Stanford Social Innovation Review

✨ ’Tis the season…for year-end lists like this one! SSIR’s most popular articles in 2024 covered everything from collective healing for systems and re-examining popular philanthropic practices to emerging AI-powered nonprofits and global migration. See what made the list: https://lnkd.in/eYrAQs69   Here’s a peek:   💡“Healing Systems” by Laura Calderon de la Barca, Katherine Milligan & John Kania   💡“Where Strategic Philanthropy Went Wrong” by Mark Kramer & Steve Phillips   💡“A New Look at How US Nonprofits Get Really Big” by Ali Kelley (Hoxie), Darren Isom, Bradley Seeman, Julia C. Silverman, Analia Cuevas-Ferreras & Katrina Frei-Herrmann (Katrina F.)   💡“How Movement-Accountable Intermediaries Can Change Philanthropy” by Sonya Crespo Childress, Sahar Driver, Aldita Amaru Gallardo, Jennie Goldfarb, Allistair Mallillin, Lindley Mease, Alicia Sanchez Gill, MSW & angela vo   💡“Investing in Systems Change Capacity” by Susan Misra & Marissa Guerrero, PhD   Plus articles by Kevin Barenblat, Brigitte Hoyer Gosselink, Stacey Faella, Ryan Roberson, Kevin Starr, Sean Gibbons, Tristan Mohabir, and Jason Wendle   Add these stories (and several honorable mentions) to your holiday reading list: https://lnkd.in/eYrAQs69 If you have an idea for an article in 2025, we want to hear from you: https://lnkd.in/gMtR7FY

For Sana Javeri Kadri, CEO and founder of Diaspora Co., it all started with a turmeric latte. Kadri was born and raised in Mumbai and moved to the United States for college in 2012. Living in the Bay Area in the 2010s, Kadri saw turmeric, a spice she knew from childhood, becoming a trend at cafés and health-food stores. “I started seeing turmeric lattes everywhere,” Kadri recalls. “Something in the back of my head was like, ‘Who is growing the turmeric for all of these turmeric lattes? If these $8 turmeric lattes are all over San Francisco, is a farmer somewhere in South Asia benefiting from this?’” Discover what led Sana to found Diaspora Co. and how the spice company became one of the most influential sustainably sourced and equity-focused brands on the market: https://lnkd.in/eubEpthG Award-winning journalist and historian Marianne Dhenin reports on Diaspora Co. in SSIR’s Winter 2025 Issue. Explore the full issue now: https://lnkd.in/eBBPUep9

It’s always a great feeling to see our work validated by respected sources. The Stanford Social Innovation Review’s article on “Reimagining Collaborative Philanthropy” highlights five key lessons, and I’m proud to say that AVPN embodies many of these principles. It’s a testament to the hard work and dedication of our team that we’re recognised as a leader in collaborative #philanthropy. I would like to take the chance during this season of celebration to thank my team and all our partners who have joined us in this wonderful and fulfilling journey.

SSIR’s global editions’ editors share the most popular stories from their regions—SSIR China, Stanford Social Innovation Review en Español, SSIR Japan, SSIR Korea, Stanford Social Innovation Review Brasil, and SSIR Arabia. 🌏 See the full list: https://lnkd.in/eXC8CDvE Among the most popular articles: 💡“Design Thinking Misses the Mark” by Anne-Laure Fayard & Sarah Fathallah 💡“The Three-Legged Stool of Readiness-Centered Founder Transitions” by Mary Connor   💡“The Strategic Value of Trust-Based Philanthropy” by Stacey Faella & Ryan Roberson

Are you too overwhelmed to measure impact effectively? Are you feeling burdened by demands to monitor, evaluate, and learn (MEL) from what your organization is doing? Join us for a two-part SSIR Live! webinar-workshop and learn how to create a customized, right-fit framework for impact measurement. Book your calendar now: https://lnkd.in/e_nPxi_v cc: Mary Kay Gugerty Loic Watine Innovations for Poverty Action Evans School of Public Policy & Governance, University of Washington

How younger generations approach giving? Experts estimate a $72 trillion intergenerational wealth transfer in the United States over the next 20 years. Join us for a #free webinar where we’ll explore the motivations, attitudes, and preferred causes of this influential donor cohort. Sponsored by DAFgiving360. Register today: https://lnkd.in/eYByJzaD cc: Fred Kaynor Jon Bergdoll Barbara Wheeler-Bride Michael Moody Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy

Is there a better way to train public health leaders? Epidemiology is a cornerstone of public health education. It has contributed to the extraordinary success of the field in preventing and combating disease. However, the traditional competencies taught in public health schools, such as biostatistics and health services administration, can only help so much to address the threat of new pathogens, the impact of climate change on health, and the role of global corporations in affecting our health. Claire Chaumont and Tim McDonald argue that today’s public health leaders need a new set of skills: “Epidemiology is important, but changing people’s minds and hearts is also essential.” 🩺 Read more about their solution: https://lnkd.in/eZaQ_p_t

📚 If you’re looking for a last-minute gift for a social innovator in your life—or just something to curl up with, in a warm place when it’s cold outside—we’ve got you covered. We polled some of our favorite thinkers and doers in the SSIR world to recommend the best book they read this year, and why. Explore the list: https://lnkd.in/eFZZDbdn Special thanks to Carissa Carter, Andy Hoffman, Auden Schendler, Joan Garry, Eric Nee, Vera Michalchik, Lina Srivastava, Navi Radjou நவி ராஜூ 🇮🇳 🇫🇷 🇺🇸, Aida Davis Aida D., Sam Daley-Harris, Robb Willer, Annie Neimand, PhD, Dr. Michael McAfee, and Kevin Starr for their recommendations.

“One of the latest trends in the development world is leadership localization, a term that describes a usually Western funder’s effort to shift power to usually non-Western local communities, and thus create a more meaningful presence in the countries where their grantees implement programs. ... “While more and more organizations are shifting leadership in this direction, especially on the African continent, the discourse has tended to focus more on the why than the how. The argument for the adoption of many novel concepts tends to come first and the best practices second, so this isn’t surprising. But because localization risks appearing—and sometimes ends up being—disingenuous, organizations must understand how to do it in ways that won’t undermine their work or generate distrust from the communities with whom they engage.” Sylvia K. Ilahuka of the Segal Family Foundation shares four strategies the foundation has used for successful transitions to local leadership.

How can philanthropic capital be best utilised as a sector evolves? We looked back at our 5-10 year work in 2 specific sectors (Digital Society , Property Inclusivity) with Sattva Consulting to understand this better. These retrospective studies helped us to contextualise our investing work through a 5-stage sector lifecycle evolution framework (LNMET ) and to understand which interventions worked better as a sector evolved. Rathish Balakrishnan , Lekhya Reddy and I distill these learnings in Stanford Social Innovation Review The one big takeaway: A flexible chequebook that supports a wide range of interventions (research, communication & awareness building campaigns, seeding lighthouse demonstration projects, investing in start-ups) opens up the possibility of supporting the most effective forms of intervention and can activate multiple pathways towards progress depending on the stage of evolution of a sector. We do hope our experience and learnings are helpful in expanding the conversation on how to best leverage philanthropic capital as well as other forms of funding for development.  Welcome a continued dialogue on this!