We’re always on the hunt for the deeper news about social change. Here’s what we’d recommend from the last month:

Moving Forward in Tough Times

David Bornstein’s weekly Fixes column in the New York Times highlights promising new developments in social change, and in this year-end column he describes how three dozen organizations he’s covered have thrived in 2012, in spite of the continuing economic hardship.  

Using Networks to Tackle Complex Problems

As organizations question the status quo and the go-it-alone grantmaking approach taken by most nonprofits and foundations, they increasingly conclude that business as usual will not going to result in the social impact they seek. Networks continue to emerge in the social change world and exhibit great potential in addressing the “wicked problems” of our time. Jennie Curtis, executive director of the Garfield Foundation and the founding supporter of the RE-AMP network, explores the network movement in the December 2012 issue of Alliance Magazine. 

Education to Employment: Designing a System that Works

Closing the Pioneer Gap

More money than ever is flowing into impact investing, yet many entrepreneurs creating companies that serve the poor still find it difficult to raise capital, particularly at the early stages of their company’s growth. Following their 2012 report From Blueprint to Scale, Monitor Inclusive Markets and the Acumen Fund make the case for philanthropy in impact investing. 

SROI – Myths and Challenges

The measurement approach of SROI (Social Return on Investment) aims to reduce social inequality and environmental degradation by revealing the broader value of an organization’s work. It is intended to answer the question of “how much value are we creating?” Yet many misunderstandings persist about the approach and its value. This brief from the SROI Network dispels the most common myths and explains what the real challenges are to expect when putting  SROI measures into place.

You also might be interested in these five pieces:

• Pre-K on the Range: Rural, conservative, impoverished Oklahoma has built the nation’s brightest model for early education (The American Prospect)
• Giving in Numbers, 2012 Edition: Trends in corporate giving (Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy)
• Collaborative Learning: A case study on more than wheels and ways to work (Robert Wood Johnson Foundation)
• Transforming Democracy Through Digital Technology: Five lessons from groundbreaking women (Stanford Social Innovation Review)
• For Whom is College Being Reinvented? ’Disruptions’ have the buzz but may put higher education out of reach for those students likely to benefit the most (The Chronicle of Higher Education)