Business Planning, Feasibility Studies, Grow, Growth/Scaling Plans, Impact, Impact Measurement, Lean Start-Up, Organizational Assessments, Social Impact Architects, Strategic Planning
Remember those “Choose Your Own Adventure” novels where you could make decisions along the way and customize your own ending? They all started with the same warning label: “The adventures you take are a result of your choice. You are responsible because you choose! …...
Communicate, Evaluation Planning, Impact, Impact Measurement, Program Development, Social Impact Architects, Storytelling
In 2020, The New York Times published a great article, “Social Programs Can Sometimes Turn a Profit for Taxpayers,” bringing Social Return on Investment (SROI) and cost-benefit analyses into the mainstream. In it, Seema Jayachandran, an economics professor at...
Corporate Social Responsibility, Impact Measurement, Social Impact Architects, Social Movements
Each year when we observe Martin Luther King Jr. Day, we are reminded of the importance of social movements to our country’s evolution. Movements were believed to have started in the late 1800s around workers’ rights, eventually leading to the labor movement in the...
Communicate, Grow, Impact, Impact Measurement, Lead, Lean Start-Up, Organizational Assessments, Organizational Culture, Social Impact Architects, Storytelling
I’ve always loved the ancient parable about the elephant. Six blind men were asked to describe an elephant by touching its body parts. The first man felt its side and described the elephant as a wall, the second man touched its tusk and thought it was a spear, the...
Communicate, Fundraising, Impact, Impact Measurement, Marketing & Communication, Social Impact Architects, Storytelling
Countdowns to the holidays have already begun showing up as memes on social media. Of course, in the social sector, that means we are already working on our year-end appeals. In the coming month, we will collectively send out millions of solicitations via email, text...
Business Planning, Grow, Growth/Scaling Plans, Impact, Impact Measurement, Lean Start-Up, Program Development, Social Impact Architects
“Evolve or die.” This saying is even truer today than when I started Social Impact Architects. Just two decades ago, I learned about social business plans in business school at Duke, but today traditional business plans are being replaced by a more efficient tool: the...
