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President Obama has sent a powerful message to the American public since taking office: Social innovation can play an important role in rebuilding a stronger country. With the passage of stimulus packages in areas such as clean energy, national service, and climate change, it's clear that the White House is approaching national challenges in new ways. In this panel, hosted by Full Circle Fund and sponsored by the Stanford Center for Social Innovation, key staff in the Obama administration provide the broad outlines for these exciting changes.

When it comes to online giving market places, the adage is: If you build it, few will come. So how do you drive enough people to such online spaces to make them work? In this talk, sponsored by the Stanford Center for Social Innovation, William Meehan, McKinsey senior director, talks about the opportunities and challenges in making online giving marketplaces successful, and what lies ahead in this area for organizations dedicated to making a genuine sustained impact in communities.

Kiva has created an online marketplace that allows ordinary citizens to help specific entrepreneurs around the world thrive with as little as $25. How did Kiva get the critical mass it needed to make its operations a go? How does it work with nonprofits, entrepreneurs, and lenders through the online format? In this talk, sponsored by the Stanford Center for Social Innovation, Kiva President Premal Shah talks about how the organization got started, how it functions, and how it plans to grow.

Neither markets nor charity alone are sufficient to help the world's poorest people. In this interview with host Sheela Sethuraman, Jacqueline Novogratz, founder of the Acumen Fund, describes how a combination of patient capital plus management support is making a difference in tackling poverty in Africa and Asia. Novogratz shares experiences and anecdotes from her recently published book, "The Blue Sweater: Bridging the Gap Between Rich and Poor in an Interconnected World."

How do we create an efficient capital market for philanthropy? What are the best ways to marry program evaluation with powerful dynamics among online giving places? What role should public policy take in all this? In this free-ranging talk, sponsored by the Stanford Center for Social Innovation, Randy Komisar offers a venture capitalist's perspective on these questions and more.

Social innovation can both ease the terrible consequences of the xenophobia and insularity inherent in nationalism, and enhance the positive opportunities for social change within established heritage and cultural traditions. In this discussion, sponsored by the Stanford Center for Social Innovation, experts consider topics ranging from multiculturalism within countries to cross-national and international cultural challenges and opportunities.

At its worst, program evaluation is a useless activity that generates lots of boring data and irrelevant conclusions. But at its best, argues Mark Kramer in a talk he gave at the 2008 Nonprofit Management Institute, it can be a strategic tool for the genuine improvement of a nonprofit. He offers exemplars of organizations that have used evaluation effectively to advance their missions.

To reduce or even stop the threat of global warming, it stands to reason that the first line of defense is to avoid using fossil fuels in the first place. In this overview followed by questions from the audience, John Podesta suggests that this can be done by focusing on greater energy efficiency--both at small and large levels--from everyday items to international policy.

Despite being the fastest land animal, cheetahs can't run from the threat of habitat loss. Laurie Marker of the Cheetah Conservation Fund has used a multi-pronged effort including habitat restoration, resource management education, and job creation to address that threat. In this interview by Sheela Sethuraman for the Tech Museum Awards, Marker describes the creative measures she has taken to save cheetahs and improve the lives of the people who live near them.

The Business Roundtable announced an official collaboration between its Partnership for Disaster Response and the American Red Cross in September, 2007. Neal Denton, Senior VP of Government Relations and Strategic Partnerships at the American Red Cross discusses the value of this relationship to the Red Cross, the role of the private sector in disaster response, and plans for strengthening this relationship.

On the one hand, biofuels offer a green substitute against petrol-based fuels such as gasoline. On the other, they are still expensive to produce and are causing a steep inflation in food prices the world over. A panel of experts debates the root causes of the increase in food prices, and the need to produce biofuels vis-a-vis the measures to tackle the economic and political side effects of its production.

MySpace, Flicker, YouTube, and Facebook are big brands and major movers in the commercial, social networking world. In this 2008 Nonprofit Management Institute talk, an event convened by the Stanford Social Innovation Review, Jeff Patrick of Common Knowledge shares how nonprofits can use such tools--and customize their own--to capture constituencies and raise funds. He further shows where social networking is headed so that nonprofits can begin to incorporate it into their long-term horizons.

Research shows that spending time and money on others makes people happy--so why don't more people donate to or volunteer for nonprofits? In this talk, sponsored by the Stanford Center for Social Innovation, Stanford marketing professor Jennifer Aaker offers insights into the phenomenon. She then turns those insights into lessons nonprofits can use to create compelling ways for more people to give financially and personally to the causes they care about.

The key to success in any team or enterprise is to develop good working relationships. In this talk, sponsored by the Stanford Center for Social Innovation, consultant Diana McLain Smith, author of Divide and Conquer: How Great Teams Turn Conflict into Strength, shows how those who care about performance and relationships can simultaneously nurture both. She offers tips for seeing work relationships in new ways, and practical suggestions for enhancing them.

Companies can indeed make money while operating in socially responsible and environmentally friendly ways. It just takes what supply chain expert Hau Lee calls the Triple-A approach--having agility, adaptability, and alignment. Closing the Stanford 2008 Responsible Supply Chains Conference, Lee describes how small to mid-sized companies in China, India, and Israel boosted profits while shrinking waste and pollution and providing a fair workplace for employees.

Imagine your confusion if you had to design a system to improve the quality of education in distant underprivileged schools. What if you stepped away from the problem and asked, "What is the simplest 'system' that could work in the real world?" In host Sheela Sethuraman's interview, Randy Wang describes his motivation to create Digital StudyHall, a collection of mundane technologies that have dramatically improved long distance education. His progress and goals are also discussed.