Student speaks at Stanford GSB Impact Fund event with diverse, professionally-dressed students listening.

Social Innovation

Stanford GSB supports you in your exploration of social and environmental issues, helps you develop the skills you need to address them, and provides a networked community and financial resources to help you get started.

No matter your approach to impact, we are here to enable you on your journey.

 

Explore Social and Environmental Impact Programming

The certificate is an academic credential within the MBA and MSx programs and is awarded to students who focus their elective coursework on topics in social and environmental management.

Participate in many co-curricular activities such as the GSB Impact Fund, clubs, and speaker events to enrich your impact learning experience.

Work with Stanford faculty, coaches, and expert advisors to develop your social or environmental venture idea and turn it into reality after graduation.

Support Every Step of the Way

Throughout your personal and professional journey, you may take on different community leadership roles. Whether you decide to support an impact organization and apply your management skills to public issues, or start your own impact venture, Stanford GSB may provide funds and resources, such as coaching, community building, and networks to help you.

MBA Summer Fellowships

We provide guidance and financial support for summer internships with high-impact organizations, as well as an immersion program to explore a social or environmental venture.

Post-Graduate Fellowships and Prizes

MBA and MSx students who plan to pursue a career focused on social or environmental impact after graduation can apply for Impact Careers Fellowships and Prizes.

Loan Forgiveness Opportunities

We offer loan forgiveness options to graduates of both the MBA Program and MSx Program who take a qualifying high-impact job in the public, nonprofit, or for-profit sector.

Meet Our Fellows

For more than fifteen years, we have offered the year-long Stanford Impact Founder Fellowship which provides generous funding and advising to graduating students who want to start a high-impact venture that addresses a pressing social or environmental need.

Personalize Your Coursework

Focus your courses and co-curricular experiences on an interest area or your preferred approach, such as social entrepreneurship, nonprofit leadership, impact investing, or public policy.

Curriculum

Our learning model allows you to tailor your education through a combination of context-building, skills-based, and issue-focused courses, as well as experiential learning.

Students Working Together
Featured Course

Apply the innovation process to real-world challenges faced by communities in under-resourced settings through this multidisciplinary and project-based course.

Beyond the Classroom

From experiential learning programs to student clubs, you will find many opportunities to enhance your learning beyond the classroom to make a difference in the world.

Fellowship

Investigate and design a promising solution to a social and environmental problem of your choice with the Impact Design Immersion Fellowship.

Impact Investing

Gain hands-on experience in making investments with an expectation of beneficial social or environmental impact alongside a financial return with the Stanford GSB Impact Fund.

Careers

Intern for a purpose-driven organization and apply to the Social Management Immersion Fellowship for financial support.

Leadership

Explore a societal issue of interest and learn leadership techniques for facilitating difficult conversations.

Choose Your Impact Journey

Explore how students have engaged in impact during their time at GSB and post-graduation by interest area through extracurricular activities, coursework, faculty engagement, and community.

Investigate strategies to alleviate poverty and make a difference through social enterprises, both domestically and in the developing world.

The ubiquitous impact of the climate change challenge must be met with urgent innovation and bold leadership.

Technology has transformed the educational experience for students of all ages across the world.

Artificial intelligence, telemedicine, blockchain, and other technological advancements are reinventing the industry.

Voices of Social Impact at Stanford GSB

Students with writing on arms: Push each other; Dream together; Love one another

CSI enhances the offerings of both the MBA and MSx programs with key opportunities for you to explore social innovation whether you ultimately choose to work in the corporate, nonprofit, or government sectors.