10 Great Social Innovation Reads: January

I’ve posted a couple of times before (here and here) lists of things in the world of social innovation that got me thinking. I’ve decided to make such a list a regular monthly feature of the Social Velocity blog because there is just so much great stuff out there. And I always love to be pointed to new thinkers, writers, innovators in this field, so I’m hoping you do too.

I’m calling it the 10 Great Social Innovation Reads, because there is actually an endless list of great stuff out there, but these are the top 10, at least in my book, over the last month. But, please add to the list in the comments. I’d love to know what your top 10 are.

1. 130 Ways to Fund Your Social Venture: From Social Earth comes a great list of organizations that fund (through grants, loans, angel investments, etc) for-profit and nonprofit social entrepreneurs. I’ve never seen a more comprehensive list.
2. Towards a Redefinition of Scale: Carol Thompson Cole, head of Venture Philanthropy Partners in Washington DC (one of the largest and most effective venture philanthropy funds) offers her insights on how nonprofits can redefine scale from output to outcome based.
3. How Nonprofits Can Avoid a Cash Crisis: In these challenging economic times, the Nonprofit Finance Fund offers ideas for how nonprofits can avoid a cash shortfall.
4. The Nation in Numbers: Fascinating data visualizations from The Atlantic about how the recession changed us financially, politically, socially and much more.
5. Speed Freak Philanthropy: Sean Stannard-Stockton of the Tactical Philanthropy blog argues that philanthropists need to catch up with the rest of the world and move at a faster pace.
6. 7 Location-Based Marketing Tactics for Social Enterprise: From Carbon Outreach a great list of ways to use new location-based social media tools, like Foursquare, to build support, resources, advocacy for your cause. If you’ve wondered about some of these tools and how you could actually use them in your work, take a look.
7. Philanthroper Hopes to Boost Charity of the Day, $1 At a Time: There is a new entrant to the world of micro-philanthropy, called Philanthroper. They are looking to be the Groupon (an online daily group coupon system) for the philanthropic world. People can donate together to nonprofit causes. Fascinating model.
8. Monterey Bay Acquarium’s Integrated Mobile Strategy: Beth Kanter gives us a great case study on a nonprofit’s use of mobile technology to deliver on mission and build support. It makes clear the endless possibilities contained in the ever-changing world of social media.
9. Mission Insurance: From the biggest thinker in the world of philanthropy, Lucy Bernholz, comes a big new idea: mission insurance. What if there were a way for investors in nonprofits and social businesses and those served by those organizations to have a guarantee that social impact was going to happen? I’m not sure it’s possible, but it’s fascinating to think about.
10. Google Finds it Hard to Reinvent Philanthropy: From Stephanie Strom at the New York Times comes a pretty scathing argument that Google’s big plans for Google.org (their philanthropic arm) resulted in little innovation. Will Google.org be able to reinvent themselves in order to reinvent philanthropy?

Photo Credit: hans s