatens the Planet,” takes a detailed look at investments in discovering and developing new solutions to address climate change. It finds that such investments are woefully low and have even been falling in recent years. The article concludes that philanthropists are particularly well-suited to bridging this investment gap in the market.

On this related podcast, David Johnson (@contrarianp), senior editor of Stanford Social Innovation Review, interviews Sarah Kearney (@swoodkearney) and Scott Burger (@burgersb), who co-authored the article along with Fiona Murray and Liqian Ma. Kearney is the founder and executive director of PRIME Coalition, a public charity that empowers philanthropists to inject charitable capital into market-based solutions to climate change. Burger is a doctoral candidate in the Institute for Data, Systems, and Society at MIT and the technology investment advisor to the PRIME Coalition.
                 

They discuss why we need to continue developing new solutions to climate change in addition to harnessing existing solutions, why agriculture—one of the largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions—gets so little investment compared to other sectors, and why the venture capital industry in the United States is not in the business of solving social problems.

“Most [venture capital] funds are in a race to go first for the next Instagram,” Kearney says, “but no one wants to go first for the grid capacity energy storage company or industrial waste heat-to-electricity conversion company that might take longer and cost more and have uncertain exit options than the 10-year venture fund structure can afford.”

Additional resources:

• The Investment Gap that Threatens the Planet
• A New Vision for Funding Science
• 10 SSIR Articles on Climate Change Solutions
• @swoodkearney
• @burgersb

What do you get when you combine a love of Bollywood music videos with widespread illiteracy? Brij Kothari sees an opportunity to make the world a better place. By subtitling popular entertainment, he helps millions learn to read in a fun way. He's also creating multiplatform stories that will be seen on TV, read on mobile phones, and printed in books. Talking to Design for Change host Sheela Sethuraman in this audio interview, Kothari describes how he improves lives by incorporating education into everyday entertainment.

ENOVA was recently recognized as the winner of Tech Awards 2013 in the Education category for its incredible social impact. In this interview with Co-Founder Jorge Camil Starr, we learn more about ENOVA’s journey as a nonprofit venture. Through this podcast, Jorge describes ENOVA’s beginnings and the success this social enterprise has had in closing education gaps of low-income Mexican communities. He discusses his logistical methods for measuring impact, his goals for the scaling and achievement of the nonprofit, and challenges ENOVA has faced in accomplishing its mission. Jorge also speaks about his personal experience as an entrepreneur, including lessons he has learned and advice he has for aspiring entrepreneurs.

Jorge Camil Starr is in charge of the development of domestic and international strategic alliances in the public, private and civil society sectors. For 11 years Jorge worked extensively in developing Mexico’s technology sector, having founded PLC Networks an innovative BPL (Broadband Over Powerline) start-up pioneering data, voice and video transmissions and also co-created LT Solutions a company dedicated to selling Thin clients. He holds a double Bachelor’s degree in Economics and Business Administration from Pepperdine University.

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?

Using insight from systems thinking and social, behavioral, and cognitive science, Ann Christiano and Annie Neimand describe how to craft stories and multimedia experiences that disrupt bias and drive social change. They present four questions to help develop an effective communication strategy—a “back-of-the-envelope” framework they also outlined in an article for SSIR.

Christiano holds the Frank Karel Chair in Public Interest Communications at University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications and is director of the school's Center for Public Interest Communication, where Neimand is research director.

They offer tips such as trying to connect a nonprofit’s messaging to conversations that are already happening in the broader culture and finding respectful ways to tap into the stories of those your organizations seeks to help. “The most affected are the most effective,” Christiano says.

In his talk from SSIR‘s 2016 Nonprofit Management Institute, Derrick Braziel looks at how connecting people with the right resources and training, and building a culture of opportunity from within communities, can enable unlikely entrepreneurs, revitalize neighborhoods, and break the cycle of poverty.

Urban communities across America are experiencing an unprecedented renaissance. But this boom threatens to displace long-time residents, who are typically lower income and people of color. Braziel talks about how his organization, MORTAR, uses entrepreneurship to encourage redevelopment without displacement, providing the opportunity for long-time residents to grow with their swiftly changing communities. The organization offers business courses designed for under-served people who are low-income, unemployed, high­ school drop­outs, felons, homeless, or former gang leaders. The aim of this training is to support a new kind of entrepreneur—one focused on collaboration, connecting with people from different backgrounds, and maintaining a sense of community.

Download the slides that accompanied Braziel’s talk here.

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.

In this recording from our 2019 Data on Purpose conference, Cara LaPointe, senior fellow at the Beeck Center for Social Impact and Innovation at Georgetown University, shares questions and concepts from her Blockchain Ethical Design Framework to help practitioners interrogate whether a technology is created with ethics in mind.

Many companies now acknowledge the financial benefits of socially responsible behavior over the long term. Such commitments, however, are managed with levels of involvement spanning from a centralized CSR office to a fully integrated approach calling on all mainstream operating departments in the organization. This panel discussion explores strategies to advance corporate social responsibility in large companies.

In the 2004 general election, California voters approved Proposition 71 by a vote of 59 percent. The initiative established a $3 billion bond measure to create the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) and fund stem cell research in the state of California. In this panel discussion, Prop 71 key players address the entrepreneurial challenges they have faced while pushing for a controversial, dramatic policy change.

What insights does a former Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) fighter, now poet, activist and thought leader, have to teach social entrepreneurs? As it turns out, a lot more than you might imagine.

MMA fighters understand what failure is–not the “I failed… now let me put my badge on” rhetoric that has become an essential, but increasingly superficial, part of any budding entrepreneur’s story.

MMA fighters understand failure, and the pain that accompanies it. They get knocked down. They get knocked out. And they have to truly examine the lessons of defeat in order to perfect their strategy for success. This warrior mindset forces growth, adaptation and new creative expression. MMA fighters also know the wisdom of when to “tap out” and the necessity of dramatic pivots in some cases to achieve new areas of personal and professional development. Cameron Conaway’s journey offers fascinating lessons that show how unusual story arcs provide insightful truths for social entrepreneurs everywhere.

Edward D. (Ned) Breslin is CEO of Water For People, widely considered a force for positive change by challenging status quo approaches to water and sanitation, philanthropy and aid transparency and offering concrete alternatives, and received the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship in 2011.

Cameron Conaway, Executive Editor at The Good Men Project, is an NSCA-Certified Personal Trainer, a former MMA fighter and an award-winning poet. His international investigations into poverty, child labor and human trafficking can be found in publications such as The Guardian, The Huffington Post and the Women News Network. Conaway is a recipient of the Wellcome Trust Arts Award and currently teaches the capstone Shakespeare Seminar for Ottawa University.

Retirement plans, green energy, organ donations — how can defaults help you save money, save the environment, and save lives?  What difference does it make if you have the choice to opt-out now or opt-in later?  Eric Johnson, Columbia Business School professor examines the powerful role that defaults hold in changing behavior and the way we construct our values.  He offers insight on how to design defaults to maximize impact and presents common pitfalls to avoid.  Johnson spoke at Small Steps, Big Leaps, a special research briefing convened by Professors Francis Flynn and Jennifer Aaker and their colleagues in the field of prosocial behavior. They presented practical, and cost-effective solutions for encouraging donations, volunteerism, social activism, and other responsible, caring, and prosocial behaviors.

Eric J. Johnson is a marketing professor at Columbia University’s School of Business. His research interests are in consumer and managerial decision-making and electronic commerce. He is among the most widely cited scholars in marketing, according to the Thompson Scientific Highly Cited ratings. His work on electronic commerce has been published in the Communications of the ACM, Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Marketing, Journal of Interactive Marketing, and Management Science. He has presented his work before the Federal Trade Commission, and has been quoted in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Readers Digest, National Public Radio‘s Morning Edition, Marketplace, and the CBS Evening News. He is a coauthor of two books: Decision Research: A Field Guide and The Adaptive Decision Maker. His research in behavioral economics has appeared in Science, Journal of Economic Theory, as well as in two books. Earlier work examining the role of affect and similarity in understanding risk in papers has been published in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, and the Journal of Experimental Psychology.

In addition, Johnson is the director of the Columbia Center for Excellence in E-Business, and co-director of the Center for Decision Sciences at Columbia University. Professor Johnson serves on editorial boards of several journals, including the Journal of Consumer Psychology (former associate editor), Journal of Consumer Research, the Journal of Interactive Marketing and Marketing Letters.

Medical innovation continues to flourish, however entrepreneurs are faced with many challenges, including tougher regulatory demands which make it more difficult to get products to market. This panel discussion includes representatives from various investment firms who give a clearer picture of the funding landscape, advising early stage innovators with creative ways to navigate these complexities. From the 2011 Global Health Series organized by the Stanford Global Health Center in partnership with the Stanford Graduate School of Business, Stefanos Zenios, the Charles A. Holloway Professor and director of the Stanford GSB’s Program in Healthcare Innovation leads this panel which convenes Anne DeGheest of MedStars Venture Partners, Thomas McKinley of Cardinal Partners, Guido Neels of Essex Woodlands, Bryan Roberts of Venrock, and Beth Seidenberg of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.

As the market demands more products and services that address social and environmental issues, what are the various challenges faced by green companies in securing capital funding? How will initial investments affect the future success of these companies? Discover how venture capitalists envision the role of capital markets in green companies in this panel discussion from Bridging the Gap, the Stanford 2005 Net Impact conference organized by the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

When it comes to environmental sustainability issues, former EPA head Carol Browner asserts that failing to halt global warming will make us the first generation to bequeath to the next generation a problem that can't be fixed. In this audio lecture, warning of the perils that could await, she urges her Stanford Graduate School of Business audience to seek nonpartisan, business friendly solutions to the looming crisis.

What does it take to keep a large foundation focused on evaluation for self-improvement? As part of the Stanford Social Innovation Review's conference on evaluation, Carol Larson, CEO of the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, shares tools, lessons, and strategies for assessing performance to create a "culture of inquiry." Organizational qualities such as innovation, collaboration among stakeholders, and freedom to make "mistakes" are critical elements to foster an effective learning enterprise.

Companies that think about the environment as a social responsibility rather than a business imperative are living in the dark ages, says Carter Roberts, president and CEO of the World Wildlife Fund. In this Stanford Center for Social Innovation audio lecture, Roberts underscores solid business reasons why sustainability is no longer just a nice thing to do, how conservation protects business, and how his organization is addressing the economics, science, and politics of conservation around the world.

DonorsChoose.org is an online charity that makes it easy for anyone to help students in need. Public school teachers post classroom project requests on the site and donors browse project requests and give any amount to the one that inspires them most. In this audio interview with Stanford Center for Social Innovation correspondent Ashkon Jafari, founder Charles Best talks about how he started the organization and what some of its challenges have been along the way. He also discusses the organization’s use of cross-sector collaborations, initiatives it is currently working on, and the impact it is having on America’s young people.

In Britain, something is happening that hasn't for 100 years. More people are becoming incredibly wealthy, not only through inheritance, but also because of their own hard work. A phenomenon on this scale has not happened since the Victorian industrialists. In this audio lecture, Philosopher Charles Handy tells his 2007 Skoll World Forum audience about entrepreneurs who put their energies into meeting some perceived social need—something that government never gets around to and that private enterprise typically doesn't see a market for.

Along with clear tax benefits, starting a nonprofit means forms to file, rules to follow, and records to keep. How do you obtain public charity status?  What are the pros and cons?  Are there other options? In this audio lecture, corporate tax attorney Cherie Evans provides a step-by-step guide on the legal aspects of setting up and running a charitable organization to her 2007 Nonprofit Boot Camp audience.

In the early 1990s, Cheryl Dorsey got a fellowship from Echoing Green to launch the Family Van, a community-based mobile health unit that provides basic medical and outreach services to at-risk residents of inner-city Boston neighborhoods. Now president of Echoing Green, Dorsey talks with Globeshakers host Tim Zak in an audio interview about the challenge of building on the impressive track record of one of the world's leading investors and supporters of worldwide social change.

Microfinance has become a staple of international development. In this audio interview, Chetna Gala-Sinha talks with Stanford Center for Social Innovation correspondent Sheela Sethuraman about how her micro-enterprise development bank and foundation are economically empowering rural women in India. She describes the various tools and services that allow women to become financially independent, provide more adequately for their families, and drive international development.

Your organization has an important mission. But could a potential funder or volunteer tell that by looking at your website or your annual report? And could one of your employees make the right decision in a tough situation by reading it? In this audio lecture recorded at the 2007 Nonprofit Management Institute at Stanford, Chip Heath discusses how you can craft a mission statement that inspires people and helps them make important decisions, thereby offering powerful tools to lead your organization.

Those in nonprofit management constantly adapt to move their organizations forward. In this audio lecture sponsored by the Stanford Center for Social Innovation, Chip Heath, Stanford professor and coauthor of the book Switch, provides a framework for change. He demonstrates in case studies that three principles are involved in successful change, whether it be on the personal or societal front. Leaders in nonprofit management are called to attune to these principles when tackling change situations.

In the world of social enterprise, why do some ideas survive and others die? Stanford Graduate School of Business Professor Chip Heath reveals the secret in this audio lecture. He provides frameworks and advice to help social innovators launch their endeavors.

African Leadership Academy is a social enterprise that was founded in 2004 with the belief that ethical leadership is the key to transforming the African continent. In this university podcast, co-founder Chris Bradford talks about the role of educational institutions in shaping the future of Africa. He also discusses the personal journey that took him from Kalamazoo, Michigan, to Johannesburg, South Africa, and how Stanford was an influential part of that process. Bradford spoke at the 2011 Stanford Africa Forum: Entrepreneurship and Development, hosted by the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Hope Runs is a nonprofit social enterprise working in Kenya and Tanzania that uses athletics, education, and social entrepreneurship to empower AIDS orphans. In this audio interview, founders Claire Williams and Lara Vogel talk about how they have turned their idea of using marathon running to "outpace poverty" into a vital organization that partners with AIDS orphanages to have a real influence in children's lives. They discuss their model, how they use volunteers, and advice for social entrepreneurs.

Environmental sustainability is on President Obama’s agenda, and in this panel discussion we hear from senior government energy and technology officials on what’s up and coming in this area. Experts discuss the administration’s policies, programs, and initiatives to support clean energy innovation and entrepreneurship, in particular. The event was a panel discussion convened by the Stanford’s Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance, a joint initiative of the Stanford Graduate School of Business and the Stanford Law School.

Why should professionals care about the environment? In this panel discussion, executives from environmentally conscious companies talk about their strategies to market clean products and share their personal motivation for working on environmental issues.

This intergenerational panel discussion at NewSchools Summit 2010 conference highlights how the civil rights and education reform movements are similar. Experts explore how we may draw on lessons from the civil rights movement for tackling what many consider today’s most important social justice issue: closing the achievement gaps that persist in public education. Entrepreneurs will be inspired to redouble their actions in addressing the inequities in education that remain unresolved and to take aggressive action to push the movement toward accomplishing even more ambitious goals. The NewSchools Summit 2010 is an event convened by the NewSchools Venture Fund.

Byron Auguste is the director of McKinsey’s Social Sector Office. Based in Washington, D.C., since 2007, Auguste spent 14 years in McKinsey’s Los Angeles office, where he was elected principal in 1999 and director in 2005. His work focused on helping technology and services companies to achieve faster growth, greater productivity, and higher profitability, and on designing and building information and services businesses. He founded and led globally McKinsey’s High Tech Services Sector, served on the firm’s global committees that elect and evaluate new partners, and leads its diversity initiative globally. He is a co-founder and board chairman of Hope Street Group, a nationwide, nonpartisan, volunteer organization of professionals, executives, and entrepreneurs that develops and promotes Opportunity Economics public policies for the U.S.

Mike Feinberg currently serves as superintendent of KIPP Houston. After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania in 1991, he joined Teach For America and became a fifth grade bilingual teacher in Houston ISD. In 1994, Feinberg co-founded the Knowledge Is Power Program along with fellow TFA corps member Dave Levin; in 1995 he founded KIPP Academy in Houston. In 1994, along with Dave Levin, he was awarded the Thomas B. Fordham Prize for Excellence in Education and the National Jefferson Award for Greatest Public Service by a Private Citizen in 2006.

Howard Fuller is a distinguished professor of education, and founder/director of the Institute for the Transformation of Learning at Marquette University in Milwaukee, WI. Immediately before his appointment at Marquette University, Fuller served as the superintendent of Milwaukee Public Schools.

Kati Haycock is president of The Education Trust. One of the nation’s leading child advocates in education, she previously served as executive vice president of the Children’s Defense Fund, the nation’s largest child-advocacy organization. Haycock founded and served as president of the Achievement Council, a statewide organization that helps teachers and principals in predominantly minority schools improve student achievement. Before that, she served as director of the outreach and student affirmative-action programs for the nine-campus University of California System.

Rebecca Nieves Huffman serves as vice president at the National Association of Charter School Authorizers (NACSA), where she manages the grant making work of the organization through its Fund for Authorizing Excellence. Before joining NACSA, Huffman served for five years as president and CEO of the Washington, D.C.-based Hispanic Council for Reform and Educational Options (Hispanic CREO), an organization that is the national voice for the right of Latino parents to access all educational options and is an agent of change and equity in education. Prior to that, she was the associate director of recruitment and selection for the KIPP Foundation.

Remington Wiley is a student at Spelman College. As an international studies major and Spanish minor, Remington has traveled to 13 countries. With a growing passion for education reform, post-graduation Remington will return home to teach at KIPP Academy as a 2010 corps member for Teach for America.

Water and wastewater systems in many parts of the world are facing a significant infrastructure gap. In some developed countries like the US, ageing pipes are crumbling and are not being adequately replaced. In many developing countries, the increase in water and sanitation infrastructure is often insufficient to be able to keep up with growing demand. In this audio interview, as part of a Stanford Center for Social Innovation series on water around the world, ITT Corporation’s Colin Sabol talks with Stanford MBA student Ashish Jhina about the urgent need for investments in water and sanitation infrastructure. He explains how artificially low water prices have significant implications for the ability of governments to invest in water systems. He examines technologies that could alleviate water shortages in specific geographies and outlines ITT’s CSR initiative (Watermark) to bring clean drinking water to schools and to emergency situations by providing critical water purification equipment.

Community foundations have become an increasingly common outlet for charitable giving and activities in the United States. In this panel discussion, community foundation leaders discuss innovative models for turning dollars into social change, as well as challenges faced by this important sector of philanthropy.

How can a tsumami early warning system save lives? In this university podcast, Ridwan Djamaluddin, Indonesia’s deputy chairman for natural resources development, speaks on how the government of Indonesia is relying on technology to deal with climate and weather threats. The work, he says, is not just about creating better detection instruments but also about getting information to flow to those who need it more efficiently. Djamaluddin spoke at the USRio+2.0 Conference, hosted by the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

As the world awakens to the challenges of global warming and water shortages, corporations slowly recognize the reduction of their environmental footprint as a significant component of corporate social responsibility. This panel discussion explores some of the leading corporate initiatives toward environmental sustainability.

How can philanthropy mesh with a company's core strategy? In this panel discussion, executives from cutting-edge corporate donors share the various strategies used by their companies to serve societal needs. They consider issues such as the value proposition of giving for shareholders, and whether for-profits' philanthropic efforts can be purely altruistic.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives are usually thought of as top-down, with the interests of company executives taking precedence over other workers. In this talk, CB Bhattacharya, a visiting Stanford professor and author of Leveraging Corporate Responsibility: The Stakeholder Route to Maximizing Business and Social Value, examines why the traditional approach to CSR should be reexamined. Speaking at a seminar organized by the Stanford Center for Social Innovation, he details how his research supports stakeholder-driven corporate social responsibility initiatives. He explains why this change from top-down to stakeholder-driven initiatives means higher returns for us all.

In the past few years, several international reporting standards have emerged. But are they actually changing corporate behavior? With particular emphasis on labor standards, this panel discussion explores the effectiveness of current efforts to monitor and improve labor conditions abroad, the role of verification groups, and practical challenges faced by companies in implementing guidelines.