“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 ....
Mar 10, 2022•26 min
“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 vi...
Mar 03, 2022•20 min
“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 philan...
Feb 11, 2022•26 min
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 replicat...
Jan 24, 2022•41 min
“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 are innovating during challenging times and societal division. 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...
Jan 18, 2022•30 min
“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 af...
Dec 14, 2021•23 min
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 ...
Dec 07, 2021•1 min
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 ...
Jan 28, 2020•1 hr 7 min
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 merge...
Jan 14, 2020•20 min
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 w...
Dec 17, 2019•47 min
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 a...
Dec 03, 2019•58 min
Predictive analytics can help organizations iterate rapidly, become more transparent and precise, and pinpoint opportunities to address inequities in their work. In this recording from our 2019 Data on Purpose conference , Parag Gupta , vice president of the Stupski Foundation, and Jeff Gold , assistant vice chancellor at California State University, share a case study of how public higher education institutions are successfully using predictive tools to increase graduation rates and close the a...
Jul 15, 2019•37 min
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...
Jul 01, 2019•1 hr 1 min
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. In this recording from our 2019 Data on Purpose conference , Kevin Miller, civic technology manager from the Microsoft Cities Team, Aman Ahuja, a data consultant, Kathryn Pettit, principal research associate at The Urban Institute, and Kause...
Jun 19, 2019•49 min
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 ...
May 29, 2019•32 min
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 this recording from our 2019 Data on Purpose conference , Dunn walks through her guidelin...
May 07, 2019•25 min
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 educate young children displaced by conflict and ...
Apr 23, 2019•39 min
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 Committee. The grant supports programming to educate young children displaced by conflict and persecution i...
Apr 09, 2019•28 min
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 effe...
Mar 26, 2019•1 hr 14 min
“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? Darnell Moore, head of strategy and programs for t...
Mar 12, 2019•48 min
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? Social entrepreneur, author, and Stanford University lecturer Kathleen Kelly Janus leads a discussion about these question...
Feb 26, 2019•1 hr 3 min
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. To understand the unique set of racial and gender barriers—coined “ double jeopardy ”— that stymie black women, listen to this discussion from Makiyah Moody , senior consultant at La Piana Consulting; Tyra Mariani , executive vice president of New America; Crystal German , principal of Prosperity Labs; and Ify Walker , foun...
Feb 11, 2019•50 min
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 Cathy Moor...
Jan 29, 2019•10 min
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. “That's the next big shift if we are to survive—to go into the community, knock down those norms, and be something that is accessible,” said panelist Tim Seelig, artistic di...
Dec 20, 2018•1 hr 9 min
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,...
Nov 27, 2018•8 min
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. Rashad Robinson, president of Color of Change, spoke at our 2018 Nonprofit Management Institute conference about the nature of political and cultural power and the importance of continually assessing the nonprofit ...
Nov 06, 2018•36 min
Technology can magnify the power of grassroots organizing and social innovation, but it can sometimes bring about societal harm, whether intentionally or not. At SSIR ’s 2018 Frontiers of Social Innovation conference , Rob Reich, a Marc and Laura Andreessen faculty co-director of Stanford PACS, explores the implications for the social sector and free speech in conversation with Kelly Born, a program manager at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation’s Madison Initiative, and Arisha Hatch, a man...
Aug 28, 2018•53 min
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 the imperative to improve representation within the community of AI technologists...
Jul 31, 2018•37 min
Emerging technologies like biotech and artificial intelligence have the potential to transform so many of the systems that make up the world around us. At our 2018 Frontiers of Social Innovation conference , Katherine Milligan, who directs the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship spoke with a few savvy social entrepreneurs who are harnessing these tools for social impact right now. Milligan speaks with Keller Rinaudo, CEO and cofounder of Zipline , which is using drones to deliver blood...
Jul 17, 2018•58 min
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. And yet human trafficking, modern slavery, and child labor remain pressing concerns in many indu...
Jul 03, 2018•1 hr 6 min
