Program on Philanthropy and Social Innovation

Grantmaking foundations, nonprofit organizations, social enterprises and public-private partnerships offer lasting solutions to societal challenges. At the same time Americans have a long tradition of spontaneously forming, disbanding, and re-forming mutual aid networks to meet the immediate needs of neighbors and strangers. Together they are at the heart of civil society.

The Aspen Institute’s Program on Philanthropy and Social Innovation (PSI) enhances the efficacy of these changemakers and matchmakes among them through its values-based seminars for social purpose leaders, its consensus-building convenings of foundation CEOs and individual donors, its issue-specific conferences, its leadership of the Generosity Commission, and its work to advance transparency through policies for making “open” the data generated by and gathered on the nonprofit sector. PSI’s thought leadership has focused on the nexus of civic engagement, citizen agency, trust, and democracy.