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Stanford Social Innovation ReviewEmail: info@ssireview.org, www.ssireview.org

Whats NextTrawling for Trash

By Suzie Boss

Stanford Social Innovation Review

Fall 2011Copyright 2011 by Leland Stanford Jr. University

All Rights Reserved

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Action Whats Next

F 2011 StanFord Social innovation review 55

What Works P. 59

Case Study P. 66

Env i ronmEnt

Trawlingfor Trash3Visitors lingering over an al-

resco meal in the French Riviera

fshing village o Saint-Jean-Cap-

Ferrat might be surprised to dis-

cover that the catch o the day is

plastic trash. Since May, this sce-

nic harbor has been the pilot site

or a European Union Fisheries

Commission project designed

to protect declining fsh stock

in the Mediterranean Sea whilealso removing tons o plastic

debris rom the sea.

The French government, sup-

ported by the European Union

Fisheries Fund, pays or the fsh-

ermens time. Europes plastics

industry provides special debris-

collecting trawl nets (which cost

rom $23,000 to $57,000 apiece),

and also picks up the tab or recy-

cling and other costs.

Maria Damanaki, Europeancommissioner or maritime a-

airs and fsheries, says the novel

eort is one o several action

steps needed to reduce pollution

and restore fsh stocks in the

Mediterranean. The sea has be-

come an open wound or biodi-

versity, ecosystems, and our civi-

lization, she warns. The

situation o marine litter and es-

pecially plastic litter has taken

threatening dimensions.When fshermen are trawl-

ing or plastic debris, they

arent depleting already dwin-

dling fsh stocks. Nor are they

throwing back dead fsh that

bring low prices at market, a

practice known as discarding

thats common in these waters.

Using government subsidies

to provide fshermen with an al-

ternate income makes good eco-PhotograPhbyenviromantiC/iStoCkPhoto

By Suzie Boss

Fishing or trash may be a

novel solution, but it represents

a mere drop in the ocean com-

pared to the size o the problem.

Once plastic bags reach the sea,

they start to break down into

tiny pieces o aquatic trash.

These bits can get into the ood

chain, creating potential health

risks or a variety o species, in-

cluding humans. Researchers

estimate that there are 250 bil-lion plastic pieces submerged in

the Mediterranean, according to

Damanaki, and another 500 tons

o plastic oating on the surace

o the sea. Some 80 percent o

ocean pollution originates on

land, Sumaila adds.

Because the Mediterranean is

a closed sea, its especially vulner-

able to pollution. Cleanup eorts

will require a variety o measures.

nomic sense, according to Rashid

Sumaila, economist and director

o the Fisheries Centre at the

University o British Columbia.

By his analysis, nearly 30 percent

o the global fshing industrys

$80 billion annual revenue comesrom government subsidies.

Subsidies lead to overfshing.

This (fshing or trash) approach

leaves money in the fshing com-

munity and uses subsidies to do

good work, he says. Potential

benefts are threeold. It helps

the fsh, cleans the oceans, and

provides livelihood or fshers,

Sumaila says. Its a beautiul so-

lution, i implemented well.

Italy recently banned plastic bags,

and other eorts to reduce pollu-

tion at the source are under way.

Meanwhile, Damanaki remains

hopeul that the visible result

o French fshermen hauling out

tons o plastic will encourage oth-

er coastal communities to get in

on the act.

Her willingness to pilot new

ideas is drawing praise rom

ocean researchers. Shes doing

wonders, says Sumaila, who

cautions that theres much more

work to be done. But this is agood beginning.

I trawling or trash proves

to be workable in the Mediterra-

neanwhich represents just 1

percent o the planets ocean

suracethe idea could set o

a wave o similar activity around

the globe.n

Ph i l anthro Py

SharingEvaluations3At DC Central Kitchen, a social

enterprise in Washington, D.C.,

a resh wave o volunteers arrives

daily to help turn restaurant let-

overs into meals or the hungry.

In three hours, says ounder

Robert Egger, I want volunteers

to go rom nervous amateurs to

enthusiastic believers. One clue

that theyve had a great experi-

ence: They post an online reviewo the nonproit with the passion

o someone who has just discov-

ered a gem o a restaurant.

A better picture o the work

that nonprofts do is coming

into ocus, thanks to increased

collaboration by organizations

that report on charities. User-

generated content, written by

those who have direct experi-

ence with nonprofts, now ap-

The European Union ispaying shermen totrawl for trash, to cleanup littered beaches likethis one.

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Action Whats Next

56 Stanford Social innovation review Fall 2011

pears alongside more ormal

evaluations o charities on a va-

riety o websites. For potential

donors and volunteers, it adds

up to a 360 view o nonproft

eectiveness, says Perla Ni,

who ounded GreatNonprofts

in 2007 with this goal in mind.

Ni (ounder and ormer pub-

lisher o the Stanord Social

Innovation Review) launched

GreatNonproits in the wake o

Hurricane Katrina. She recalls be-

ing rustrated by not knowing

which organizations were doing

a good job o responding to the

disaster. As survivors stories

emerged, she realized that some o

the best response came rom small

organizations unknown outsideNew Orleans. Technology oered

a solution to gather this scattered

wisdom, leading Ni to create a

Zagat-style charity review site.

It wasnt long beore Great-

Nonproftsan upstart in the

feldcaught the attention o

GuideStar, established in 1994 to

create more transparency in the

nonproft sector. By partnering,

the organizations have enabled

user reviews to ow across bothsites. Content sharing extends

the reach o GreatNonprofts

and adds another dimension to

the inormation that GuideStar

publishes about nearly 2 million

tax-exempt organizations.

User reviews oer authentic

insight into the inner workings

o a nonproft and show real-time

eedback that begins to paint the

picture o eectiveness, says

Bob Ottenho, GuideStar presi-dent and CEO. His organization

has invested time and resources

in the partnership, he says, be-

cause we believe that user re-

views can ultimately be an impor-

tant tool in measuring the impact

and eectiveness o nonproft

organizations.

User reviews are just one o

several tools donors and nonpro-

its need, Ottenho cautions.

That something became

Nuru International, the non-

proft Harriman ounded while

earning an MBA at the Stanord

Graduate School o Business.

With $450,000 in startup unds

that he raised rom classmates,

proessors, and Silicon Valley

backers, he headed to rural

Kenya in 2008 to bring a holistic

approach to development.

Nuru doesnt aim to be the

biggest innovator in the develop-

ing world. Instead, the young or-

ganization implements good

ideas others have designed and

are ready to scale up. We act as

general contractor, Harriman ex-

plains, by rolling out proven pro-

grams in fve core areas: agricul-ture, water and sanitation, health

care, education, and community

economic development.

These areas echo the approach

o the Millennium Villages project,

a multimillion-dollar antipoverty

initiative under way in 10 Arican

nations. Nuru, starting with one

pilot site in Kuria, Kenya, hopes to

make its impact with a minimum

o Western aid. The plan calls or

Nuru to exit a community aterive years, leaving behind a com-

pletely sel-sustaining model

thats continuing to grow to have

national impact, Harriman says.

By his projections, one successul

site should generate enough rev-

enue to start two more.

GuideStar recently acquired

Philanthropedia, which surveys

social cause experts to identiy

nonprofts that are having the

greatest impact in specifc areas.

Bringing together multiple per-

spectives fts GuideStars goal to

acilitate innovation and thought

leadership in the marketplace,

Ottenho says. We consider our

partnership with GreatNonpro-

its as part o our test laboratory,

or us and or the sector.

The sector is responding. Two

more organizations, Charity

Navigator and GlobalGiving,have

now joined the content syndica-

tion eort, which is managed on

the back end by GreatNonprofts.

Charity Navigator rates the fnan-cial health o more than 5,500 o

the largest nonprofts using a star

system. GlobalGiving is an online

marketplace or nonprofts

around the world.

User reviews posted on any

o these sites now appear on all

o them. All our partners have

their unique ways o reviewing

charities and thinking o what

their audience wants, says Ni.

By getting more organizationson board, she hopes to build a

critical mass o reviewers. The

number o reviews has increased

threeold in the past year, with

partner sites generating 35 per-

cent o content. Working to-

gether makes this inormation

credible, she says.

For nonprofts like DC Cen-

tral Kitchen, theres value in em-

powering our volunteers, says

Egger, and inviting them to becritical. They can oer eedback

that nonprofts need to hear. But,

he adds, it needs to go beyond

I (heart) this nonproft.

As the charity evaluation

feld continues to evolve, Egger

sees nonprofts searching or

right-sized tools. Everybodys

asking: What can the average

nonproft aord? What can the

average volunteer (or donor)

E c o n o m i c D E v E l o p m E n t

It Takes aGeneral

Contractor

3Jake Harrimans story reads

like a screenplay: Decorated mil-

itary ocer has epiphany during

combat and devotes lie to hu-

manitarian work. Its all true,

except that theres no script or

Harriman to ollow as he fghts

a war on extreme poverty.

Ater serving seven years inthe United States Marine Corps,

Harriman became hell-bent on

the mission o eradicating the

roots o poverty. In Iraq and

elsewhere, he saw poor people

driven to desperate measures

including terrorismbecause

they were stripped o choices.

Realizing that one-sixth o the

worlds population lives under

dire economic conditions, he

says, I just got really angry andwanted to try something

dierent.

understand? A platorm that

gives users a voice has the po-

tential to be a revolutionary tool

in the sector, Egger predicts. n

Nuru Founder JakeHarriman identifesproven poverty-reduction programs andaims to take them to scale.

http://greatnonprofits.org/http://www2.guidestar.org/http://www.nuruinternational.org/http://millenniumvillages.org/http://www.charitynavigator.org/http://www.charitynavigator.org/http://www.globalgiving.org/http://millenniumvillages.org/http://www.nuruinternational.org/http://www.globalgiving.org/http://www.charitynavigator.org/http://www.charitynavigator.org/http://www2.guidestar.org/http://greatnonprofits.org/

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F 2011 StanFord Social innovation review 57

EDucat ion

StudentRetention App3For an incoming college stu-

dent, the frst days o school can

be daunting. Youre scrambling

or answers about everything

rom fnancial aid to course se-

lection while navigating an una-

miliar social scene. Its enough to

make you vent on Facebook.

Trouble is, your old riends arent

much help in your new world.Its a dierent story or stu-

dents arriving at one o 35 col-

leges with a Schools App or

Facebook. Even beore setting

oot on campus, students can

use this customized social net-

work to start meeting new class-

mates, fnd campus groups to

join, and connect to sta and

alumni. Because updates ocus

on their college, they dont have

to flter all the social media noiseto get the inormation they need.

We want to make sure that

by the time every student lands

reshman year, they already have

created this personal network

around them that will help them

get through school, explains

Michael Staton, ormer high

school teacher and now CEO o

Inigral. The San Francisco-based

company that developed the

Schools App or higher educa-

tion is attracting customers and

investors with its plan to lever-

age social networking to in-

crease college graduation rates.

One o the ugly secrets o

higher education is that a sub-

stantial number o students who

start college never graduate. This

problem is particularly acute

among students who grew up in

disadvantaged communities,

such as Arican-Americans and

amilies living below the poverty

line. For example, only 40 per-

cent o Arican-American stu-

dents and 41 percent o Hispanic

students enrolled in a our-year

college graduated within a six-

year period, compared with 62percent or white students.

Earlier this year, the Bill &

Melinda Gates Foundation in-

vested $2 million in the startup.

This is the oundations frst eq-

uity investment and reects its

goal to help more students reach

graduation, especially those who

are the frst in their amily to go

to college. The investment is

also a sign that the oundation

sees signifcant demand or theproduct and services and the op-

portunity to build out a scalable

platorm or their delivery, says

Greg Ratli, senior program o-

fcer or the Gates Foundation.

The inusion o philanthropic

dollars is helping bring the

Schools App to community col-

leges serving large numbers o

Pell Grant recipients. Many o

these students are commuters

on slim budgets who may not eela strong link to campus. They

dont engage eectively with ac-

ulty, sta, and peers, and they do

not access available support ser-

vices, observes Ratli. The

Schools App will leverage tech-

nology to test whether student

engagement and retention can

be increased using social media.

The top reasons students

drop out o college have to do

By operating as general con-

tractor, Nuru also hopes to inte-

grate programs that oten wind

up in silos. Together, these pro-

grams can achieve even greater

impact than they could in isola-

tion, Harriman says.

To boost crop production,

or example, Nuru uses the mod-

el developed byOne Acre Fund.

Harriman interned with One

Acre Fund during business

school and saw Arican amilies

grow their way out o poverty by

using better arming methods.

By borrowing that model, Nuru

gets a aster start on improving

agriculture at its pilot site and

One Acre Fund scales up more

quickly without adding sta orinvesting new resources.

This approach earns praise

rom Kevin Starr, managing di-

rector o the Mulago Foundation,

which invests in scalable solu-

tions across several sectors. I

had long hoped to see a viable,

holistic solution to development

that would capitalize on syner-

gies, Starr says. One Acre Fund

and Living Goods, two o the pro-

grams that Nuru is implementingin Kenya, are also in Mulagos

portolio. In June, the oundation

decided to und Nuru as well.

That vote o confdence

doesnt mean Nuru has fgured

out all the answers. Finding so-

lutions that are ready to scale is

challenging, Starr admits, and

implementing another organiza-

tions model adds unexpected

complexities. They may have

underestimated the diculty,he says, but theyre innovative

enough to keep us interested.

Leadership development is

one area where Nuru has orged

its own model, drawing on Harri-

mans battle-tested insights plus

theories rom other felds. We

scoured sectors to fnd out how

people lead in the developing

world, at Goldman Sachs, on the

ootball feld, as heads o state,

with fnancial challenges and ac-

ademic readiness. Ater that,

there can be a lot o reasons

they dont eel like they ft in,

arent engaged with a broader

community, or dont have a sup-

portive social environment,

Staton says.

The Schools App helps new

students connect but within a

closed, private universe. That

makes it more palatable to ad-

missions ocers who may be

wary o social medias wilder

side. Early adopters range rom

Arizona State University, with

70,000 students, to Columbia

College Chicago, serving 12,000.

Cost to the college ranges rom

$10,000 to $70,000 annually.What students seem to want

is a place to talk to their peers and

a convenient way to connect to

college sta. We give them a

place to do both things, Staton

says. Making riends seems to be

students driving interest, espe-

cially or incoming reshmen. The

sotware suggests riends based

on common interests, which

might be a mutual love o the

outdoors or something more spe-cifc, such as returning to college

as a single parent or military vet-

eran. Its not about fnding

someone to date, Staton adds.

Many colleges are recogniz-

ing that they need new ways to

connect with digital-age stu-

dents who want inormation

delivered on their terms. E-mail

and snail mail tend to get ig-

nored by this generation. In-

stead, Staton says, they wantan on-demand, peer-supported,

student support system.

In the long run, Staton sees

the need or a new core piece

o technology to help colleges

meet these evolving student

support needs. For now, Inigrals

sta o 15 is busy improving its

killer app or reshmen. A mobile

version o Schools App is due or

release this all. n

he says. The result is a training

program or service-minded lead-

ers who are careully recruited

rom their communities.

The ultimate goal is to bring

Nuru to the worlds most trou-

bled spots. Failed states, conict

zones, volatile environments

we want to go there to reach the

last, the least, the orgotten,

Harriman says. Where others see

despair, he smells opportunity.

When it comes to seeding hope

in volatile places like Aghanistan

or the Democratic Republic o

the Congo, he adds, theres a

real gap in the market. n

http://www.inigral.com/howitworks.phphttp://www.ssireview.org/articles/entry/one_acre_at_a_time/http://www.mulagofoundation.org/http://www.livinggoods.org/http://www.inigral.com/howitworks.phphttp://www.livinggoods.org/http://www.mulagofoundation.org/http://www.ssireview.org/articles/entry/one_acre_at_a_time/