Practical conversations about organized social change.
Inside Social Innovation is a serious, conference-room-close look at social-sector leadership. Episodes move from climate coalitions and political polarization to community partnership, beneficiary feedback, entrepreneurship, and pandemic response.
PRESS PLAY
Inside Social Innovation is a large archive of conversations about how social-sector work is actually done. It is not built around hot takes. Its center of gravity is institutional responsibility: what foundations, nonprofits, community organizers, and social-sector leaders can do when public problems grow faster than old habits can handle. Episodes move across climate change, political polarization, COVID-19, community partnership, constituent feedback, and entrepreneurship in disadvantaged communities. The register is serious, but not sterile. Speakers talk in the language of grants, capacity, coalitions, boards, data, neighborhoods, and trust. A Crisis and Change episode on climate solutions frames philanthropy as a place where bridging strategies matter, especially when shared ground is larger than the disputed edge. Another episode treats polarization as a public condition that leaders must navigate rather than merely condemn. The community-focused conversations are more grounded. They ask whether nonprofits can stop treating people as cases and start treating them as partners. That question gives the show much of its value. Inside Social Innovation is strongest when it lets practitioners describe the friction of the work: limited capacity, irregular feedback loops, disconnected entrepreneurs, and communities asked to absorb decisions made elsewhere. It also captures optimism, but usually in operational terms. Opportunity looks like access to retail space, better listening systems, flexible funding, or a fuller coalition. The show’s live-session material can feel less polished than a studio interview. That informality is part of the record. Listeners hear people testing language, naming constraints, and translating large ideals into program design. The result is useful for nonprofit leaders, funders, organizers, policy-minded listeners, and anyone tracking the mechanics of social innovation. It is a show about change after the headline has passed. The questions are big. The answers tend to be practical.
Made for: For nonprofit leaders, funders, social entrepreneurs, and policy-minded listeners who want grounded discussion of social change. It especially suits people interested in how institutions collaborate with communities under pressure.
What sets it apart: The show connects high-level social-sector leadership with concrete operating questions, from grant flexibility to client feedback and neighborhood entrepreneurship. Its value is the mix of institutional perspective and on-the-ground implementation detail.
Social entrepreneurs and leaders from business, government, philanthropy, and the nonprofit sector discuss how they are confronting today's most pressing challenges. From Stanford Social Innovation Review
Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A practical case for widening climate coalitions by starting with shared ground before pushing toward harder agreement.
Climate action is framed here as a coalition problem and an execution problem, rather than a slogan. Tanya Allen of the McKnight Foundation lays out a 70-20-10 approach: begin with the 60 to 70 percent of an issue people may already share, test whether another 20 percent can be…
A grounded look at how two foundations adapted quickly during COVID-19.
Inside Social Innovation wraps its Crisis and Change series with Rajiv Shah and Mark Sussman examining how COVID-19 pushed the Rockefeller Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to adjust fast.
A local, numbers-backed look at entrepreneurship as neighborhood infrastructure.
Derek Brazil presents Mortar as a practical answer to the long neglect of poor and minority communities, where talented people are too often overlooked and under-resourced.
Derek Brazil, co-founder of Mortar, discusses how his organization creates entrepreneurship opportunities in Cincinnati's poor and minority communities.
Eric Nee and Dan LeDuc host a conversation with Dr.
Inside Social Innovation examines climate solutions through conversations with Tanya Allen of the McKnight Foundation and John Palfrey of the MacArthur Foundation.
Inside Social Innovation's episode on Selco follows Harish Hande's effort to bring affordable solar power to India's rural poor and convert energy access into ownership and income.
Inside Social Innovation hosts Dan LeDuc and Eric Nee examine racial reckoning with Crystal Haling of the Libra Foundation and Sunil Shah of the Asian American Foundation.
Dan LaDuke and Eric Nee introduce a conversation with Susan Uran of the Pew Charitable Trusts and Sarah Rosen Martel of the Urban Institute about political polarization.
Jessica Blank moderates a Stanford Social Innovation Review panel with Nicole Starr, Maria Banji, and Courtney Cogburn on using film, television, and virtual reality for social change.
A discussion at a nonprofit conference on how organizations can treat community members as partners, featuring leaders from various social justice groups.
Valerie Threlfall discusses the challenges nonprofits face in collecting and responding to client feedback, using live polling to engage the audience.
Derek Brazil discusses how his organization Mortar creates entrepreneurship opportunities for poor and minority communities.