Management Expert Will Lead Social Innovation Fund

Paul L. Carttar—a nonprofit expert with a wide range of experience in philanthropic, business, government, and academic work—has been named director of the Social Innovation Fund, the new federal grant program designed to help nonprofit groups expand effective programs.

Mr. Carttar, who co-founded the Bridgespan Group, a prominent nonprofit-management consulting firm, in 1999, has served since 2008 as an executive partner at New Profit Inc., a nonprofit group that provides money to innovative social projects, and a senior adviser at the Monitor Group, a management consulting firm.

He previously worked as chief operating officer at the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, executive vice chancellor for external affairs at the University of Kansas, an executive at two health-care companies, and an analyst and assistant economist for the U.S. Senate Budget Committee.

“Not only is he a noted expert in nonprofit management and nonprofit capacity-building and growing nonprofits to success, he has an expertise and level of engagement with the nonprofit community that very few people have,” said Ashley Etienne, a spokeswoman for the Corporation for National and Community Service, the federal agency that manages the Social Innovation Fund.

Special Exemption

Because Mr. Carttar has such a wide circle of nonprofit contacts, the corporation has granted him a waiver from the Obama administration’s ethics rules, which prohibit political appointees from participating in any matter involving former employers or clients for two years, Ms. Etienne said.

However, he will recuse himself from any discussions about former employers or clients during the process of awarding grants, she said.

The corporation announced Mr. Carttar’s appointment one day before the deadline for submitting applications for the $50-million in grants that will be awarded this year.

The agency said more than 200 organizations had written letters saying they intended to apply for the money, but Ms. Etienne said she did not yet have information about how, or which types of, groups had followed through.

Mr. Carttar said in an interview that while the Social Innovation Fund involves “relatively limited” money, its emphasis on finding programs with proven results has the potential to influence the way both government and the nonprofit world work.

“One of the most critical things that can make the nonprofit sector as effective as possible is increasingly channeling financial resources to nonprofits that have actually demonstrated that the work they do changes people’s lives,” he said.

Sharing Knowledge

Mr. Carttar said the corporation will share what it learns with other government agencies, and that “learning communities” set up by the groups that receive social-innovation money will help spread information to the broader philanthropic world.

The corporation plans to award seven to 10 grants of $1-million to $10-million each to existing grant-making organizations. Those groups, in turn, will award annual grants of at least $100,000 to nonprofit groups for projects in the areas of economic opportunity, healthy living, and youth development. Both the grant makers and the nonprofit groups must provide equal matching funds.

One group has spoken publicly about its application for social-innovation money: New Profit, Mr. Carttar’s former employer. Kim Syman, a managing partner, said the group, which has never previously sought government money, was seeking a grant in the area of youth development. “We’ve been doing the kind of work that is called for by the SIF for a long time,” Ms. Syman said in an interview. “We feel really committed to be part of trying to demonstrate what this kind of fund can do.”

To read an interview with Mr. Carttar, go to http://philanthropy.com/extras.