A recent blogpost on Stanford Social Innovation Review discusses the unique role the private sector can play in advancing global health innovations.  Gabi Zedlmayer, a VP at Hewlett-Packard, leads a newly created business unit called the Office of Global Social Innovation.  The mere creation of a dedicated corporate branch to social innocation is indicative of HP's focus on leveraging its core business to advance social issues around the world.  While still not ubiquitous across most Fortune 500 companies, it is my hope that such business units become commonplace as the focus of social impact b

Walmart has just announced a five-year plan to make thousands of its store-brand packaged foods healthier as well as less costly.  The plan comes with the support of First Lady Michelle Obama, a champion for nutrition, healthy living and the reduction of child obesity.

By now, many people privy to the social sector have read the controversial op-ed recently published in the Wall Street Journal, “The Case Against Corporate Social Responsibility,” by Professor Aneel Karnani.  This article caused an uproar of monster-truck force sparking discussions abound both in favor and against Karnani’s viewpoint  The purpose of this blog post is not to debate the merits of that article as my colleague Cheryl Davenport provides a succinct response to this article in a recent Th

The following excerpt is taken from an article by Jason Saul and Cheryl Davenport currently featured on CRO Magazine's website and to be published in the October print edition.    

Stanford Social Innovation Review just published a wonderful article by Geoff Mulgan entitled "Measuring Social Value."It is very timely, in fact, because it continues the commentary of a recent Thoughtscrap by my colleague, Rick Groves, which provides a compelling argument on the need for the right data, whether quantitative or qualitative, when measuring social impact as opposed to data for data sake. I will let you all read through this piece but will offer up some of my favorite points:

In an opinion piece in last week’s Washington Post, the respected author and global editor of Thomson Reuters, Chrystia Freeland, blasted corporate social responsibility as a “cult” and a “fetish.”    At first glance, I found Ms.

It’s 18 months into the launch of an African development program and we’re rethinking our client’s logic model.  “Uh oh,” you say, “why wasn’t this fully baked from the get-go?”  As it turns out, the opportunity to revisit and revise theories, logic and ideas is truly terrific.  It’s terrific because the organization has invested in measurement and now has the data to inform and improve its strategy and produce greater if not significantly greater impact later.