Supporting Community Solutions
The Social Innovation Fund (SIF), an initiative enacted under the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act, is a new way of doing business for the federal government that stands to yield greater impact on urgent national challenges. The SIF will target millions in public-private funds to expand effective solutions across three issue areas: economic opportunity, healthy futures and, youth development and school support. This work will directly impact thousands of low-income families and create a catalog of proven approaches that can be replicated in communities across the country.
On July 22, 2010, the Corporation for National and Community Service awarded SIF grants to 11 organizations. The grantees have strong track records of successfully identifying and growing high-performing nonprofits and their proposals offer a set of compelling ideas for how to use innovation and evidence to tackle social challenges in a new way.
The grantees will address urgent needs in three key issue areas – economic opportunity, healthy futures, and youth development and school support. The portfolio includes $74 million in secured match funds. Combined with federal resources, $123 million will be targeted toward projects that train the unemployed, increase access to heath services for the underserved and prepare youth for academic achievement and employment.
As part of the Corporation's commitment to transparency, the agency has posted the complete applications with clarification narratives (with proprietary information redacted) and reviewer comments of the applications (see below). We appreciate the cooperation of all the grantees in helping the Corporation achieve higher levels of openness and transparency in the grantmaking process.
| Grant Reviewing and Scoring Process |
The Corporation implemented a rigorous application review process over a three-month period. Over 60 experts with extensive experience as social innovators, nonprofit directors and evaluators provided critical input across three stages of review, assessing applications against the full set of criteria published in the SIF Notice of Federal Funds Availability (NOFA).
The applications were evaluated based on their program design, organizational capacity and budget. In the final stage of the review, senior members of the Corporation’s staff were joined by external reviewers to assess the qualities of the top applications against the portfolio criteria in the NOFA. The finalists were asked to submit clarifications regarding their applications to help the Corporation further assess the merits of their applications.
In accordance with the authorization and waiver issued to SIF Director Paul Carttar by the agency’s ethics official the Corporation put into place procedures to isolate Mr. Carttar from consideration of any application that included his former clients or employers of the last two years. Additionally, the Corporation removed Mr. Carttar entirely from the selection of the final SIF grantees. Corporation CEO Patrick Corvington did not participate in the selection process at all. He was completely recused from the selection process as soon as the agency received a notice of intent to apply from an organization with which he had a previous business relationship. The Corporation implemented a process to ensure that the CEO did not participate in the decision-making process and to enable the CEO to receive informational one-way briefings on the selection process without mention of any applicants by name, so that he could fulfill his responsibility to oversee agency operations. A bipartisan ad hoc committee of the agency’s Board of Directors, comprised of Board members who did not have any potential conflict of interest with any applicant, received high-level briefings and provided feedback at critical junctures throughout the entire review process.
The selected 11 SIF grantees demonstrated their strength throughout the multi-phase review process. The competition for SIF awards was rigorous. Of the 54 compliant applications (out of 69 submitted on April 8th), only 16 made it to the Phase III Late-Stage Portfolio Review and 11 were ultimately selected to receive SIF grants.
Phase I Blended Review
In the initial review phase, 48 outside experts (3 per panel) worked on 16 unique panels to assess applications against the full set of criteria in the NOFA. The 16 panels were divided into two groups of eight and organized by two dimensions: issue area and size distribution, allowing each of the 54 applications to be considered twice. Sixteen internal skilled facilitators from the Corporation were assigned to the panels. The review was completed on May 14th, and resulted in 31 applications going on to the Phase II Evaluation Review. Those eliminated were programs where each of the two review panels independently concluded the applications were not strong. All applications that received an “Excellent” rating from at least one panel advanced to the next round, including three applications rated “Excellent” by one panel and “Weak/Non-responsive” by the other. Reviewers’ comments from the first phase carried forward through the review and informed clarification questions in the final stage of the process.
Phase II Evaluation Review
Focused squarely on evaluation, the Phase II Evaluation Review was a defining feature of the SIF competition, resulting in the largest percentage cut in the applicant pool (a roughly 50% cut). Six panels were organized by issue area, with two external reviewers (experts with deep social innovation, issue-specific, and evaluation knowledge) assigned to each panel. The focus was on the use of evidence, data and evaluation (a sub-set of the NOFA criteria). This review was completed on June 3rd and resulted in 16 applications going on to the Late Stage review. Applications that advanced from this phase of the review were the programs that demonstrated the strongest use of evidence-based decision-making across the priorities and preferences established by the statute and the NOFA.
Phase III Late-Stage Portfolio Review
The Phase III Late-Stage Portfolio Review involved three external experts and senior staff. In a day-long meeting on June 9th, the reviewers examined and provided input on each applicant based on the portfolio criteria in the NOFA, with a particular emphasis on four dimensions: strength of relationships and collaborations, opportunity for scale, potential to impact public discussion, and the rigor of sophistication of evidence and evaluation. At the conclusion of the meeting, external experts were excused and the Corporation's senior staff deliberated and identified a portfolio of 11 applications.
Phase IV Clarification
Between June 21st and July 9th, the Corporation staff held a series of clarifying discussions with the 11 remaining applicants to address questions regarding their program plans and budgets. On July 13th, after concluding these discussions, the Corporation announced the 11 applicants as the inaugural SIF grantees.
| Social Innovation Fund: 2010 Social Innovation Fund Grantees |
Economic Opportunity
- Jobs for the Future, Inc. ($7.7 million; 2 year grant) and the National Fund for Workforce Solutions (NFWS) will expand their targeted training and technical assistance to at least 23,000 low-income individuals over three years while also addressing the critical skill needs of more than 1,000 employers. The funds will dramatically increase economic opportunities for disadvantaged workers and job seekers through investments in regional workforce collaboratives that partner with employers to identify jobs and career pathways in high-growth industries.
- Local Initiatives Support Corporation ($4.2 million; 1 year grant) will grow Financial Opportunity Centers – a workforce development and asset-building model that boosts earnings, reduces expenses and coaches low-income families on how to make better financial decisions – to five new cities and 7,500 total participants. The Centers are a core component of the organization’s strategy to build sustainable communities.
- Mayor’s Fund to Advance New York City ($5.7 million; 1 year grant) and the NYC Center for Economic Opportunity (CEO) will replicate five effective anti-poverty programs originally piloted by CEO in eight urban areas. By advancing the education, employment and financial savings of low-income adults and families, the programs will combat poverty across a diverse cross-section of America.
- REDF ($3 million; 2 year grant) will create job opportunities for thousands of Californians with multiple barriers to employment – including dislocated youth, individuals who have been homeless or incarcerated, and those with severe mental illness – in sustainable nonprofit social enterprises in low-income communities throughout the state. The project includes testing to determine the potential of these enterprises as scalable employment vehicles.
Healthy Futures
- Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky ($2 million; 2 year grant) will improve access to needed health services, reduce health risks and disparities, and promote health equity in 6-10 low-income communities in Kentucky. Subgrantees will focus on testing innovative strategies to increase physical activity, improve nutrition, curb smoking and other unhealthy habits, and, increase access to health services in underserved communities. Competitively pre-selected subgrantee: Barren River District Health Department ($250,000).
- Missouri Foundation for Health ($2 million; 2 year grant) will invest in 10-20 targeted low-income communities across the state to reduce risk factors and the prevalence of two preventable causes of chronic disease and death: tobacco use and obesity. The project draws on an integrated community change model blending two transformative models of prevention on obesity and tobacco control.
- National AIDS Fund ($3.6 million; 1 year grant) will support innovative strategies that increase access to care and improve health outcomes for at least 3,500 low-income individuals living with HIV/AIDS. The project will employ rigorous evaluation, informing the implementation of the White House National HIV/AIDS Strategy and offering lessons that reduce barriers to care for a broad range of people living with HIV/AIDS and other chronic diseases.
Youth Development and School Support
- New Profit, Inc. ($5 million; 1 year grant) will collaborate with five to six innovative youth-focused nonprofit organizations with existing evidence to yield significant improvements in helping young people navigate the increasingly complex path from high school to college and productive employment. The project will expand the reach of these nonprofits to improve the lives of nearly 8,000 young people in low-income communities throughout the country. Competitively pre-selected subgrantees: College Summit ($2 million); iMentor ($750,000); Year Up ($2 million).
- The Edna McConnell Clark Foundation ($10 million; 1 year grant) will combine large grants, strategic business planning, rigorous evaluation and capital aggregation to increase the scale and impact of up to 10 youth development organizations in communities of need across the U.S. The subgrantees will focus on improving economically disadvantaged young people’s educational skills and workforce readiness as well as helping them to avoid high-risk behavior.
- Venture Philanthropy Partners ($4 million; 2 year grant) will create a powerful network of effective nonprofit organizations in the Washington D.C. National Capital Region supporting an integrated approach to addressing the education and employment needs of low-income and vulnerable youth ages 14-24. Competitively pre-selected subgrantees: College Summit National Capital Region ($372,000); KIPP DC ($656,000); Latin American Youth Center ($500,000); Year Up National Capital Region ($207,000).
Multi-Issue
- United Way of Greater Cincinnati ($2 million; 2 year grant) the Strive Partnership and other funders, will address the needs of low-income children and youth from “cradle to career” in the Greater Cincinnati-area though investments in early education, mentoring and literacy programs, college access, career pathways and other innovations.
Click here for the full list of 2010 Social Innovation Fund Grantees
Click here to read a fact sheet on the 2010 Social Innovation Fund Grantees (PDF)
The SIF is an illustration of the Corporation’s “all hands on deck” approach to solving social challenges by bringing the public, nonprofit, philanthropic and private sectors together to support community solutions. On May 27, 2010, First Lady Michelle Obama and Corporation CEO Patrick Corvington announced philanthropic commitments of $50 million to invest in social innovation. Click here to read more about the announcement and learn about who’s partnering with the Corporation.
| Opportunities to Participate in the SIF |
- Click here to learn about future opportunities to participate in the SIF.
| What They Are Saying About the SIF |
- Click here to read news clips about the SIF and the Corporation’s press releases about the development of the fund.
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