Stanford Social Innovation Review

JUNE 17, 2025

Throughout the region, civil society and philanthropy efforts have long operated within various forms of constraint, whether legal, political, or cultural. Instead, funders should focus on blending philanthropic capital with other resources, including social finance, public funds, business contributions, and private sector expertise.

Philanthropy

Stanford Social Innovation Review

FEBRUARY 24, 2025

Pioneering civil society organizations and social entrepreneurs (such as Skoll Foundation partners Muso and Living Goods, among others) have proved CHWs efficacy, particularly in reducing maternal and child mortality and responding to disease outbreaks. In other words: collective action. But theres more to do.

Health

NonProfit Quarterly

APRIL 17, 2025

Diane Yentel, CEO of the National Council of Nonprofits (NCN) calls these efforts a coordinated assault on civil society and democracy. The fear is justified: Just weeks after the inauguration in January, the administration issued an executive order freezing federal funding for nonprofits.

Nonprofit Administration and Development

NonProfit Quarterly

JULY 2, 2025

billion of our tax dollars—financing almost 40 percent of its entire military spending. Defending civil society requires cutting the military budget. Defending civil society requires cutting the military budget. Last year alone, at the height of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, the United States gave Israel $17.9

Civil Society

Stanford Social Innovation Review

AUGUST 7, 2025

Kaplan The Importance of Place By Jennifer Blatz & Geoffrey Canada Investing in Systems Change Capacity By Susan Misra & Marissa Guerrero 3 SSIR is published by the Stanford Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society , at Stanford University.

Public and Social Policy

Stanford Social Innovation Review

FEBRUARY 18, 2025

Transform Finances recent SSIR article Investing in Enterprises That Work for Everyone and accompanying report threw a much-needed spotlight on how Alternative Ownership Enterprise (AOE) models can help redistribute economic value, looking at the landscape in the United States.

Governance

Philanthropy 2173

NOVEMBER 7, 2022

The following post is about the chaos that is now Twitter, the growth in the #fediverse, the damage being done in real time to disbursed communities of people and activists, the possibilities of digital civil society coming through to shine, and the need to think carefully and collectively.

Civil Society

Stanford Social Innovation Review

OCTOBER 17, 2022

To achieve this, more businesses need to join with the government and civil society to actively confront inequality, poverty, and climate change together. Women in agricultural communities around the world continue to face structural barriers to accessing education, land, finance, seedlings, fertilizer, and pesticides.

Agriculture

NonProfit Quarterly

OCTOBER 2, 2024

People joined from more than 15 countries, representing business, government, and civil society. Not all the founding partners were aligned on the employee ownership transition, which complicated the financing and meant that the company continues to service more debt today than it would have otherwise.

Public and Social Policy

Nonprofit Tech for Good

JULY 13, 2020

Water.org helps people get access to safe water and sanitation through affordable financing, such as small loans. Their social media content highlighted Water.org’s participation in the World Leaders Call-to-Action on COVID-19. Water.org is a global nonprofit organization working to bring water and sanitation to the world.

Non-Profits

Stanford Social Innovation Review

MAY 11, 2023

Yet, despite this consensus, the Rainforest Foundation Norway showed, in 2021 , that efforts to recognize Indigenous land rights and support their forest conservation were getting less than 1 percent of all climate financing, with the vast majority of funding going to international organizations or development contractors.

Civil Society

Stanford Social Innovation Review

FEBRUARY 8, 2024

When contemplating migration that can deliver massive income gains to low-income households and benefits to both sending and receiving economies—but must maintain public support in a difficult political climate—public, private, and civil society actors all play important roles in a complex system’s effective functioning.

Public and Social Policy

Candid

JULY 2, 2021

billion to expand its work to increase options for and access to contraceptives in partnership with UNFPA Supplies Partnership , Family Planning 2030 , the Global Financing Facility , and the Shaping Equitable Market Access for Reproductive Health initiative.

Civil Society

Stanford Social Innovation Review

SEPTEMBER 8, 2022

In hopes of maximizing contributions to Ukrainian relief efforts, a record number of donors are turning to resources like Charity Navigator, which can now use open Form 990 data to evaluate and rate a large number of charities based on finances, governance, and other factors.

Public and Social Policy

Stanford Social Innovation Review

AUGUST 6, 2025

In response, NGOs, civil society, and, increasingly, group members themselves began a sustained effort to change the narrative and encourage governments to recognize their value, protect their autonomy, and invest in their growth. International organizations and civil society groups built coalitions to strengthen collective influence.

Public and Social Policy

Nonprofit Marketing Insights by GlobalOwls

FEBRUARY 29, 2024

These technologies are more than just catchphrases; they reshape hub industries like retail, healthcare, and finance. This lack of model interpretability and explainability presents challenges for organizational adoption, especially in sensitive domains like finance and healthcare. Chapters Artificial Intelligence: What Is It?

Civil Society

Stanford Social Innovation Review

AUGUST 15, 2023

Furthermore, debt-for-nature swaps may not free up enough revenues for the debtor country to finance environmental programs. Still, debt-for-nature swaps have existed for decades without being widely adopted or scaled up in the ways that their advocates envision.

Public and Social Policy

The NonProfit Times

JULY 17, 2024

Ultimately, partnerships between government, academia, industry, and civil society are critical to leveraging the potential of AI to address the most pressing societal challenges and collectively benefit society, according to the authors.

Civil Society

The NonProfit Times

AUGUST 22, 2024

Everyone needs to make continued investments in strengthening the capacity of individuals and civil society alike to ensure they have the digital skills, knowledge and resilience to understand and fight disinformation. Fact-checking is not enough.

Associations

Stanford Social Innovation Review

MARCH 4, 2024

To establish effective AI governance, then, is the challenge for civil society organizations and social innovators. This entails determining the frameworks and structures we need to build to effectively organize and govern society amid rapid technological change and unchecked power consolidation. We need a new roadmap.

Governance

Stanford Social Innovation Review

SEPTEMBER 11, 2024

Another example of building civil service capabilities is Apolitical, a certified B corporation backed by impact investors, which aims to build the capabilities for civil servants across the globe through online courses, events, and knowledge products, and has reached over 200,000 civil servants in 160 countries.

Public and Social Policy

Stanford Social Innovation Review

SEPTEMBER 28, 2023

Most obviously, funders working in specific issue areas—climate, health, education, or in my case, democracy—can work to support efforts downstream to prepare government and civil society in their respective sectors to take advantage of the opportunities and mitigate the risks of AI on their specific areas of concern.

Civil Society

Stanford Social Innovation Review

OCTOBER 17, 2022

All sectors have a role to play in achieving climate justice, but it’s fair to say that compared to government and civil society, business is late in addressing the challenge and is in fact frequently called out as part of the problem. Why Climate Justice Matters to Business.

Public and Social Policy

NonProfit Leadership Center

SEPTEMBER 16, 2024

The Program increases knowledge Program graduates report an increase in nonprofit-specific knowledge as a primary benefit of the program, citing the largest knowledge increases in marketing and finance. 96% of graduates say participating in the program has helped them be more effective in their jobs.

Universities

NonProfit Quarterly

AUGUST 16, 2023

This means that Wall Street jumps in with these complicated deals called tax equity financing to make it all work. DAC: Also, since the early 2000s, the fossil fuel industry has shifted from just funding the Republican Party to funding the entire infrastructure of civil society on the conservative end of politics.

Public and Social Policy

Candid

APRIL 13, 2021

Nonprofits surveyed by the Toronto Foundation widely believe (65 percent) that the pandemic will significantly threaten their finances for the next five years. Almost three-quarters (73 percent) fear society will be more unequal a decade from now because of the pandemic’s social and financial impacts.

Civil Society

Stanford Social Innovation Review

MAY 25, 2023

In retrospect, we can see with a borderless threat like COVID-19, collaboration was stymied across and within countries: Lacking clearly defined and owned targets, country responses often failed to meaningfully engage civil society. Global guidance and support should be designed with country implementers in mind.

Public and Social Policy

Stanford Social Innovation Review

MARCH 18, 2024

Companies like Wellthy use AI to offer customized care coordination tools and support, and companies like Carefull use advanced AI and machine learning techniques to detect fraud and enable adult children to manage the daily finances of their aging loved ones.

Curriculum and Teaching

Philanthropy 2173

NOVEMBER 2, 2022

Electoral politics, campaign finance. Don't overlook the billionaires who used the student loan industry to rip-off hundreds of thousands of people now working back rooms to protect their own golden geese. If you have to ask. Nonprofits as service providers.

Children

Bloomerang

APRIL 7, 2022

This foundation focuses on Civil Society, Education, Environment and the Flint Area.The Foundation seeks to fulfill its mission of supporting efforts that promote a just, equitable, and sustainable society. Areas served: California. Charles Stewart Mott Foundation. Areas served: US with a focus on the Great Lakes region.

Health

Stanford Social Innovation Review

OCTOBER 23, 2023

An economy based on alternative ownership enterprises would anchor a new system of finance and business. Meanwhile, employee ownership models are gaining traction in the policy arena, with bipartisan support for the proposed Employee Equity Investment Act , which would provide financing for AOE conversion funds.

Non-Profits

NonProfit Quarterly

JUNE 9, 2025

This leaves grassroots organizations and nonprofits as a critical bastion of resistance for civil society—and offers the opportunity to develop new strategies and systems of care that center the many rather than the few. What Is “Corruption” Exactly? It just means our systems are not meeting the moment.”

Governance

The NonProfit Times

NOVEMBER 12, 2024

Despite the many constraints, civil society is doing everything it can to keep going, according to data from CIVICUS in its State of the Civil Society Report 2024. One in six people are currently exposed to conflict. Conflict-related deaths are at their highest in decades, with civilian casualties up 62% in 2023.

Civil Society

NonProfit Quarterly

FEBRUARY 20, 2025

Credit: Moment Makers Group on iStock It is impossible to buy a toaster that has a one-in-five chance of bursting into flames and burning down your house. But it is possible to refinance an existing home with a mortgage that has the same one-in-five chance of putting the family out on the street. Elizabeth Warren, Unsafe at Any Rate , 2007.

Finance

NonProfit Quarterly

MAY 14, 2025

Former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis warned last year, in an interview with Jacobin , that were facing the threat of a highly authoritarian techno-feudalism. In 2020, US civil society rose up and defeated the first Trump administration. What follows neoliberalismremains up for grabs. So, how to proceed now?

Public and Social Policy

NonProfit Quarterly

MARCH 20, 2025

Instead, they must prioritize investigative journalism and explore alternative funding models reader-supported journalism, nonprofit financing, and worker-owned cooperativesto achieve editorial independence. I would say we need a diversity of tactics, and those tactics must have [diverse] revenue streams.

Governance