Stanford Social Innovation Review

MAY 20, 2025

Some of you are cautious of making public statements, worried political backlash could freeze assets, as has already happened to others. Yet for civil society, this restraint feels indistinguishable from abandonment. Double down by funding existing coalitions that are prepositioned to advocate and activate right now.

Philanthropy

Stanford Social Innovation Review

MAY 6, 2025

One major strategy to counter this fear lies in massive collaboration, a coming together of individuals, groups, and organizations at unprecedented scale to exert major influence on political and social events. Forms of Combined Power Mass mobilization to combat authoritarianism and demand social responsibility dates back millennia.

Nonprofit governance and management

Stanford Social Innovation Review

DECEMBER 23, 2024

Three years into this effort, more than 50 schools have joined the movement, all aligned around a commitment to living the values of active citizenship, social justice, and good governance. Public schools, which serve about 40 percent of Lebanons 1.1 million students, have been particularly affected.

Education

NonProfit Quarterly

JUNE 11, 2025

In their forthcoming book Liberation Stories: Building Narrative Power for 21st Century Social Movements , coeditors Shanelle Matthews and Marzena Zukowska share a compilation of stories by communications workers from some of the most impactful social movements in the United States. All rights reserved.

Public and Social Policy

Stanford Social Innovation Review

JUNE 17, 2025

These leaders are transforming public systems from within—finding champions in government, building cross-sector coalitions, persisting through setbacks, and continuing to deliver impact for the communities they work with. It’s not to replace public systems but to help make them better. 2) We’re getting on with the work.

Philanthropy

Stanford Social Innovation Review

JUNE 23, 2025

Social Issues Education, Health, Security, etc. Arts & Culture Cities Civic Engagement Economic Development Education Energy Environment Food Health Human Rights Security Social Services Water & Sanitation Sectors Government, Nonprofit, Business, etc. share comment print order reprints related stories By Daniela Papi-Thornton Jun.

Participation and motivation

The NonProfit Times

OCTOBER 15, 2024

By Shaista Keating and Chloe Mankin The rapid evolution and widespread adoption of artificial intelligence technologies (AI) offer both opportunities and challenges to civil society, particularly concerning responsible and ethical usage. Foundational efforts in these areas are underway. UNICEF has developed guidelines for AI use.

Civil Society

NonProfit Quarterly

JANUARY 28, 2025

The unprecedented move, whose legality has already been challenged, could affect trillions of dollars in federal aid to thousands of programs, and threatens to have a catastrophic impact on the US nonprofit sectorand civil society at largeif the funds are successfully halted.

Civil Society

NonProfit Quarterly

JUNE 10, 2025

In this series, The Unexpected Value of Volunteers , author Jan Masaoka takes on the underappreciated topic of volunteerism, provides some unexpected ideas, and points the way toward a public policy agenda on volunteerism. Others may support public institutions like local PTAs and Friends of the Library chapters.

Civil Society

NonProfit Quarterly

APRIL 29, 2025

Columbia, Princeton, Harvard, Cornell, Northwestern and the University of Pennsylvania have all experienced withdrawn federal grantspart of a broader strategy to condition public funding on political compliance. Federal officials had previously warned 60 institutions that their civil rights policies could jeopardize their grants.

Civil Society

NonProfit Quarterly

MAY 8, 2025

As was noted in NPQ back in 2018, FCPRs approach on power, community organization, civil society, and racial equity sets it apart from the more established philanthropic approach focusing on strengthening large, established institutions. REBIA emerged out of this institutional commitment to racial equity.

Public and Social Policy

NonProfit Quarterly

MAY 9, 2025

The Schott Foundation for Public Education accurately describes the familiar pattern as boom-and-bust cycles of funding whenever a big election is looming. As Harvard Kennedy School Lecturer in Leadership, Organizing, and Civil Society Marshall Ganz points out, there is a large gap between mobilizing and organizing.

Nonprofit Administration and Development

NonProfit Quarterly

JUNE 16, 2025

My social media feeds were full of images of empty streets and abandoned street vendor carts. A decade ago, a group of scholars estimated street vendors contribute over $500 million in economic activity in Los Angeles alone. Vendors’ presence also complements the activities of brick-and-mortar businesses.

Public and Social Policy

NonProfit Quarterly

FEBRUARY 21, 2025

Credit: Photo by Jay Soundo on Unsplash Nonprofits are reeling, with many reporting fear of government reprisal and/or public or private backlash for addressing politically sensitive issues. Nonprofits are reeling, with many reporting fear of government reprisal and/or public or private backlash for addressing politically sensitive issues.

Public and Social Policy

NonProfit Quarterly

FEBRUARY 2, 2025

The nonprofit coalition, led by the National Council on Nonprofits, Democracy Forward, the American Public Health Association, Main Street Alliance, and SAGE, will ask US District Judge Loren AliKhan on Monday to extend a restraining order preventing the Trump administration from freezing federal funds already allocated by Congress.

Public and Social Policy

NonProfit Quarterly

APRIL 21, 2025

Khalil acted as a negotiator and spokesperson during protests at the university that advocated for Palestinian human rights and divestment from companies tied to Israeli occupation policies. Civic engagement is any action you take to participate in and improve your community, influence public decisions, or shape a more inclusive society.

Public and Social Policy

NonProfit Quarterly

MARCH 13, 2025

Credit: Good Faces on Unsplash Eight years ago, at the dawn of President Donald Trumps first administration, airports were flooded by public demonstrations protesting an executive order banning travel from a number of majority Muslim countries. This time, as Trumps second administration begins, an explicit travel ban is missing.

Philanthropy

NonProfit Quarterly

JULY 15, 2025

Still others believe that Trump’s economic mismanagement or attacks on “third rails” like Social Security and Medicaid will undermine the administration’s support. Yet civil society can be an unwieldy concept. So, how exactly can civil society protect Americans from authoritarianism?

Civil Society

Stanford Social Innovation Review

JUNE 17, 2025

That means that questions surrounding the legitimacy of philanthropy—what value it provides to the public, how responsive it is to the public’s needs, and how it aligns with democratic norms and institutions—must sit at the center of its response to the moment. Beware of the limits of philanthropic deliverism.

Civil Society

NonProfit Quarterly

JULY 2, 2025

But how does this affect nonprofits and others who focus on social justice? Such attacks have shaped US foreign policy for generations, and since World War II, have routinely failed to accomplish the stated goals. Certainly not all of the militarism that continues to shape US foreign policy is explained in Trump’s narratives.

Civil Society

Stanford Social Innovation Review

MARCH 23, 2023

What little optimism remains to tackle such complex challenges is mostly placed in supranational schemes, such as the COP climate change conferences, or transformational national policy, such as the Green New Deal in the US. ” Scaling up social innovation takes time, but there are also varying ways it can be done.

Civil Society

NonProfit Quarterly

FEBRUARY 21, 2024

Co-produced with the Movement for Black Lives (M4BL), this series will examine the many ways that M4BL and its allies are seeking to address the economic policy challenges that lie at the intersection of the struggle for racial and economic justice. Of course, the drug war is not the only reason why reparations are required.

Public and Social Policy

Stanford Social Innovation Review

OCTOBER 25, 2023

This is doubly true for AI, because these new tools can be developed for many different types of activities, with the potential to spread rapidly in every sector of the economy and in every aspect of our lives. Three big social changes would be necessary for such a path, and each one of them is a tall order.

Public and Social Policy

Stanford Social Innovation Review

OCTOBER 18, 2023

They aspire to be the vanguard—titans behind the policies, reforms, and decisions that will build our collective tomorrow. Young people must be seen not only as beneficiaries, but as key partners in the design of policies and programs. Young people are not satisfied by simply being heard.

Public and Social Policy

Stanford Social Innovation Review

SEPTEMBER 8, 2022

The social sector is using big data to enhance nonprofit transparency and knowledge more than ever before, and the opening of the Form 990 has made an essential contribution. Yet despite these breakthroughs, the social sector has only begun to scratch the surface of open 990 data’s capabilities.

Public and Social Policy

Momentum Nonprofit Partners

FEBRUARY 12, 2024

Donors should have the freedom to support causes they believe in without fear of retribution, harassment, or social pressure. A Shield Against Harassment and Discrimination: Public disclosure of donor lists can expose individuals to unwelcome attention, threats, and even discrimination.

Civil Society

Stanford Social Innovation Review

SEPTEMBER 13, 2023

Often portrayed in Western feminist literature as the disempowered, the excluded, and needing rescue, India in fact continues to be reinvented by the heads, hands, and hearts of her women—from farmers, to craftswomen, to political leaders, to social reformers. The world’s largest cooperative dairy is also in India.

Food

The NonProfit Times

SEPTEMBER 20, 2024

In the past five years, 72 countries have introduced 270 measures restricting civil society,” Douglas Rutzen, president and CEO of the International Center for Nonprofit Law testified. Rutzen highlighted what he said was a slowdown in the use of sanctions, to the detriment of those seeking to thwart repressive activities.

Civil Society

NonProfit Quarterly

NOVEMBER 19, 2024

Book cover by Oxford University Press In his new book People, Power, Change, author-activist Marshall Ganz writes about the art and science of organizing and social change. Effective public voice arising from commitment to common purpose—a political process—has become rare indeed. Public voice grows quite faint.

Public and Social Policy

Stanford Social Innovation Review

JULY 12, 2023

The most pernicious one is the narrative regarding small, locally led organizations and our low expectations of them (which is not exclusive to the social change space). One of the casualties of this is the perpetuation of core assumptions that are unhelpful at best and at worst a detriment to the field.

Civil Society

Stanford Social Innovation Review

MARCH 7, 2024

Some years ago, we participated in an activity aimed at raising awareness of gender bias among hiring managers. Gender Inequity in Latin America Gender inequalities have deep and complex roots in economic, social, and political structures around the world. These entrenched social norms deeply impact women’s lives and opportunities.

Nonprofit governance and management

Stanford Social Innovation Review

APRIL 9, 2024

By Guibson Trindade , Débora Montibeler & Paula Jancso Fabiani Silvio Almeida, Brazil’s human rights minister and a well-known intellectual prior to taking office, writes in his book Racismo Estrutural , “Institutions are racist because society is racist.” Yet Brazil has seen growing racial awareness in recent years.

Public and Social Policy

Stanford Social Innovation Review

SEPTEMBER 19, 2023

By Georg von Richthofen & Ali Aslan Gümüsay This year, our institute published several studies as part of the research project Sustainability, Entrepreneurship, and Global Digital Transformation (SET) based on activities in seven countries in the Global South. None of the studies were written by ourselves.

Entrepreneurship

Stanford Social Innovation Review

JULY 26, 2023

As policy makers struggle to respond to the unfolding human catastrophe, they have increasingly turned to the possibilities offered by technology, and data in particular. It applies to various regions, populations, and fields, ranging from public health and education to urban mobility. What Is a Social License?

Public and Social Policy

iMarketSmart

NOVEMBER 28, 2022

Now, suppose we’re managing a group of social media “influencers.” The social media manager then shares the best metrics for managing “writers” and their “output.” In short, focusing on fewer but essential metrics results in increased productivity across a wide range of activities.”[17]. They write Twitter posts. 12] Megli, C.

Fundraising

Stanford Social Innovation Review

SEPTEMBER 11, 2024

By Tim Hanstad To build an equitable and sustainable society, the social sector cannot take the place of the government, as Mark Kramer and Steve Phillips recently observed ; “Only government has the capacity to address social and environmental problems on a national scale.

Public and Social Policy

Stanford Social Innovation Review

MARCH 4, 2024

But putting unchecked development in the hands of (primarily) male tech executives who espouse a particular Silicon Valley ethos oriented toward profit and dominance above all else, will only intensify threats to our social systems and vulnerable communities. We need a new roadmap.

Governance