Resource Library
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This guide provides an overview of how BYU faculty can identify funding opportunities and develop competitive grant proposals, particularly for interdisciplinary and social impact research.
As artificial intelligence continues to shape nearly every aspect of society, how can we use these technologies wisely and faithfully? In this online workshop, Elder Gerrit W. Gong explores AI through a gospel-centered lens.
In this podcast episode, BYU geologist Ron Harris shares how the devastating 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami inspired him to move beyond forecasting natural disasters and focus on preventing their human impact.
Designed to help students and changemakers think critically about complex social issues, the guidebook introduces practical frameworks, real-world examples, and interactive activities that build social impact skills.
These specially trained rats help detect landmines and explosives, making it possible to clear dangerous land more quickly and safely so communities can return to their homes, farms, and daily lives.
This resource from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints explores principles of caring for those in need through service, humanitarian efforts, self-reliance initiatives, and community collaborations.
UI Charitable helps individuals, families, and organizations maximize the impact of their charitable giving through donor-advised funds, impact investing, and philanthropic strategy.
This playlist features inspiring talks from innovators, entrepreneurs, researchers, community leaders, and changemakers who share insights on leadership, purpose, innovation, social impact, and solving complex challenges.
Not all social impact organizations create change in the same way. This article explores three key questions to help you evaluate whether an organization is positioned for lasting impact.
This concluding chapter revisits the central ideas explored throughout the course and provides guidance on how you can continue making a meaningful difference in the world.
This chapter explores personal and organizational development, highlights the characteristics of a learning organization, and applies those principles specifically to organizations dedicated to solving social problems.
This chapter introduces impact assessment as the next step in a comprehensive evaluation approach. It teaches you how to apply the concepts and designs needed to isolate a program’s contribution to observed outcome.
This chapter explores the core components of effective outcome measurement and how they are applied in social impact work. It also examines how organizations collect and interpret outcome data.
Outputs, outcomes, and impact are all terms used to describe different ways of measuring an intervention’s effectiveness. However, they are often misunderstood or used interchangeably, which can lead to confusion.
As organizations scale, they may expand to serve more people, extend their work into new geographic areas, or deepen their impact by addressing additional dimensions of a problem.
Legal structures refer to the organizational frameworks that define how an entity is established, governed, and operated within the law. These structures shape the organization’s funding options, tax obligations, and legal liabilities.
In this chapter, you’ll learn the process of developing a theory of change by utilizing outcome goals, logic models, and backwards mapping to craft effective and strategically organized interventions.
Human-centered design (HCD) offers a different approach: one that places the voices, experiences, and expertise of those affected by social issues at the heart of the solution-building process.
This chapter explores each type of intervention, drawing on real-world examples to illustrate how they are applied in practice and how they contribute to meaningful outcomes.
This chapter explores those relationships and examines how the different positioning of individuals within the work can affect the long-term sustainability and effectiveness of potential solutions.
This chapter explores how understanding a social impact ecosystem enhances strategic planning, reveals gaps and best practices, equips social organizations to engage with stakeholders, and improves overall social impact.
This chapter teaches you how to recognize when monolithic thinking is at play, how to break down complicated issues, and how to distinguish these situations from truly wicked problems.
This chapter explains how secondary research is defined, conducted, and implemented within social impact work by outlining research methods and introducing the role of context.
This chapter will clarify causation from correlation, explain causal thinking, and equip you to identify contributing factors and negative consequences. Each of these elements acts as a tool to increase the productivity of your issue scoping.
This chapter will begin to explore how you can utilize specific strategies to identify the one in social impact work and how identifying the one lays the foundations for designing and implementing effective solutions.
This chapter explores the essence of compassion: what it is, how it differs from related emotions like empathy and pity, and how it can be cultivated. It also examines the crucial role that compassion plays in addressing social issues.
This chapter addresses how you can learn to love the one within your own work and how embodying this principle plays an important role in laying the foundation for lasting social impact.
Creating meaningful social change doesn’t happen by accident. It requires purposeful strategy and a deep understanding of the people experiencing the problem.
Social impact terms help precisely define a problem, measure progress accurately, and collaborate effectively. Without shared terminology, efforts can become disorganized.
When you identify and align with specific roles, you can tailor your efforts to your strengths, collaborate more effectively with others, and maximize your contribution to social change.
This Guidebook is designed to demonstrate how you, as an individual, possess the power necessary to enact real social change and contribute to a better world.
The Stanford Social Innovation Review functions as a premier publication and offers ongoing access to cutting-edge scholarship, case studies, and strategic frameworks for continued professional development.
Idealist.org serves as a comprehensive employment platform specifically focused on social impact organizations and nonprofit career opportunities. This resource provides practitioners with access to current job postings.
Argote offers a clear, researchbased overview of how organizations generate knowledge, store it, and share it over time.
Wheatley draws on ideas from modern science, such as chaos theory, quantum physics, and selforganizing systems, to rethink how leadership and organizations actually function.
This companion to The Fifth Discipline turns big ideas into concrete tools, exercises, and real-world cases that readers can apply in their own teams and organizations.
This foundational book introduces the idea of the “learning organization” and explains five key disciplines: systems thinking, personal mastery, mental models, building shared vision, and team learning.
The resource offers examples of innovative evaluation designs and encourages readers to see evaluation as a powerful tool for learning, coursecorrection, and amplifying impact over time.
This page defines impact measurement as the process of going beyond counting activities to tracking real change and determining what portion of that change actually happened because of the intervention.
This foundational report from Geoff Mulgan lays out what social innovation means in practice and why it is essential for tackling today’s most pressing social challenges.
This paper highlights patterns in leadership, partnerships, funding, and operations that support sustainable growth, as well as the tradeoffs organizations face while scaling.
This resource from Duke’s Center for the Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship helps students understand what it really means to “scale” an impact idea.
Chapter 19 from the Handbook of the Economics of Giving, Altruism and Reciprocity analyzes how donationbased nonprofits work and why people give to them instead of giving directly to individuals.
It tells the story of how new hybrid forms like benefit corporations and L3Cs were created because passionate changemakers didn’t fit into the old boxes of “nonprofit” or “forprofit.”
Imagine an organization that both makes money and makes the world better. This guide shows how hybrid legal structures bring that idea to life.
This framework exemplifies how leading international organizations systematically integrate theory of change methodologies into their program design and evaluation processes.
Evan Fried shares the story behind his STEM education project, which demonstrates the principles of human-centered design by engaging directly with the classroom environment and interviewing users.
This article examines how social innovation has evolved and highlights that it is fundamentally about interventions that aim for systemic social improvement. It explains that social innovation isn’t just one action but a process.
The following video is the highlights from Rev. Dr. Brown’s keynote address at the Ballard Center for Social Impact at BYU Marriott’s 2025 Do Good. Better. Conference where he was honored as the 2025 social innovator of the year.
The article introduces collective impact organizations as specialized entities designed to facilitate inter-organizational collaboration and coordinate multi-sector partnerships.
By understanding feedback loops and relationships between education, employment, health, and policy, learners see how to break “big problems” into real, actionable parts.
This article from Stanford Social Innovation Review explains what wicked problems are. It highlights how attempts to solve one aspect of a wicked problem can create new challenges.
It brings together academics and practitioners to connect research with nonprofit practice and highlight innovative solutions to community and global challenges.
This Tableau publication provides comprehensive guidance and systematic action steps for conducting root cause analysis within organizational contexts. The resource offers detailed methodologies for identifying critical contributing factors.
He shares powerful stories showing that when we get physically and emotionally near others, especially those who are hurting or marginalized, we begin to see their humanity and act with compassion.
Through articles, podcasts, courses, and global events, it encourages confidence, negotiation skills, and community connection. Visiting the site promises inspiration and actionable strategies.
This article connects empathy to emotional intelligence and interpersonal effectiveness, making it a valuable reference for students exploring how empathy supports social impact work and human-centered design.
In this video, leadership expert Simon Sinek explores how empathy functions in human relationships and organizational settings.
Yale psychologist Paul Bloom challenges common assumptions about empathy, arguing that feeling others’ emotions isn’t always the best guide for moral decision-making.
This forum address was given at Brigham Young University by David Brooks, an op-ed columnist for the New York Times. He offers insight into the role of compassion in building strong communities.
This book applies lean startup principles to the world of social impact, showing changemakers how to test ideas quickly, learn from real-world feedback, and pivot toward solutions that create far greater good.
Dr. Paul Farmer didn’t just visit communities, he lived with people, listened to them, and learned from them. That deep understanding reshaped how health systems were designed and delivered.
This inspiring book comes from the entrepreneur Uri Levine, the person who coined the phrase “fall in love with the problem, not the solution.”
This official OECD definition explains impact as the positive or negative long-term effects of an intervention and clarifies how outputs, outcomes, and impact connect in a results chain.
This collection of articles titled “Our Towns” in The Atlantic details more of James and Deborah Fallows’ work. Each article highlights a different community program or individual who has taken on a social impact role.
This forum address was delivered at Brigham Young University by the Fellows. In emphasizes the strength of local community impact and highlight various impact rolls community members can fill to foster positive local change.
If you rely on digital notetaking, this article may change how you study. It explores how writing by hand can boost memory, focus, and understanding all backed by science.
This student-created Compilation Report was created for the 2025-2026 Ballard Lab for Refugee Community Integration by Eowyn Collins and Manon Dampt.
This student-created Compilation Report was created for the 2025-2026 Ballard Lab for Patient - Provider Communication Among Young Adults with Chronic Illness in Utah by Hallie Moldenhauer and Priscilla Silva.
In this powerful BYU address, Eva Witesman uses personal stories and prophetic teachings to explore the spiritual importance of education, personal revelation, and developing one's divine potential.
Sharon Eubank's Doing Small Things with Great Love: How Everyday Humanitarians Are Changing the World explores how ordinary acts of compassion, service, and faith can create change in communities around the world.
Eva Witesman highlights "loving the one" in social impact work, teaching that empathy, active listening, and personal connection are essential for understanding social problems and creating solutions that improve lives.
This research highlights the importance of prioritizing infrastructure reconstruction strategically after disasters, emphasizing that coordinated decision-making can improve recovery and resilience.
This research explores how goal setting and motivation influences efforts to exit homelessness. It examines how concepts from organizational behavior and workplace motivation can help explain successful transitions out of homelessness.
Researchers adapted the SNAP-Ed "Create Better Health" curriculum to better meet the needs of people in transitional housing, demonstrating that community-informed, practical health education can help individuals as they transition out of homelessness.
The Division for Sustainable Development Goals in the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs acts as the Secretariat for the SDGs, providing substantive support and capacity-building for the goals.
80,000 Hours is a London-based non-profit that researches and advises on high-impact careers, aiming to help people solve the world's most pressing problems, such as artificial intelligence risks, pandemics, and global poverty.
The Ballard Center for Social Impact works to provide our students with connections to leading social impact organizations, creating synergistic relationships where both students and organizations are edified.
Disaster training is considered a standard of nursing practice. Most nurses lack sufficient training in disaster nursing. Simulation is an effective means in preparing.
Global water intelligence platforms can help address local water challenges by providing accessible, reliable hydrologic forecasts that support disaster preparedness, water management, and climate resilience when combined with local data and decision-making systems.
At the Ballard Center for Social Impact, we believe that effective solutions to social problems start with deep understanding. That is why we created Ballard Brief, a student-led research library.
The Ballard Center for Social Impact at BYU Marriott has created a free mini course. The goal of this crash course mini-series is to help individuals find ways to change the world. It all starts by learning how to Do Good. Better.
School meals are one of the most effective population-level tools to reduce child food insecurity. For many students, school breakfast and lunch provide the most reliable source of daily nutrition.
In the spirit of sharing best practices, we are publicly sharing some of our helpful processes and systems that we have developed to Do Good. Better. at the Ballard Center. Feel free to download and use the ideas or documents.
Research suggests that access to safe, legal, and quality sleep is a critical yet often overlooked need for people experiencing homelessness.
Providing accessible work opportunities, training, and support can empower unhoused individuals to gain stability, develop skills, and improve their quality of life.
The Ballard Center for Social Impact at Brigham Young University’s Marriott School of Business brought together scholars and practitioners to examine the work of directing campus-based social impact at the 2024 Director Convening.
The Ballard Center's framework helps organizations and individuals create positive social change in a systematic and effective way.