Sir Ronald Cohen, widely regarded as the father of British venture capital, caused a stir with a recent post on the HBR-Bridgespan Insight Center: "Social Impact Investing is the New Venture Capital." The piece, co-authored with William Sahlman, argued that impact investing (the practice of investing...

Since the term "impact investing" was coined in 2008, the movement has gained tremendous momentum. Until recently, the de facto home for most self-identified impact investors -- investors looking to generate both social and environmental good, along with financial return -- has been the U.S. and Europe. But that is...

You're an activist in Kenya. You're mad about corruption in your country -- with hundreds of millions of dollars meant to aid people in poverty being siphoned off by greedy officials. You want to speak out, but worry that doing so might put your life in danger.

What should...

This is not an invitation to a picnic.

So warns the preface of Antony Bugg-Levine and Jed Emerson's book Impact Investing: Transforming How We Make Money While Making A Difference.

If you haven't heard of impact investing -- the practice of investing money for both financial return and...

On Wednesday, the California State legislature will be reviewing SB201, a landmark bill that would create a new corporate form known as the Flexible Purpose Corporation.

Why is this important?

Right now, instead of recognizing that business and market-based strategies have the potential to bring...

Last week, while browsing Sfgate.com, I came across a photo essay that made me want to stick my head into an oven.

If you want to see incredibly well rendered images that do the opposite of motivate action, take a gander. The first photo is that of Jean...

For the past month or two, social media gurus have been feverishly debating a range of topics -- from whether they deserve Nobel Peace Prizes, to whether or not Twitter was the engine for the Tea Party revolution.

If you missed it, the big controversy started when bestselling...

For nearly eight years, I held leadership positions in international women's organizations. And for all eight of those years, every time a stranger asked me what I did for a living, I always felt a brief twinge of discomfort, as if I needed to offer some kind of caveat or...

In the past several decades, we have seen a tide-shift in the way we think about social change. It is a shift towards recognizing the interconnectedness of issues; a paradigm in which words 'resistance' and 'domination' are being trumped by words like 'effectiveness' and 'results.' It is a shift away...

The other day, I was having coffee in a café in Menlo Park, California -- a small town in the heart of Silicon Valley -- and overheard a horrifying conversation.

It was late morning on Tuesday. Four mothers, appearing to be in their early forties, had gathered to catch up....

Most changemakers can't exactly remember when it is they decided to commit themselves to attempting to better the world. They generally give vague answers to the question: the influence of a parent, or a general feeling of discontent about a particular issue.

Simone Honikman, however, remembers the moment vividly....

I have to admit that, like many people, it was only recently that I woke up to the importance of global warming.

Before that, environmentalism was always someone else's issue. Something I was sympathetic towards, but in a vague kind of way. I recycled, poorly. I...

A few weeks back, I found myself in Orlando, Florida, helping to lead a panel on using technology for social change at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing Conference.

We spent the afternoon in small breakout sessions. I had the pleasure of talking to a handful...

Can we agree that International Women's Day doesn't seem to get the attention it deserves? There are three and half billion plus women on the planet, and you'd think if it did, the noise would be deafening. But yet somehow it comes and goes like a whisper. At least...