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"An Education with a Mission"

Social Innovation at Stanford

(First appeared in The Stanford Daily, 1/25/2005)

Stanford is currently the leading undergraduate institution for social innovation. Over the past six years, since the first class in social entrepreneurship started, student interest has grown tremendously in innovative non-profits and for-profits with social missions.

The contemporary social innovation movement began, in large part, in the Bay Area. It arose from a combination of new wealth, socially-conscious business leaders, and entrepreneurial spirit. Many nationally renowned nonprofits and for-profits, such as Delancey Street and The Bridgespan Group, began in the Bay Area. Local foundations, such as the Hewlett Foundation and Packard Foundation, have played important roles in shaping the movement and the nonprofit sector. .

Stanford benefits from being located within the heartland of social innovation. Both the Graduate School of Business and the undergraduate programs have begun to promote and involve students in the growing field.

The Stanford Graduate School of Business houses the Center for Social Innovation in addition to the Public Management Program for MBA students. The Center for Social Innovation sponsors research, organizes conferences, and publishes the quarterly “Stanford Social Innovation Review,” a journal on managing and improving nonprofits.

The challenges of social innovation cross many academic fields: nonprofits need to find funding, manage revenue streams, motivate volunteers, assess needs, and measure their social return on investment. The Center for Social Innovation brings together scholars and people with experience and research in these areas to help nonprofit leaders find new ideas and operate effectively.

Stanford alone has an undergraduate curriculum as well, which now includes a minor in Social Innovation. The Public Policy and Urban Studies Programs offer several course options for students who wish to study social entrepreneurship. For example, Melanie Edwards (founder, MobileMedia) and Laura Scher (CEO, Working Assets) lead the introductory Social Entrepreneurship courses, including an SE Collaboratory where students work in groups and actually develop a business plan for an organization that would work to alleviate a certain social need. This quarter in “Business Concepts and Skills for the Social Sector,” Working Assets president Michael Kieschnick lectures and leads discussions from the practitioner’s side of the social innovation movement, from mission statements to marketing. Last quarter, a team of students from Fusion and the GSB’s Public Management Program worked with Melanie Edwards and GSB Professor Jim Phills (co-director, Center for Social Innovation) to put on a 1-unit lecture series which gave students the opportunity to listen to a variety of social entrepreneurs speak about the evolution and growth of their organizations and then give advice to students through Q & A sessions afterward. Social Innovation is a concentration in the Public Policy Program and a minor through the Program on Urban Studies.

The social entrepreneurship curriculum has empowered several teams of students to participate in the annual business plan competition put on by the Business Association for Stanford Engineering Students (BASES). The competition started with an Innovator Challenge and an Entrepreneur Challenge, but has expanded to include a Social Entrepreneur Challenge. The SE Collaboratory directly prepares students for this socially-minded business plan competition, where teams of Stanford students compete to win a cash prize of a few thousand dollars which can be used to fund the starting of their organizations. The competition includes a series of presentation rounds which are judged by Bay Area social entrepreneurs, thus simultaneously creating a forum for discussion and networking as well as a way for students to get feedback from experienced practitioners.

Undergraduate student groups also have focused on promoting social entrepreneurship on campus. The student group FUSION (Future Social Innovators Network) has promoted social innovation and entrepreneurship among undergraduates at campus over the last three years. The group initially grew out of a class on social entrepreneurship by one of the academic leaders in the field, Gregory Dees, then at Stanford and currently at Duke University. “The class made me realize that social entrepreneurship had the potential to unite the differences between public service and entrepreneurial communities at Stanford,” said Tarek Ghani (’03), co-founder of Fusion. The group has sponsored conferences, classes in Public Policy, and consulting projects with local non-profits.

The Stanford Association for International Development (commonly known as SAID) has also worked to promote social innovation on campus over the last three years. For the last three years, the group has organized events for students to learn more about international development, including an annual conference. This year, the conference will focus on the role of non-governmental organizations and others in improving international health. The conference is entitled, “Innovations in Improving Access to Health Care: Appropriate and Feasible?,” and will be held on February 26th in Bishop Auditorium. “We hope the conference will get students more interested in innovative ideas in international development and health,” said Christina Riechers (’05), conference co-coordinator.

Social innovation is obviously alive and well at Stanford. There are endless opportunities for students to get involved through classes, student groups, competitions, and more.

In order for social innovation to create real change more is needed: ideas and inspiration need to become real organizations that change real lives. But as a first step, and an important step, Stanford succeeds in providing students with the tools and connections to become the next generation of social entrepreneurs.

Wow, great article. How can I read them all?

All the interviews with outstanding social entrepreneurs and articles have been collected into a report on social innovation. It is available below for easy reading, printing, and sharing.

The Story of Social Innovation:
Interviews with Social Entrepreneurs