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Here are five interesting social innovation links we are clicking on today:

1. American Public Media’s Marketplace: What to do when healthcare isn’t enough (AUDIO & TEXT) “How can doctors keep people healthy when they have almost no control over what happens outside the four walls of the hospital? It’s the edge of the healthcare world.” That is where Health Leads comes in to fill this gap. Health Leads works with “20 providers, serving some 15,000 families. Kaiser Permanente, one of the top health systems, has several pilot programs, including one in Oregon where ambulance staff act more like social workers – helping solve would-be domestic problems, and avoiding trips to the ER.” Founder of Health Leads, Rebecca Onie, says that “hospitals either must drive down costs, or face what could be crippling financial penalties. Healthcare executives must leave the medical map behind and head out for the uncharted territory”. New Profit is a proud funder of Health Leads.
2. The Guardian: How tough, young teachers are campaigning for social change A look at Teach First, the national charity founded in 2002 to tackle educational disadvantage, which is now “well known for its leadership development program, where graduates commit to spending at least two years teaching in a challenging UK school.” There appears to be a trend forming where graduates of Teach First are now starting up their own social enterprises, such as “Enabling Enterprise”, and “The Girls’ Network”. One graduate states: “Perhaps being part of an ambitious national charity that has grown quickly makes us more confident in starting up. But for each of us it’s the personal experiences of both the frustration and excitement of the classroom that leads to the conviction that there is something more to do to support those pupils in reaching their potential.” Teach First is a past New Profit portfolio organization.
3. Boston Globe: Students help solve civics issues through Generation Citizen A feature on Generation Citizen, an America Forward coalition member, and what they are doing to improve youth civic education and civic engagement. “Each semester, the Boston-based organization sends its cadre of volunteers to teach dedicated classes, which are offered as electives. The volunteers, called democracy coaches, are students from local college chapters of Generation Citizen… ‘The more they do it, the more they understand how they can impact change'”, says Michael Noone, who cedes most of the leadership duties to a democracy coach.
4. NPR: Finding A More Nuanced View Of Poverty’s ‘Black Hole’ “For years, researchers have complained that the way the government measures income and poverty is severely flawed, that it provides an incomplete — and even distorted — view. Now researchers from Columbia University and the Robin Hood Foundation, an anti-poverty group, are trying to get a more nuanced picture of what it means to be poor and struggling. They’re following 2,300 New York City families over two years, asking detailed questions about their finances, their hardships and their responses.”
5. Forbes: How Business Can Lift People Out Of Poverty: 4 Insights From The World’s Best Social Entrepreneurs “How do you profitably sell to a customer who earns less than $2 per day?” A new kind of entrepreneur is tackling this question by “viewing their customers—the world’s poorest people—as collectively comprising the world’s largest under-served market, with an annual purchasing power of over $1 trillion. For them, creating businesses to serve this market is both a massive opportunity as well as a moral duty.” At Ashoka’s recent Globalizer event, 20 of the world’s leading social entrepreneurs reflected on economic inclusion and strategies for scaling up and shared their insight.