Archive for 'Role of Government'
A Milestone for Social Impact Markets
Posted on 30. Jan, 2012 by Andrew.
Last week marked a milestone for social impact markets. Massachusetts became the first state in the U.S. to issue an RFR (Request for Response) for Social Impact Bonds or ‘Pay for Success’ contracts as dubbed in the RFR. While not as sexy a term as ‘Social Impact Bond’, ‘Pay for Success contract’ serves as a more appropriate title, as it orients government towards the need of allocating resources based on performance. This orientation towards linking resources to performance will in turn further solidify the infrastructure and tools for social impact markets. In the past few months, the concept of Social Impact Bonds or Pay for Success contracts has garnered an enormous amount of attention. While I have already written about Social Impact Bonds, and Root Cause has also hosted a forum featuring Kennedy School Professor Jeffrey Liebman – an advisor for the state – it is important to mark this milestone. It represents enormous change, and signifies the hope I have of being able to continue this momentum.
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What social impact bonds mean for nonprofits and performance measurement
Posted on 25. Oct, 2011 by Andrew.
Starting with the Obama administration including Social Impact Bonds in the FY12 budget to the Rockefeller Foundation’s recent $500,000 grant to Social Finance US, Social Impact Bonds (SIBs) have become the newest frontier of public innovation and an excellent way to further build social impact markets.
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A New Role for Government … and Foundations
Posted on 28. May, 2010 by Andrew.
Yesterday, I was at the White House to attend First Lady Michelle Obama’s announcement of the first round of philanthropic commitments Social Innovation Fund. By now, especially for those of us working to bring the sectors together to invest in what works, the Social Innovation Fund is not news. But it was hard not to [...]
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New Orleans in the Spotlight
Posted on 08. Feb, 2010 by Andrew.
This past weekend was a big one for New Orleans – not just because of the Saints’ Super Bowl victory over the Colts but also the landslide victory for Mitch Landrieu in the election for mayor that took place on Saturday.
Landrieu’s job will not be an easy one, to say the least. As we approach [...]
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What’s hot in New Orleans?
Posted on 04. Feb, 2010 by Andrew.
No, it’s not just that the Saints are going to the Super Bowl − it’s Lieutenant Governor Mitch Landrieu’s candidacy for the mayor of New Orleans.
This Saturday’s election in New Orleans features the latest in a string of campaigns in which a candidate’s core messages include social innovation or civic engagement. Lt. Gov. Landrieu, for [...]
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Social Innovation Fund Draft NOFA is out…Public Comments Due By Jan 15th
Posted on 20. Dec, 2009 by Andrew.
The moment that we have been waiting for is here. This week, the Corporation for National and Community Service released a draft Notice of Funding Availability (NOFA) for the Social Innovation Fund (SIF) for public comment. As I have mentioned before, this should be seen as a good step toward building a broader social innovation [...]
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Exploring the Role of Government in Social Innovation
Posted on 10. Dec, 2009 by Andrew.
As I mentioned in a recent post, Root Cause’s Public Innovators initiative recently hosted an event at the Capitol called Advancing Social Innovation in Government: Investing in Community Solutions.
We hosted the event because we wanted to broaden the conversation and educate people in the federal government about the importance of social innovation. We were fortunate [...]
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Governor’s Nonprofit Leadership Conference
Posted on 08. Dec, 2009 by Andrew.
I’m excited to be giving a keynote tomorrow at the OneStar Foundation: Texas Center for Social Impact’s Governor’s Nonprofit Leadership Conference in Dallas. OneStar is doing some great work through their Texas Social Innovation Initiative to identify effective nonprofits and support their work (they will announce the seven winners of their competition tomorrow), drawing on [...]
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Social Innovation at an Inflection Point
Posted on 02. Dec, 2009 by Andrew.
I kicked off this blog by stating that the world is at an inflection point. As we head into the holiday season, I can’t help but feel that the work of advancing social innovation – developing, testing, and honing promising approaches, rewarding exceptional performance, spreading and scaling success, and catalyzing public-private partnerships across the nation [...]
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Response to comments on my Michelle Rhee post
Posted on 14. Nov, 2009 by Andrew.
Thanks for your comments; it’s clear that you are very passionate about the state of education in Washington, D.C. I welcome this kind of dialogue on the blog, and am glad that you have contributed.
While I absolutely hear your points, I remain committed to my claim that Ms. Rhee is a public innovator. The D.C. [...]



