Inside Social Innovation

"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.

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.

"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.

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."

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."

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 achievement and opportunity gaps between low-income and underrepresented minority students and their peers. In 2018, after using these tools, Cal State graduation rates were the highest they've ever been while equity gaps also narrowed. https://ssir.org/podcasts/entry/transforming_programs_through_predictive_analytics

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 Kauser Razvi, principal of Strategic Urban Solution, share their advice and concerns, emphasizing the importance of building a data culture over technical expertise. Scaling up the social sector's data capacity requires champions at every level, be that a school district, state government, or national network, Razvi says. "That person doesn't have to be a technologist" but they need to understand how data can help solve social problems. https://ssir.org/podcasts/entry/strengthening_data_capacity_in_the_social_sector

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 guidelines to help anyone to develop these skills. https://ssir.org/podcasts/entry/critical_skill_for_nonprofits_in_the_digital_age_technical_intuition

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 in the Middle East. In this episode, Priss Benbow, a fellow at Stanford's Distinguished Careers Institute, speaks with Sherrie Westin, president of Global Impact and Philanthropy at Sesame Workshop, about the process of applying to a "big bet" grant competition, developing new culturally appropriate Sesame Street characters, and how the two partner organizations will measure program impact. On our next episode, you'll hear from Cecilia Conrad, who leads 100&Change, to get the grantmaker's perspective. https://ssir.org/podcasts/entry/sesame_workshop_winner_of_100change_grant_competition_discusses_whats_next

"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 the US office of the human rights organization Breakthrough discusses these issues with: Coya White Hat-Artichoker, founder of the First Nations Two Spirits Collective and the community health and health equity program manager at Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota; Mauricio Lim Miller, founder of Family Independence Initiative; and Fresco Steez, the minister of training and culture at Black Youth Project 100. "We have to be thinking about ways that our work moves us from the very cozy spaces that we tend to exist in, and out into the communities, into the streets, into the places with the people that we serve," says Moore. "That hasn't been the case for a lot of us, often because it's sort of not made a priority." https://ssir.org/podcasts/entry/getting_local_collaborating_with_communities_of_color

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, founder and CEO of Offor. They provide insight into everything from survival strategies to creating more inclusive work environments. "In my daily life, being black and being female comes into play on a constant basis, and that takes a toll," German says. "It gives me a different level of appreciation. It gives me a different level of empathy." The conversation was based on Moody's interview series, "Black & Bold: Perspectives on Leadership," which she expanded upon in her 2018 SSIR piece about black women's use of kinship to overcome career barriers in the social sector. https://ssir.org/podcasts/entry/navigating_double_jeopardy_in_the_social_sector

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 director of the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus. Nayantara Sen, manager of cultural strategies with Race Forward moderates the conversation with Seelig, Judith Smith, founder and director of AXIS Dance Company, and Sherri Young, executive director and founder of the African-American Shakespeare Company. They discuss the meaning of equity within their respective communities, learning from failures, and building sustainable partnerships. https://ssir.org/podcasts/entry/increasing_equity_and_inclusion_in_the_arts