White House Gives Some Details on Social Innovation Fund

The White House has offered some details about the timing for awarding grants from the $50-million Social Innovation Fund that was discussed by President Obama at a White House event last week.

If Congress approves the money, the Corporation for National and Community Service — the federal agency that is managing the fund — will issue a “notice of funding opportunity” next fall, according to a fact sheet the administration plans to post online.

Applications will be due during the winter, with funds awarded next spring, it says.

A senior White House official also clarified the purpose of the travels President Obama said his aides would make to identify promising nonprofit groups. “This tour will not be connected to the Social Innovation Fund’s decision or funding process,” she said.

“Instead, it is designed to inform and shape the social-innovation policy agenda,” she said.

The Social Innovation Fund, created by the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act, which was signed in April, will provide money to help nonprofit groups expand innovative social projects or start promising new ones, with a strong emphasis on results. Matching funds must be provided by private sources or state or local governments.

The White House fact sheet notes that spending is contingent on Congressional approval of the budget for the Corporation for National and Community Service for fiscal year 2010 (which begins October 1).

The president said last week that the Social Innovation Fund would provide money to “the most promising nonprofits in America” and that Melody Barnes, his domestic-policy adviser, and members of the White House Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation would be traveling around the country to “discover and evaluate the very best programs in our communities.”

While that suggested he was seeking candidates for Social Innovation Fund grants, the White House official gave a different goal. The president, she said, wants his aides to “go out into communities across the country to identify and highlight innovative community solutions and to talk with community leaders and social entrepreneurs about the best ways for the government to promote greater innovation and impact in the nonprofit sector.”

President Obama has said he wants to create “a new kind of partnership between government and nonprofits” — with help from foundations, corporations, and philanthropists — to address the nation’s pressing problems.

Under the Serve America Act’s description of the Social Innovation Fund, the Corporation for National and Community Service will award five-year grants of $1-million to $10-million to established grant makers, or partnerships between a grant maker and a state or local agency.

They will in turn provide grants of at least $100,000 a year for three to five years to nonprofit groups, following consultations with “a diverse cross section of community representatives.” Those groups must provide data on the “measurable outcomes” their work has had.

The corporation may award up to 10 percent of the money directly to nonprofit groups.

Grant recipients must:

• Propose to use the money in one of the following areas: elementary or secondary education for low-income students, child and youth development, poverty reduction, health, resource conservation, energy efficiency, civic engagement, or crime reduction.

• Have a decision-making strategy that involves “rigorous evaluation of program effectiveness and offer a plan to expand projects that have been proven by research to have sizable, sustained benefits to participants or society; support new projects with a substantial likelihood of significant impact; or partner with a research organization to evaluate the effectiveness of such projects.

• Match every federal dollar with a dollar from private, state, or local sources.

For more details, see the Serve America Act.