By the spring of 2021, My Sisters’ Place, a safe, welcoming, and inclusive support centre for women in London, Ontario, had welcomed countless women to Buchan House, a historic Victorian mansion located in downtown London, that had been generously donated by a local family. While it had become a safe haven for so many people in the community, the building’s age and heritage status also meant frequent and high maintenance costs, and the recent roofing repair bill was just another item on a long list of expenses. With strong community support, My Sisters’ Place had many plans for future programs and initiatives, but the organization’s manager was feeling a little overwhelmed by mounting financial needs, including the unexpected roof repair cost. As the manager of a not-for-profit social enterprise with limited funding, she understood that proceeding with the repair would translate into a painful cut somewhere—a reduction in services or in staff hours. Both would heavily impact the vulnerable population the organization was designed to serve, but the manager had to make a choice.

By the spring of 2021, My Sisters' Place, a safe, welcoming, and inclusive support centre for women in London, Ontario, had welcomed countless women to Buchan House, a historic Victorian mansion located in downtown London, that had been generously donated by a local family. While it had become a safe haven for so many people in the community, the building's age and heritage status also meant frequent and high maintenance costs, and the recent roofing repair bill was just another item on a long list of expenses. With strong community support, My Sisters' Place had many plans for future programs and initiatives, but the organization's manager was feeling a little overwhelmed by mounting financial needs, including the unexpected roof repair cost. As the manager of a not-for-profit social enterprise with limited funding, she understood that proceeding with the repair would translate into a painful cut somewhere-a reduction in services or in staff hours. Both would heavily impact the vulnerable population the organization was designed to serve, but the manager had to make a choice.

In response to societal grand challenges, professors have unique opportunities to effect change, repurposing their expertise to deploy relevant, timely, practical, and research-backed knowledge for the betterment of communities. Drawing on scholarship on postcrisis organizing, the entrepreneurial hustle, and social entrepreneurship, we provide a firsthand, real-time case description of a three-day "virtual idea blitz" organized in response to the COVID-19 crisis. The event was organized and executed in less than a week and ultimately involved 200 individuals, including entrepreneurs, coders, medical doctors, venture capitalists, industry professionals, students, and professors from around the world. By the end of the weekend, 21 ideas with corresponding pitches were developed in five thematic areas: health needs, education, small businesses, community, and purchasing. We describe how the community was rapidly rallied, and we discuss the key learning outcomes of this spontaneous entrepreneurial endeavor. We provide evidence from participants and mentors that showcases the value of the time-compressed virtual idea blitz in accelerating social entrepreneurial action. We offer practical guidance to academic, community, and professional institutions that would like to replicate or build upon our approach to stimulate the formation of community-based and coordinating efforts to thwart the ongoing threat of COVID-19, as well as other societal challenges that might emerge in the future.

This introduction to the special issue on hybrid organizations defines hybrids, places them in their historical context, and introduces the articles that examine the strategies hybrids undertake to scale and grow, the impacts for which they strive, and the reception to them by mainstream firms. It aggregates insights from the articles in this special issue in order to examine what hybrid organizations mean for firms and practicing managers as they continue to grow in number and assume a variety of missions in developing and developed countries.