Last time, we discussed three more ways that strategy at a for-impact enterprise is different than at a for-profit. Today let’s wrap up with the final two that we’ve experienced: different data requirements and a longer time horizon.

6. The supporting analysis is qualitative and targeted

While data-driven decision making is equally important in any strategic planning process, the kind of MORE ››

As we’ve been discussing, strategy at a for-impact enterprise can be very different than at a for-profit. Last time, we discussed how growth is not always the goal and the organization’s purpose is rarely settled. Today let’s discuss three other areas of difference: process, audience, and decision rights.

3. Bottom-up engagement can be essential

In our experience, corporate strategic planning processes often start from the C-suite down, MORE ››

As we mentioned last time, we’ve noticed seven distinct ways that creating strategy for a social problem can be quite different from creating strategy for profit. We’ll start today by digging into the first two: how the goal and the starting-points can be the opposite of what you might expect.

1. Growth is not always the goal

Corporate strategic planning processes focus on analyzing how the organization can increase its growth and profitability in new and existing markets. MORE ››

A few weeks ago, world leaders gathered in Davos, Switzerland to map a path forward for accelerating the flow of capital into impact investing, a discussion which was facilitated in partnership between the World Economic Forum and member firms of Deloitte TTL.*

A group of approximately 50 participants – including multibillion dollar hedge funds, private equity firms, sovereign wealth funds, asset managers, financial services companies, foundations, and social enterprises – spent over two hours brainstorming and MORE ››

Imagine that you’ve just joined the leadership team or the board of a nonprofit, social enterprise, or a foundation. It comes time to re-examine the strategy, and so you reach back into your memory banks for the last time you went through a similar exercise. If your career was in business, you probably have a model in mind of how strategy works—and so you do your best to contribute, jumping into the conversation with various suggestions for how to shape the organization. Yet there seems to be something missing MORE ››

The United States’ single greatest collective investment in human capital—and in its future generations—is public education. Yet today that investment is generating very poor returns for low-income students.

Members of the lowest-income U.S. families are 10 times less likely to earn a bachelor’s degree than members of the highest-income families. This situation would be troubling in any environment, but with income inequality only increasing and global job MORE ››

In today’s fast-changing world, why freeze your strategic thinking in a five-year plan?

This post was originally published on the Stanford Social Innovation Review blog. 

Take a moment and read these two words: strategic plan. Now close your eyes and picture one. If what comes up is a thick binder, gathering dust on a shelf next to other thick binders from five and ten MORE ››

We’re always on the hunt for the deeper news about social change. Here’s what we’d recommend from the last month:

Moving Forward in Tough Times

David Bornstein’s weekly Fixes column in the New York Times highlights promising new developments in social change, and in this year-end column he describes how three dozen organizations he’s covered have thrived in 2012, in spite of the continuing economic hardship.   MORE ››

Originally published on SocialFinance.ca

On October 19th the Rockefeller Foundation, Omidyar Network, and the Latin America-based AVINA Foundation launched the Impact Economy Innovations Fund, an $840,000 pool of grant funds intended to help develop and grow the impact investing industry throughout the region. The launch was MORE ››

“By the age of 21, the average young American has spent somewhere between 2,000-3,000 hours reading books—and more than 10,000 hours playing computer and video games.” If you’re not a gamer, your first reaction is probably to think: “What a waste of time!” But in Reality is Broken, Jane McGonigal makes a convincing case otherwise.She urges us to learn from game designers and tap into the enormous game-playing population as a resource for social change. She argues that computer and video games are a positive force in our society, naming twelve specific ways that games can improve the world. MORE ››

Hope Consulting, in conjunction with GuideStar, recently released their third report on donor behavior and charitable giving in the social sector. The motivation behind the original Money for Good (MFG1) report in early 2010 was to “seek the voice of the customer for charitable giving” and to better understand the emergence of impact investing.  Building on the existing fact base gathered by MFG1’s comprehensive study on donor behavior, motivations, and preferences for charitable giving, the second report, Money for Good II (MFG2), looked at ways in which nonprofits and foundations could influence giving behaviors to support their own mission. The MORE ››

We’re always on the hunt for the deeper news about social change. Here’s what we’d recommend from the last two months:

Markets for Good: Upgrading the Infrastructure for Social Change

“In order to move towards a more effective sector, powered by information, we need to begin by strengthening the core building blocks of data exchange.” A new vision paper from Markets For Good details  how and why the social sector needs to upgrade its information infrastructure, including MORE ››

One of the best-known and most-debated examples of crowdsourcing is Yelp.com, which brought a new rapid-cycle feedback loop to the relationship between customers and retail services. GreatNonprofits is built on the same model, offering a place for people who interact with a nonprofit to share their views about its performance. To see them in action, check out their crowdsourced Top-Rated Nonprofits Awards for 2012.  MORE ››

In 2008, Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life, with generous support from the Jim Joseph Foundation, began testing an innovative program that leveraged peer networks and relationships to help Hillel achieve its goal of “doubling the number of Jewish students who are involved in Jewish life and who have meaningful Jewish experiences.” Piloted at 10 colleges, MORE ››

Imagine the field of college completion having a clearer understanding of the different pathways students take to get to and through college – not defined by their race or income, but by the obstacles they face and the resources they have (or don’t have) to overcome them.  We believe this knowledge could be transformative – allowing individual organizations to better target and serve students, and enabling deeper collaboration between organizations. MORE ››

SOCAP12 was bigger than ever before. Some 1,600 social entrepreneurs, impact investors, funders, advisers and other ‘social capital markets’ participants packed into Fort Mason Center on the San Francisco waterfront by day, and bounced from reception to merry reception by night. It was a four-day feast of rousing plenary addresses, meaty panel discussions, funky design workshops, private roundtables and MORE ››

We’re always on the hunt for the deeper news about social change, and it’s been two months since we’ve had a chance to sit back and sift through the many headlines that have popped up. Here’s what we’d recommend:

Mobile Phone Data: The Oil of the Digital Age

“There is an unprecedented and largely overlooked opportunity to harness digital data MORE ››

Francis Pisani, a veteran “journalist entrepreneur,” joined us at our San Francisco office last week at the close of 300 interviews with technology innovators in 45 cities across five continents. Capping a career of covering revolutions around the world, fifteen years ago he moved to the Bay Area – “where east meets west, north meets south, meets the future” – to cover the revolution in information technology. For a MORE ››

An increasing number of funders today are excited about networks’ potential to coordinate action for systems change that extends beyond what any individual grantee can accomplish. The core question in many of their minds is what it means to support a network. We were excited that The Foundation Review carried that conversation forward late MORE ››

Throughout the Global South, nonprofits and social enterprises have long been using mobile phones as the platform for creative new ways to fight disease and lift communities out of poverty. What used to be future potential is now present reality, with mobiles now reaching fully 87% of the world’s population. MORE ››