Social Impact Lab

09/27/2022

Join us in person or online at Northeastern University for From Boston to Beirut (October 3-7) featuring Lynn Zovighian, the co-founder and managing director of The Zovighian Partnership and the Social Impact Lab's inaugural Zameli Family Fellow. As a social change leader and human rights activist, Lynn is integrating Social Impact Lab principles and practices into projects across the Middle East. Learn more about this week of talks and student workshops on doing the work of social change at the intersection of systems thinking, ethical practice, and social justice here: https://bit.ly/Boston2Beirut

04/06/2022

Please join SIL Director Rebecca Riccio & Lynn Zovighian, Co-Founder and Managing Director of The Zovighian Partnership (ZP) and ZP Public Office, on Wednesday, April 20, 9:00 am (Boston)/4:00 pm (Beirut) for an in-depth conversation about the urgency of building civil society's capacity to address the multiple crises Lebanon faces today. http://bit.ly/Beirut_Boston

ABOUT OUR SPEAKER
Lynn Zovighian is a social investor, columnist in the Lebanon-based pan-regional newspaper, Annahar, and Emerita Director of the Middle East & Arab Diasporas at NEXUS Global. Deeply committed to building a strong and peaceful future for Lebanon and the Middle East, she has built the ZP Public Office to serve local communities by using evidence-based practice to promote justice and accountability in areas of crisis and conflict. Lynn and her team are longtime partners to Yazda, a multi-national NGO founded in 2014 to support victims of the Yazidi genocide perpetrated by Da’esh in Iraq and the Kurdistan Region. They are pro bono expert advisors to NGOs participating in the international donor-led Lebanon Reform, Recovery, and Reconstruction Framework (3RF) and are collaborating with Human Rights Watch to monitor the distribution of international aid entering Lebanon. Drawing on philanthropic frameworks SIL Director Rebecca Riccio has developed as a social change educator and practitioner, Lynn and the ZP Public Office are re-imagining grant-making in Lebanon by empowering NGOs serving women and communities to have a voice in setting their own funding priorities.

03/07/2022

Northeastern students, come provide feedback on the Principles of Anti-Oppressive Community Engagement for University Educators and Researchers. Scan the QR code to sign up for the event and free Amelia's!

03/04/2022

Calling all Northeastern students who are interested in the SDGs! Build your social change toolkit while receiving a UN certificate as a

11/05/2021

Northeastern students, join Professor Rebecca Riccio & Dr. Ted Landsmark on a Summer 1 Dialogue of Civilizations exploring Black Culture, the Civil Rights Movement & Systems Change in the American South! First information session is Tuesday, November 9th at 310 Renaissance Park at 6:30pm. Link to the dialogue website and application in our bio!

10/08/2021

Northeastern students, what social challenges call you to action? SIL is offering a free online workshop on navigating complex problems and centering racial justice in the work of social change. Scan the QR code to join us on Tuesday, 10/19, 6-7:30 pm. Northeastern University College of Social Sciences and Humanities

12/31/2020

REFLECTING ON 2020, PART 2: Reckoning with White Supremacy and Racial Injustice

Social and racial justice have always been integral to the Social Impact Lab’s frameworks for social change, but George Floyd’s murder provided painful evidence that we must all work harder to dismantle white supremacy and systemic racism. Since May, SIL programs and affiliated courses in the Human Services Program and the School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs have been revised to increase the diversity of perspectives represented and intensify our examination of the ways the nonprofit sector and philanthropy perpetuate inequality in the U.S. This process included valuable input from undergraduate and graduate students. Our offerings will continue to evolve as we learn to do the work of anti-racism better in collaboration with students, faculty, staff, administrators, and community members who share our commitment to social and racial justice.

Partnership and collaboration figured prominently in other highlights from 2020 described below with links to several publicly available learning opportunities.

▪ While it seems like a lifetime ago, SIL began 2020 co-designing and co-hosting the Spring 2020 Myra Kraft Open Classroom, Climate Change: A Course for Everyone. Multiple classes focused on climate change’s disproportionate impact on communities of color and Indigenous communities. The archives are available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4W3iB5DS1E&list=PLhGq7NS5QKvVCRIA4CBpiDfdORBR3Rc6R

▪ In June, SIL partnered with Professor Matt Lee from the Human Services Program to offer a 21-Day Racial Justice Challenge to help faculty, staff, students, and alumni cultivate the habit of centering racial justice in our daily consciousness.

▪ The Dukakis Center invited SIL to facilitate From the Streets to the Classroom: Student Activists in the Time of Covid, a panel discussion in the Fall 2020 Open Classroom on post-pandemic recovery strategies. The video is available here: https://cssh.northeastern.edu/policyschool/events/myra-kraft-open-classroom/fall-2020/

▪ As part of the Presidential Council on Diversity and Inclusion’s Racial Literacy pop-up course and event series, SIL Director Rebecca Riccio was invited to speak on a panel on community and policing along with Rod Brunson, Margaret Burnham, and Lisa Bailey-Laguerre. Recordings of the entire series can be found here: https://racialliteracy.northeastern.edu/public-events/.

▪ SIL is advising the newly launched Northeastern Athletes for Equity Coalition’s fundraising initiative to support grant making to Boston area nonprofits addressing racial injustice. Learn more (and make a donation!) here: https://www.northeasternathletesforequitycoalition.org/.

▪ SIL is co-creating a series of workshops with the Office of University Advancement to support its commitment to promoting racial justice education and programming across the Northeastern network.

▪ SIL Director Rebecca Riccio is a member of the School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs’ Racial Justice Working Group, which is driving efforts to center racial justice more prominently and consistently in SPPUA’s teaching, research, and campus and community engagement. She is also a member of the Northeastern University Police Department Community Advisory Board, which was established following the death of George Floyd to address concerns about NUPD's role on campus and in the community.

Enormous thanks to all the colleagues, students, alumni, donors, and community partners who have provided knowledge, insight, support, and encouragement to SIL throughout 2020. We look forward to working with you in 2021.

To learn more about SIL’s work over the past year, please see REFLECTING ON 2020, PART I: Looking Back at a Year of Giving and Remembering a Dear Friend

RACIAL LITERACY Public Events Racial Literacy: Introduction and Reflections This opening event gathers the Northeastern community to discuss the meaning and relevance of racial literacy for all of our lives. The capacity to read, rethink, resist, and replace racism informs how we relate to one anoth...

12/31/2020

REFLECTING ON 2020, PART I: Looking Back at a Year of Giving and Remembering the Dear Friend Who Made Much of It Possible

The Social Impact Lab’s commitment to engaging in social change at the intersection of systems thinking and ethical reasoning took on new urgency in 2020. SIL’s experiential philanthropy programs routinely charge students to confront the theoretical, ethical, practical, and emotional challenges of allocating scarce resources in the face of enormous need. The challenges always inherent in “learning to give” and students’ sense of responsibility for doing it well were amplified as Covid-19 unleashed illness and systemic disruption on a global scale while illuminating the pervasiveness of racial injustice in the U.S. SIL responded by engaging students in awarding over $40,000 to Boston nonprofit organizations serving communities disproportionately harmed by the pandemic, as described below. But first let us remember the woman whose tireless dedication to giving and boundless faith in young people were pivotal to the growth of our flagship experiential philanthropy program, Northeastern Students4Giving (NS4G), and SIL’s launch in 2014.

IN MEMORIAM: DORIS BUFFETT

None of this year’s giving would have been possible without Doris Buffett, a dear friend who passed away in August. Feisty, warm, and authentic, Doris was the embodiment of generosity. Like her younger brother Warren, she was deeply committed to giving away all her money. Long before they became wealthy, the Buffett siblings had been raised with the understanding that everyone should give what they can, even if only in modest amounts. Doris also believed that young people should be taught how to give wisely. She put those ideas into practice by launching Learning by Giving (LxG), first as a program in her Sunshine Lady Foundation and later as a separate foundation that now supports a national network of universities where real-dollar grant making is embedded in academic courses.

Northeastern became part of the LxG network in 2010 and has received funding for NS4G ever since. Our longstanding collaboration with the foundation led to SIL’s launch in 2014 after we co-created Giving With Purpose, a massive open online course (MOOC) in which 20,000 students around the world collaboratively awarded a quarter million dollars - a contribution from Warren - to nonprofit organizations across the U.S. More recently, we partnered on Philanthropy on the Field, in which dozens of Boston’s emerging social change leaders gathered at Fenway Park to award over $100,000 to Boston nonprofits using SIL’s social change framework. Those innovations, along with the many ways SIL uses grant making to examine philanthropy, the nonprofit sector, and social change through the lenses of social and racial justice, have been possible because Doris was as humble as she was determined. She believed in giving faculty the freedom to teach as they saw fit and invited us to be creative. The Learning by Giving Foundation embraces that philosophy, even when programs like NS4G encourage students to interrogate philanthropy’s role in perpetuating the imbalance of power and privilege in the U.S.

More than a donor, Doris was a catalyst who delighted in knowing that her money was flowing through classrooms across the country so aspiring social change leaders could guide it into their communities. She may have given away all her money, but its value will last a long time in the lives of LxG students and the communities they serve.

THIS YEAR’S GIVING

SIL responded to the pandemic, George Floyd’s murder, and the shift to online teaching by harnessing the power of experiential philanthropy education and collaboration in new ways. Adapting the coursework associated with NS4G and partnering with the Human Services Program, the Office of Undergraduate Research & Fellowships, the Learning by Giving Foundation, and several private donors allowed SIL to create virtual collaborative spaces that enabled 150 students to award over $44,000 to Boston nonprofits addressing Covid-19 and racial injustice between March and December.

Northeastern Students4Giving

2019-2020 NS4G Grantees: South End Community Health Center ($10,000)

The Fall 2019 NS4G cohort chose “Overcoming Barriers to Mental Health Care Among At-Risk Adolescents and Young Adults” as their 2019-2020 funding priority. The pandemic necessitated a move to remote learning just as the Spring 2020 team was moving into its decision-making phase, so they were especially attuned to the challenges community-based service providers would face as they transitioned to online modalities. South End Community Health Center’s plans to shift its school-based programming to virtual meetings struck them as swift and effective.

Fall 2020 NS4G Grantees: Sociedad Latina ($5,000); Boston Area Gleaners ($625); GreenRoots, Inc. ($625)

With classroom-based teaching still disrupted, we are breaking the NS4G funding for 2020-2021 into two awards to give students in both the Fall and Spring semesters a hands-on giving experience. This year’s funding priority is “Supporting Racial Justice and Community Needs During COVID-19.” Students awarded the $5,000 Fall 2020 grant to Sociedad Latina for its holistic and inclusive approach to meeting community needs during the pandemic. Thanks to a private gift, students were also able to make smaller awards totaling $1,250 to Boston Area Gleaners and GreenRoots, Inc. The Spring 2021 award will be made in April.

Social Impact-athons

Virtual Social Impact-athons for COVID-19 Grantees: Action for Boston Community Development ($10,000), Community Servings ($10,000), Victory Programs ($1,500), Greater Boston Food Bank ($1,500)

After piloting a Social Impact-athon for Environmental Justice in Boston in Spring 2019 and partnering with Northeastern’s Young Global Leaders to run a Social Impact-athon for Women’s Empowerment in Mumbai in February 2020, SIL was ready to move into virtual mode quickly when the pandemic struck. We partnered with the Human Services Program and the Office of Undergraduate Research & Fellowships to offer two Virtual Social Impact-athons for COVID-19. Over 50 students participated in awarding $10,000 each to Action for Boston Community Development (ABCD) and Community Servings. Anonymous donors invited students to direct their personal contributions, so Victory Programs and Greater Boston Food Bank received $1,500 each.

LearnGive for COVID Relief

SIL partnered with the Learning by Giving Foundation to offer LearnGive for COVID-19 Relief, a modular online program in which students used SIL’s RISE Framework to award $5,000 to several Boston nonprofit organizations.

To learn more about SIL’s work over the past year, please see REFLECTING ON 2020, Part 2: Reckoning with White Supremacy and Racial Injustice.

09/16/2020

Tonight! Please join SiL Director Rebecca Riccio and Dukakis Center Director Dr. Ted Landsmark for a conversation with 6 brilliant student activist leaders addressing the enormous challenges of their generation and boldly imagining a just and equitable future.

The Fall 2020 Myra Kraft Open Classroom (MKOC) will be entirely remote. There will be no in-person MKOC events for the fall semester. Registration is not required. When: Wednesdays, Fall SemesterTime: 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. ESTWhere: Zoom Webinar Course FacilitatorTed Landsmark, Director, Dukakis Center W...

08/07/2020

Remembering Doris Buffett

The Social Impact Lab lost a dear and generous friend this week. Doris Buffett died peacefully at her home in Maine on Tuesday. Her family reports that they recently had a wonderful visit and she was in good spirits right up until the end of her vibrant life. They’ve created a memorial page for her here: https://dorisbuffettlegacy.com/

The Faculty Advisory Committee of Doris’ Learning by Giving Foundation happened to be holding a virtual version of our annual planning retreat this week. I’m so grateful that we longtime veterans of the program were together to reflect on the profound impact Doris’ vision of student-led grant making had on our careers. As anyone who has been a part of Northeastern Students4Giving knows, I believe that challenging young people to confront the ethical implications of investing $10,000 in local communities can be a transformative experience. Doris’ generosity has made it possible for us to do that at Northeastern for over a decade and paved the way for the Social Impact Lab to be established.

When Doris made her first grant to the Human Services Program all those years ago, I was an adjunct lecturer and there were very few models for integrating authentic grant making into an academic course. My students and I were figuring it out as we went along. When I saw how deeply they took their grant making responsibility, how difficult it was for them to say “no” to so many organizations and “yes” to only one, how intellectually and emotionally challenging it was for them to grapple with the reality that many of the problems they wanted to address were deeply – systemically – embedded in society, I understood that there was something magical about the methodology. In this summer of reckoning with the racism embedded so deeply – systemically – in every aspect of American society, I am especially grateful that Doris’s beloved Learning by Giving program has allowed thousands of young people who aspire to do good in the world to experience the eye-opening discomfort that comes from thoughtfully unpacking the power and privilege of grant making in communities carrying the devastating burdens of racial injustice.

My fondness and respect for Doris, whose irreverent humor delighted me, may seem at odds with a conversation I have with my students every semester about the potentially anti-democratic and colonizing impact large-scale giving by predominantly white elites can have on communities of color, even when it’s well-intentioned. After all, her last name was practically synonymous with “vast wealth.” But the very fact that I and many other faculty in the Learning by Giving network are having these difficult conversations with students in courses funded by a member of the Buffett family is evidence of another essential point about philanthropy: values matter. Doris was fully committed to giving away all her money, often saying “I hope my last check bounces.” She understood that society often unfairly rewards some people over others because of random circumstances and believed that everyone should give to their maximum ability, even if that's a very modest amount. She established Learning by Giving not just to promote giving, but to help students learn how to do it well. But how to teach that? She had the humility to know that was not her expertise. She once told me, “I’m not going to tell you how to run your class. Just do a good job.”

I have always believed that doing a good job as a social change educator includes challenging my students to reflect on whether us giving away Doris Buffett’s money is socially just. Who are we to presume we can make a positive difference in other people’s lives when we don’t share their lived experience? It’s always an uncomfortable conversation that makes students rethink their ideas about giving and the distribution of resources in our society. It always makes me think about how and why I teach and inspires me to try to do it better. That catalyst - the painfully sharp and unexpected edge that having real money to give away brings to my courses - and the lessons I’ve learned about giving and teaching and myself along the way, have changed me as an educator and as a person. What began as an experiment so many years ago has grown into the ethos of the Social Impact Lab.

So thank you, Doris, for being not just a donor, but a friend and inspiration. You wanted us to teach our students how to be better givers and in the process taught us how to be better humans.

Rebecca

05/04/2020

The Social Impact Lab has awarded $30,000 to nonprofit organizations addressing COVID-19's devastating impact on Boston. These grants, combined with one awarded to support highly vulnerable women and girls living in poverty in Mumbai, bring SIL's total awards to $50,000 this year.

Over 60 Northeastern students and alumni spent last week researching and funding Boston nonprofits supporting families hit especially hard by the pandemic. Working in collaboration with the Human Services Program and the University Scholars Program, the Social Impact Lab developed a virtual version of its successful Social Impact-athon model, an intensive, collaborative experience that challenges students to make grants to nonprofit organizations through the lenses of systems thinking and social justice.

Students participating in the Human Services Social Impact-athon awarded $10,000 to Action for Boston Community Development (ABCD). Students in the University Scholar's parallel event made their $10,000 grant to Community Servings. Anonymous donors offered to support two additional organizations whose work especially impressed the students, so Victory Programs and Greater Boston Food Bank will also receive $1,500 each.

Scattered around the world, Social Impact-athon participants worked in teams to identify Boston nonprofits working with vulnerable families at increased risk of financial, housing, and food insecurity as a result of the pandemic, which is taking a disproportionate toll on low income communities and communities of color. Using SIL’s RISE Framework to apply the lenses of systems thinking and social justice to their decision making, they prioritized organizations with deep connections to their communities and effective strategies for serving families facing complex challenges.

At the end of this semester, students participating in Northeastern Students4Giving, another SIL experiential philanthropy education program, awarded $10,000 to South End Community Health Center (SECHC) as the culmination of a year-long grant making effort involving 40 students. That grant will support SECHC's transition of mental health services for Boston Public School students to a telehealth model.

Northeastern's Young Global Leaders program funded Social Impact-athon Mumbai as part of the university's Global Leadership Summit 2020 in February. Participants awarded $20,000 to Vacha, a non-governmental organization that supports women and girls in Mumbai's most impoverished neighborhoods.

Thank you and congratulations to all these students and alumni for their hard work, the donors who make these programs possible, including the Learning by Giving Foundation and Northeastern donors, and to these hard-working organizations whose efforts to support vulnerable communities in Boston and Mumbai are so critical during this difficult time.