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Social Edge is a program of the Skoll Foundation that was inspired by Jeff Skoll's commitment to connecting people with shared passions. Social Edge is the global online community where social entrepreneurs and other practitioners of the social benefit sector connect to network, learn, inspire and share resources.

"the best-known experts on leveraging social media for social good out there. "

WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION LAUNCHES NEW COURSE ON SOCIAL DETERMINANTS OF HEALTH The course consists of an online tutorial with four learning units that making connections between health, and equity, social justice and human rights. It is intended to provide insight on the social determinants of health in order to encourage changes in policy that promote and protect the health of a population. The course is available in English, Spanish and Portuguese, and is targeted to WHO staff members and other health ministry officials but is free to access and fully available to the public.

Chad Nelsen who is the Environmental Director at the Surfrider Foundation where he has worked since 1998.  (He's currently getting his Ph.D in surf economics!) He gave a presentation about how Surfrider Foundation is striving to make its grassroots network more effective.    He touched on how they are using social networks/media in this effort.

"Increasing social distance between the poorest and the richest diminishes social cohesion, which in turn means more collective problems and fewer resources for solving all our other collective problems." Göran Therborn on why inequality matters.

Many of the recommendations in Fair society, healthy lives have been made in previous reports on health inequalities. I was part of the Marmot review team for a few months and we made a conscious decision not to make a long list of recommendations addressing every single aspect of health inequalities. Instead what the report seeks to do differently is to present health inequalities as a question of fairness and encourage all parts of society to play their part. Health inequalities are traditionally regarded as a problem for the NHS but as this report argues (reflecting the 1998 Acheson report) the NHS is but one player in this task. Tackling health inequalities means addressing the social determinants of health - those factors that shape health and wellbeing such as social environments, the housing and neighbourhoods where people live, education, income, standard of living, occupation and working conditions. Clearly the NHS cannot tackle these issues alone, central and local government departments, the third and private sectors as well as individuals themselves have a role to play. The report makes six wide-ranging recommendations. The primary recommendation is to give every child the best start in life. This means supporting Sure Start programmes, maternity services and parenting programmes so they can better deliver their services to those most in need. A great deal of evidence demonstrates that these programmes lead to long-term improvements in health and education outcomes - cutting these programmes would reverse the progress made in the last 10-15 years. Another recommendation is to create and develop healthy and sustainable places and communities. Those working in planning, transport, housing or environment departments need to work with their colleagues in public health to plan and develop joint strategies and outcomes. The quality of parks, the number of take-aways in an area, road safety - all of these decisions influence how we live our lives and

Organizing Upgrade is an attempt to engage left leaders and innovators in the field of community organizing in a strategic dialogue.  We hope that this project can bring the kind of inspiration, vision and strategic clarity we need to strengthen our political impact, both in our immediate fight and in our longer-term efforts to build the social justice movement and to revitalize a movement-rooted left in the United States.  We hope that, by encouraging some of the leading innovators and leaders from the sphere of community organizing to put pen to paper and to speak their mind, we can develop unity and clarity about the key demands on left organizers in these times.

This page lists FREE resources for program evaluation and social research methods. The focus is on "how-to" do evaluation research and the methods used: surveys, focus groups, sampling, interviews, and other methods. Most of these links are to resources that can be read over the web. A few, like the GAO books, are for books that can be sent away for, for free (if you live in the US), as well as read over the web.

The Building Movement Project works to strengthen the role of US nonprofit organizations as sites of democratic practice and to advance ways nonprofits can significantly contribute to building movement for progressive social change.

Poverty is the single greatest threat to individual human development and it simultaneously creates profound social disruption in the United States and around the world. Unless institutions and citizens take steps now to reduce and prevent poverty--and the growing inequality that deepens and widens its damaging repercussions--we will face a nightmarish future that can be measured in untold numbers of destroyed lives, communities, and institutions.

Alternative Index to GDP for Measuring Opportunity & Progress Launching Nov. 10 The American Human Development Project, a nonpartisan initiative of the Social Science Research Council, seeks to move beyond an overreliance on GDP as a measure of well-being, today released The Measure of America 2010-2011: Mapping Risks and Resilience (foreword by economist Jeffrey Sachs). The report is the latest update to the pioneering American Human Development (HD) Index, first introduced in The Measure of America 2008-2009.

The participatory media learning materials on this site are meant to help people learn and teach the new literacies by inquiring into their significance as well as by learning their use through direct practice

This wiki collects information about tools and resources that can help scholars (particularly in the humanities and social sciences) conduct research more efficiently or creatively. Whether you need software to help you manage citations, author a multimedia work, or analyze texts, Digital Research Tools will help you find what you're looking for.

More and more college students want careers where they can help make society more humane, fair, and environmentally sustainable. They want to put their skills, their idealism, and their energy to work promoting social justice. My colleagues around the country tell me that the same thing is happening on their campuses. A growing number of students are asking faculty and staff about internships, summer jobs, and careers working with non-profit, advocacy, and grassroots organizing groups. Why wait on tables when you could be changing the world?

Far more attention needed indeed!