Trends in Social Innovation

Trends in Social Innovation is a new initiative of The Philanthropic Enterprise that seeks to inspire beneficent social action by using journalistic reporting and case studies to ask—and answer—a set of interrelated questions, such as:

• What are people doing now to make their lives better?
• How do they share knowledge of what works?
• What feedback mechanisms and systems of survival, especially in non-priced environments, enable people (and organizations) to adjust their activities to reflect changing conditions in the world around them?
• How might social networks and information technologies improve the effectiveness of voluntary associations and organizations?

Social learning and innovation are inherently practical modes of human action. They can be inculcated only as they are voluntarily practiced. Social entrepreneurs, philanthropists, policymakers, and the people they are charged with helping would all benefit if we could identify where these arts are practiced well, understand what makes for sound practice, and protect these spaces as crucibles of social learning and innovation. That is the goal of Trends in Social Innovation.