Andrew Wolk

Social Innovation at an Inflection Point

Posted on Dec 02, 2009

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 Nov 14, 2009

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. [...]

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Michelle Rhee, Public Innovator

Posted on Nov 12, 2009

As many of you know, one of my main focuses at the moment is on enabling government to become more actively engaged with on-the-ground, community-based solutions. So from time to time on this blog I plan to highlight what I call public innovators – those who work at the city, state or federal levels of [...]

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Performance Measurement – It’s Now or Never!

Posted on Nov 04, 2009

Nonprofit performance measurement (also known by the names evaluation, metrics, outcomes, and logic models, among others) seems to be on the tip of everyone’s tongues these days.
The ‘measurement movement’ is not new – some might say it started well over a decade ago when the logic model came into fashion. What’s new today is that [...]

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The Investing in Innovation (i3) Fund

Posted on Oct 30, 2009

One of the most exciting examples of government applying the principles of social innovation for accelerated social impact is the U.S. Department of Education’s (DOE) Investing in Innovation, or i3, Fund (formerly known as the “What Works” fund). As the name suggests, the fund exists to identify and “support local efforts to start or expand [...]

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Does Measurement = Randomized Control Trials?

Posted on Oct 27, 2009

There is a debate going on about how to identify and invest in the highest-performing nonprofits – with a great emphasis on randomized control trial (RCT) studies. The RCT, a research methodology that involves randomly selecting subjects from a larger test group to receive an experimental product or service, is undoubtedly a rigorous way of [...]

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Debriefing SOCAP09

Posted on Sep 08, 2009

It was really amazing to be at the SOCAP09 conference last week, and I wanted to share some great resources for those who weren’t able to attend and want to learn more about the conversations that took place there.

The Pop!Tech blog has great summaries of different sessions during Day 1 and Day 2, all of [...]

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People, Ideas, and Why I’m Going to SOCAP09

Posted on Aug 27, 2009

Next week I’ll be heading out to San Francisco to attend the SOCAP09 (Social Capital Markets) conference. This marks the 2nd year of the conference, and boy have they already made quite a splash! Last year, despite the recession, it was sold out. This year looks to be the same…and with a stellar line up [...]

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FAQ – The Social Innovation Fund Hot Off the Press

Posted on Jul 22, 2009

The Corporation for National & Community Service in conjunction with the White House Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation has just posted a “frequently asked questions” about the Social Innovation Fund.
Check it out here.

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Around the World Part II: Citizens & Communities

Posted on Jul 20, 2009

I am leaving Portugal with great inspiration and practical knowledge about how to further advance a social innovation agenda in the United States.
Friday, I sat on a panel with Christian Bason from MindLab in Denmark, who has been leading a citizen-based agenda for the Danish government for over eight years – and there is much [...]

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