Research

Stanford PACS aims to improve the body and reach of quality research on philanthropy, civil society, and social innovation.

Stanford PACS encourages interdisciplinary approaches, leveraging the intellectual assets of a diverse, world-class faculty across the University. Below is the list of our active research project and historical research initiatives.

Current Research

Effective Philanthropy Learning Initiative

The Effective Philanthropy Learning Initiative aims to improve the knowledge of donors—and of intermediaries providing donor education and advisory services—so they can make more informed, outcome-focused decisions, thereby increasing their philanthropic impact.

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Affiliated Research

Civic Life of Cities Lab

The Civic Life of Cities is a comparative cross-city research project that offers information about the local experiences of global trends influencing the nonprofit sector, so we can learn about the consequences of civic associational life for the vitality of urban areas.

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Global Civil Society & Sustainable Development Lab

Global Civil Society & Sustainable Development investigates the social and cultural underpinnings of sustainable development problems and solutions and promotes the search for ways humans and the earth can flourish together.

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Global Innovation for Impact Lab

The Global Innovation for Impact Lab focuses on refining diagnostic tools to support strategic decision making; understanding failure and learning as integral parts of innovation efforts; and determining conditions for success of innovation archetypes and strategies.

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Politics and Social Change Lab

The Politics and Social Change Lab investigates strategies for addressing rising polarization and declining civility in political engagement. We theorize and empirically test interventions to overcome entrenched political divisions and affect positive social change.

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Past Research

China Program

Stanford PACS’ China program was launched in 2012. It aims to serve and connect academics and practitioners focused on the social impact sector in China. Stanford PACS is an original anchor program of the Stanford Center at Peking University where we host an annual conference each spring to explore topics related to philanthropy and social innovation.

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Digital Civil Society Lab

The Digital Civil Society Lab investigated the challenges and opportunities facing civil society organizations in the digital age, and developed resources to help organizations use digital resources safely, ethically and effectively.

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Life Beyond the Farm

This research explores the dynamics of individual, civic and political engagement at Stanford. How do Stanford students transition and integrate (or not) into undergraduate life and how does the structure of their commitments on campus shift over the course of their collegiate careers?

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Program on Democracy and the Internet

The Program on Democracy and the Internet (PDI) was launched in 2018 by co-PIs Nathaniel Persily, James B. McClatchy Professor of Law at Stanford Law School, and Frank Fukuyama, Director of the Stanford Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law, in collaboration with Stanford PACS former Faculty Co-Director and Professor of Political Science, Rob Reich. It brought together scholars from a diverse set of disciplines to study the challenges that new technologies pose to democracy in the digital age from new communication platforms spreading disinformation and hate speech, to bias search algorithms.

Recording Civic Action in China

Given the rapid growth in the number and diversity of Chinese NGOs, this archive only focuses on well-known grassroots NGOs established voluntarily by private individuals that pursue certain social missions through independent efforts. In capturing a tiny segment of Chinese NGOs, our goal is to provide scholars, practitioners, and the general public a glimpse of the colorful mélange that composes China’s young civil society.

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