Stanford Social Innovation Review

For better or for worse, generative AI is already reshaping how work is done, who advances, and whose perspectives guide the next generation of tools. Generative AI tools deliver incredible efficiency gains. A study by The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis found that the majority of respondents who used generative AI tools in the past week saved between 2-4 hours with more frequent users reporting even greater time savings.

Community-driven outcomes contracts (CDOCs) focus on advancing social outcomes in Indigenous communities, including in areas such as health, housing, and energy security. Like other outcomes-based financing models, CDOCs aim to attract private capital by linking repayments to investors to the achievement of measurable socially beneficial outcomes. They depart from traditional models, however, in the way in which they define those outcomes and develop solutions. CDOCs’ broad philosophy is to shift money and power into the hands of the communities most affected by social challenges.

Media organizations are struggling to break through in an overcrowded and chaotic information environment, and communities aren’t getting the information they need. There is an approach to address this that may seem obvious but is surprisingly under-adopted by media organizations: shaping editorial, content, product, and audience development strategy in direct response to asking communities their needs and what matters to them.

When floods hit West Virginia in February 2025, McDowell County put out a call asking residents to complete an online form detailing their property damage. For many residents, that wasn’t an option. Even in the best of times, 1 in 5 McDowell households have no internet.

2023’s upsurge in forced migration represents the intensification of an ongoing trend. As policymakers struggle to respond to the unfolding human catastrophe, they have increasingly turned to the possibilities offered by technology, and data in particular. Civil society and humanitarian organizations are attuned to the reality that these streams of people generate massive amounts of data that can, for instance, help channel aid to the neediest, predict disease outbreaks, and much more. Yet as is so often the case with technology, the potential for good is accompanied by certain risks.