Prioritizing Ideas That Can Scale

Our mission at Tides is to accelerate the pace of social change, working with innovative partners to solve society’s toughest problems. Today’s challenges are too great, too urgent, and too many to tinker around at the margins. While there is no lack of ideas for solutions, how do we best prioritize and support promising approaches and innovations, scaling them in service of real and lasting impact?

Many social innovations fail because they are unable to bridge the “stagnation chasm”—where proven ideas get stuck before they are able to maximize their impact. In the paper Why Proven Solutions Struggle to Scale Up, first published in the Stanford Social Innovation Review, Tides CEO Kriss Deiglmeier and Tides Advisor Amanda Greco identify the three main obstacles that social innovations face, and what entrepreneurs as well as funders can do to assure that the best solutions cross the chasm, creating lasting change. Read the full paper to learn more about the stagnation chasm.

“If we are serious about propelling proven social innovations to achieve widespread impact, we must find solutions that overcome each of these barriers.”

All global corporations started somewhere as small businesses, and world-famous ice cream company Ben & Jerry’s is no exception. What is exceptional is that the company has had a social consciousness—and social impact—since the very beginning and retains it to this day, even as part of a global brands company. With a three-pronged product, economic, and social mission, the world-famous ice cream company aims to create “linked prosperity” for everyone—and everything—connected to its production and consumption. Tides Director of Corporate Philanthropy Edward Wang sat down with Jeff Furman, trustee of Ben & Jerry’s Foundation and board member emeritus of Ben & Jerry’s, to talk about how the company got its start and why Ben & Jerry's bakes their values into everything that they do.

Opportunities and experiences in youth—or lack thereof—determine the course and outcome of the rest of a life. This is why quality education for all is essential to realizing a world of shared prosperity and social justice, and why it is a core issue area here at Tides. In 2017 alone, Tides Foundation granted $50.5 million to organizations focused on quality education in the U.S. and abroad. Long time Tides Senior Advisor Shauné Zunzanyika works with incredible partners innovating and scaling solutions in education. One of them, Girl Rising, uses the power of story and media to inspire girls to go to and stay in school, galvanizing communities to break down the barriers holding girls back. Another partner, Age of Learning, uses an innovative program called Bring Learning Home to give kids access to cutting-edge tools to use at their own pace, in their own homes. Learn more in this interview with Shauné: Daring Change in Action.

Tides Community Updates

Colin Higgins Youth Courage Award Winners

The 18th Annual Youth Courage Award winners are recognized for extraordinary leadership and advocacy on behalf of LGBTQ youth:

• Moises Rodriguez, 20, of Chicago, IL, a DACA recipient and community organizer, has shown tremendous courage in speaking his truth about both his sexual orientation and undocumented status.
• Grace Dolan-Sandrino, 17, of Washington, DC, an Afro-Latina trans teen​, uses her voice as a young artist and journalist to tell of her trans experience.
• Mahad Olad, 20, of Ithaca, NY, a young gay Black African immigrant, has shared his harrowing story of escaping conversion therapy through his journalism.
• Dwayne Cole, Jr., 20, of Detroit, MI, carves out inclusive spaces for the LGBTQ community and helps tell their story through his leadership.