White House social innovation office takes form
This past April, Congress passed the Serve America Act, a summary of whose provisions is available here. As philanthropic adviser Sean Stannard-Stockton outlines in his Tactical Philanthropy blog, the Serve America Act was a key policy recommendation of America Forward, a coalition of more than 70 nonprofit organizations, organized in part by New Profit, a venture philanthropy funder.
While the primary provisions of the bill concerned expansion of government service programs, such as the Corporation for National and Community Service, the bill also included a provision authorizing the creation of a Social Innovation Fund. If Congress appropriates the $50 million the Obama administration has requested, this would involve the first explicit federal effort to support the nation’s growing social enterprise movement of nonprofits that operate businesses both to raise revenue and to further the social missions of their organizations.
A detailed list of key provisions is available here. Some highlights:
• The Fund will make grants of $1-10 million. These intermediaries must in turn raise at least a 1:1 match and make sub-grants to nonprofits of $100,000 or more. The Fund may use up to 10% of its funds to award grants directly to nonprofits and 5% for evaluation.
• Priority for grants are programs that support the following areas:
1) Education for economically disadvantaged students
2) Child and youth development
3) Reduction in poverty
4) Health
5) Resource conservation and local environmental quality
6) Energy efficiency
7) Civic engagement
8) Reduction in crime
Although the Office of Social Innovation and the Social Innovation Fund are in their infancy, the effort is generating considerable attention in the social enterprise world. In May, The Chronicle of Philanthropy interviewed Melody Barnes, director of the White House Domestic Policy Council, and Sonal Shah, who heads the new White House Office of Social Innovation. Also involved in the effort, the Chronicle reports, are Michele Jolin, formerly a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress; Carlos Monje and Charles D. Anderson, two former Obama campaign workers; and Howard W. Buffett (son of billionaire Warren Buffett). On June 23rd, a Silicon Valley Roundtable was held at Stanford University.
On June 30th, President Obama hosted an event outlining what he called his Community Solutions Agenda. A list of participants at the event can be found here. For further details on the event, see the account of Andrew Wolk of Root Cause, as outlined in this blog entry.
Organizations featured at the White House event were:
Harlem Children’s Zone, Inc. a nonprofit that began in 1997 as a network of programs for a 24-block area: the Harlem Children’s Zone Project. In 2007, the Zone Project grew to almost 100 blocks and serves more than 8,000 children and more than 4,100 adults. Over the years, the organization introduced several ground-breaking efforts including the Baby College parenting workshops, the Harlem Gems pre-school program, the HCZ Asthma Initiative, which teaches families to better manage the disease, the Promise Academy, a high-quality public charter school; and an obesity program to help children stay healthy.
HopeLab, a nonprofit organization in Redwood City, California, founded by Pam Omidyar, wife of E-Bay founder Pierre Omidyar, that works closely with tweens, teens and young adults to create fun, innovative products that meet their needs. Among them is Re-Mission, HopeLab’s groundbreaking video game for young people with cancer. Data show that that Re-Mission improves treatment adherence and other key health outcomes. HopeLab is also developing products to combat sedentary behavior in children as a way to fight the effects of childhood obesity.
Bonnie CLAC, a New Hampshire-based nonprofit that helps clients build creditworthiness and provides car selection and purchase assistance to help low- and moderate-income individuals create savings, improve their access to health care, and reduce carbon emissions into the environment. Since its founding in 2001, Bonnie CLAC has guaranteed over $12 million in loans for more than 1200 clients, most of whom fall below HUD low-income guidelines.
Genesys Works, a Houston-based non-profit organization that trains and employs high school students to perform technical services for major corporations. Founded in 2002, the organization seeks to enable economically disadvantaged high school students to enter the economic mainstream by providing them with the knowledge and work experience required to succeed as technical professionals. Genesys Works has locations in St. Paul, Minnesota and Houston, TX and is planning to open a Chicago location in 2010.
Posted by Steve Dubb on 07/07/2009 at 11:02 AM
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