Helping Nonprofits Benefit From Fresh Ideas
Insight Labs, a nonprofit in Chicago, gathers outside experts to help charities think through tough questions.
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
Greater Openness About Finances Helps a Chicago Charity Make Plans
Big Brothers Big Sisters of Metropolitan Chicago now gets its whole staff involved in budgeting and monitoring expenses.
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
A Narrower Focus Helps City Year Win Grants and Increase Its Impact
City Year now throws all of its efforts into curbing the school dropout rate and is drawing more grants and better results.
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
New Fund to Promote Innovation in Philanthropy
The North Carolina group hopes the money will draw attention to new approaches to social problems and help it expand.
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
Nonprofits Find Delicious Opportunities in the Food-Truck Craze
Nonprofits are creating mobile farmers’ markets, nurturing small businesses and calling attention to social needs and cultural events.
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
A Donor Helps Push Innovation at Wharton
A $2.7-million gift to the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School will push ideas from the classroom out to the real world.
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
Innovation Roundup: McKinsey Sponsors Video Contest
The consulting company puts out a call for social-innovation videos, and Fast Company starts a new Web site highlighting new approaches to tackling tough problems.
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
Playing Devil’s Advocate for the Greater Good
The U.S. Army has assigned teams to challenge assumptions by commanders and staffs, to question decisions, and to present alternatives—a practice that has been copied in the fight against polio.
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
At a nonprofit ideas conference, a Harvard researcher explains how certain body postures lead to hormonal changes that increase confidence and encourage risk taking.
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
A Star Turn for Little-Understood Banking Groups
The Opportunity Finance Network hopes that a new partnership with Starbucks will help raise the profile of organizations that offer banking services in low-income communities.
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
Applying Design Thinking to Health Care
Health care could benefit from design’s focus on customer needs, the co-founder of a research initiative at Harvard Medical School argues in The Atlantic.
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
Ideas Conference Will Stream Live This Week
PopTech’s annual meeting brings together people with a diverse areas of expertise to talk about social change.
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
‘Disruptive Forces’ Face Nonprofits
A new report details emerging trends to which social-service groups will have to adapt and urges organizations to put aside the “bunker mentality” they took during the downturn.
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
A Design Firm Creates a Nonprofit Arm to Help Charities Get Better Results
IDEO, a consultant to companies like Apple and Bank of America, is showing nonprofits how to reach out to beneficiaries before designing new aid approaches.
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor
Giving teams a space to work fosters creativity by getting ideas off people’s computers and out where others can see them, says a nonprofit leader.
By Laura Weiss
Contributor
Bill Gates’s Innovation Book Report
The Microsoft co-founder reviews Where Good Ideas Come From on his Web site.
By NICOLE WALLACE
Features Editor