Author Archive for Andrew

Around the World Part II: Citizens & Communities

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Andrew
on July 20, 2009
in role of government and social innovation
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Flickr: _fLeMmA__

Flickr: _fLeMmA__

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 we can learn from him. In his presentation, Christian put forth that 50% of Denmark’s GDP is from the government. The comparable statistic in the United States is approximately 37% (not including the nonprofit sector that often works on behalf of government). Recession or not, he argues, we must strive to make the best use of those resources, and ‘engaging citizens in solutions’ can help maximize those resources. As social problems arise, we cannot rely on raising that government percentage. Instead, we must rely on citizen-based innovation.

The other interesting theme that began to emerge throughout the Portugal convening was to bring forth a greater emphasis on place-based change – where communities engage in their own future. (Certainly there is some of this in the Harlem Children’s Zone model.) Though it remains to be seen how easily a place-based change model can spread, there is something compelling about attempting to develop the “technology” that would allow communities to engage in their own solutions as a matter of our everyday lives. Within each community is a large set of untapped resources in people, space, and money – if it can be unleashed. This begins to crystallize for me as I consider how the White House Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation might create synergy among its focus areas of service, new media, and public-private partnerships. Such an approach advances a broader way of thinking beyond just finding what works and moving toward institutionalizing the ability to innovate as new issues arise within a community.

Social Innovation around the World

Published
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Andrew
on July 16, 2009
in role of government, social capital markets, social entrepreneurship and social innovation
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It is early morning in Lisbon, Portugal, on day two of the Social Innovation eXchange (SIX) International Summer School on Social Innovation. The first day was quite inspiring and also eye opening for me. There are about 120 people here from 24 countries around the world, all of whom are advancing social innovation in their own countries. It is the first convening I have been to where I know almost nobody, and I am learning a great deal!

The theme of the event is “Recovery Through Innovation,” and not unlike my first post, there is a strong sense here that we are at an inflection point and that social innovation can play a vital role in moving the world forward on the social issues we struggle with. The critical role of government is quite prevalent here is as well.

Here are a few people I have met so far:

Won Soon Park, from South Korea, is the executive director of Hope Institute. He has been working on engagement of all three sectors for decades. At the Institute, they house the Social Invention Center, which “gathers citizens’ ideas in order to change everyday life and institutions,” and the Center for Alternatives, which “finds new, alternative policy models for our society and the worth in living life for the common good,” among other initiatives. The fascinating thing about their work is the use of technology to find citizen-based ideas, helping to move them forward, combined with very strong connections to both local and national politicians. Won Soon comes from a deep background in advocacy, and brings that experience to driving social innovation in South Korea now.

Louise Savell from the UK is associate director of Social Finance. Social Finance started just a couple of years ago, but they are doing dynamic work to develop financial instruments driven by and for social innovation, a great deal of which involves working directly with the UK’s government. One initiative that particularly intrigues me is the early development of a social impact bond that would be secured by the government based on the savings realized on a particular social issue (e.g., prison recidivism).

Justine Munro from New Zealand is the chief executive officer of the Centre for Social Innovation. The centre just opened this past year, but Justine, along with others from the academic community, are showing me that the momentum being built at universities around the world surrounding social innovation and entrepreneurship is much stronger and more consistent than it was when I first started teaching social entrepreneurship in 1999.

Stay tuned for more from SIX…and follow the conversation on Twitter at #sixlisbon

On “Why the Social Innovation Fund Matters”

Published
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Andrew
on July 10, 2009
in public innovation, role of government and social innovation
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Over on the Tactical Philanthropy blog, Sean Stannard-Stockton has provided some great arguments in support of the Social Innovation Fund.  I’d like to add in a few additional thoughts and concerns of my own:

First, we have to be careful not to get too caught up in the dollars − because in reality, $50 million (or even $150 million after the 2-1 match) is not much.  If we only look at this fund as increasing dollars spent, we’re missing a BIG opportunity.  Rather, the money should be seen as a way to influence the actions of all sectors and thus achieve greater systemic change.  And, in my view, this can only be done if recipients of these funds are actually interacting with the public systems (i.e., education, transportation, economic development, etc.) that have a far broader reach than any nonprofit ever will.

Second (and related to the first), accessing these public systems mean interacting with government. While we all know of really great models that have significant impact on their social issue, these organizations’ innovations rarely find their way back into the public system. For example, the innovations in education are not, by and large, changing the way the general public school system is run; the progress made by some programs in stemming recidivism once people get out of prison is not informing a widespread change in the entire judicial system. The Social Innovation Fund should be looking for organizations with proven models who actively engage with government in an attempt to incorporate the best parts of their model into the broader system where change can really be widespread.

Third, states seem to be the natural level of government to promote a social innovation agenda.  The federal government is pretty far removed from most people’s daily lives (and necessarily moves more slowly). Cities, meanwhile, are so numerous that trying to engage with every one would be overly burdensome.  Several states – including Texas, Louisiana, Virginia, and Minnesota − have started offices or passed legislation to find and grow what works. The Social Innovation Fund should encourage more of this − even giving funding priority to collaborations that include a state-based entity committed to ensuring the creation and growth of the most effective and sustainable models.

By supporting organizations that are no longer satisfied with benefiting just one group of clients and work instead to change entire systems, and by encouraging government efforts to work with these organizations to effect such change, the Social Innovation Fund could live up to its name − driving a true paradigm shift in the way the nation attacks social problems.

For more about my perspective on government support for social innovation, visit Public Innovators at www.publicinnovators.com/publications.

A Historic Day – Are you ‘all in’?

Published
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Andrew
on July 1, 2009
in social innovation
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President Obama - The White HouseI was sitting in the East Wing of the White House next to Bob Grimm, Director of Research and Policy Development for the Corporation for National and Community Service, waiting for the program to begin. I turned to him with my camera and camcorder in hand and asked, “Have you been here before?” He replied, “Yes, but it never gets old.”

It went all too fast – but yesterday was indeed a historic day in which President Obama set forth a Community Solutions Agenda. I like the way that sounds. It focuses the conversation on two core elements of this work: “community” and “solutions.”

But wait, let me back up. I arrived at the White House about 45 minutes early and waited outside the east entrance gate with one of the early pioneers in social enterprise, Ed Skloot, former President of the Surdna Foundation and now at Duke University. As guests slowly arrived, all waiting for the gates to open, I was impressed by how the White House Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation had invited an excellent cross section of the field. Julius Walls of Greyston Bakery, Gara LaMarche, head of The Atlantic Philanthropies, J.B. Schramm from College Summit, the leadership from the America Forward coalition, David Gergen and his son Chris, Bill Drayton and Diana Wells from Ashoka, Zack Rosenburg from the St. Bernard Project, the author David Bornstein, and Kris Prendergast from the Social Enterprise Alliance. Though at the same time, I didn’t know half the people there. The only noticeable omission was the for-profit social venture field, but that’s a topic for a future blog. The White House press release listed all the attendees.

The gates opened as scheduled at 12:45. We walked our way through various corridors until we arrived in a grand room with portraits of presidents on the walls, including Kennedy, George H.W. Bush, and Clinton. Inside various rooms on each side were more portraits of Adams, Jefferson, Madison, and Jackson. Marble busts of Washington and Lincoln were also on display – you could feel the significance of the activities that had taken place inside these walls. Cameras flashed, camcorders rolled, and people who often don’t get to see each other were getting reacquainted while waiting for the program to begin.

As scheduled, we were ushered in at 1:30 to a long narrow room. At the front was a podium with the Presidential Seal. In the back were photographers, videographers, and reporters. It looked exactly like the press conference room we see on C-SPAN.

The program began with excellent remarks by Stephen Goldsmith, the former Chair and current Vice Chair of the Corporation for National and Community Service and now at the Kennedy School. That was followed by four presentations by different people that have developed solutions to social problems: Geoffrey Canada, Harlem Children’s Zone; Robert Chambers, Bonnie CLAC; Pat Christen, HopeLab; and Vanessa Nunez, Genesys Works. Each presentation was unique and special in its own way. “Kudos” to the White House Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation once again – it was clear Sonal Shah, Michele Jolin, Charlie Anderson and Carlos Monje are working hard to cast a wide net as they selected speakers who represent a broad range of organizations and people, many of whom would not be considered “brand names.”

All of this was a great warm-up to the main attraction, the President’s arrival. His remarks, a little less than 15 minutes, were quite amazing. He set forth an agenda for a new way to work on the social issues we face today, which will indeed propel the dialogue to a whole new level.

I want to share a few quotes from the President’s remarks that I thought were of particular importance:

“So if anyone out there is waiting for government to solve all their problems, they’re going to be disappointed. Because ultimately, the best solutions don’t come from the top-down, not from Washington; they come from the bottom-up in each and every one of our communities.”

“The bottom line is clear: Solutions to America’s challenges are being developed every day at the grass roots – and government shouldn’t be supplanting those efforts, it should be supporting those efforts. Instead of wasting taxpayer money on programs that are obsolete or ineffective, government should be seeking out creative, results-oriented programs like the ones here today and helping them replicate their efforts across America.”

“And it’s absolutely possible if we’re willing to work together to give organizations like these the resources they need to reach their fullest potential and have their fullest impact, and if we’re able to ensure that best practices are shared all across the country, that we’ve set up a strong network of ideas. And that’s precisely the idea behind the $50 million innovation fund included in the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act – an initiative designed to assist community solutions like these that we’re asking Congress to fund this year.”

“And today, I’m announcing that I’ll be asking Melody Barnes, who is our director of the Domestic Policy Council, and our innovation team to lead this process, traveling across the country to discover and evaluate the very best programs in our communities. And we won’t just be looking at the usual suspects in the usual places. We won’t just be seeking the programs that everybody already knows about, but we also want to find those hidden gems that haven’t yet gotten the attention they deserve. And we’ll be looking in all sorts of communities –- rural, urban, and suburban – in every region of this country, because we know that great ideas and outstanding programs are everywhere – and it’s up to us to find them.”

“We’re going to take this new approach, this new way of doing business, government-wide. So we’ve already set up a What Works Fund at the Department of Education – $650 million in the Recovery Act that we’ll be investing in the most successful, highest-impact initiatives in our school districts and communities.”

“Our non-profits can provide the solutions. Our government can rigorously evaluate these solutions and invest limited taxpayer dollars in ones that work. But we need those of you from the private sector to step up, as well.”

“If we work together – if we all go all-in here – think about the difference we can make.”

“In the end, that’s what this effort is about. It’s not about the old partisan lines in the sand. We know there’s nothing Democratic or Republican about just doing what works.”

Are we “ALL IN”?

An Invitation to the White House

Published
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Andrew
on June 30, 2009
in role of government
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The White House - Flickr: ~MVI~

Flickr: ~MVI~

Late Saturday night, I got home and checked my email for the first time that day to find an invitation from the White House to attend an event with President Obama to highlight the extraordinary efforts in communities to solve some of our country’s toughest problems.  Needless to say, it was an exciting moment for me.

I had known something was being planned. A few days earlier I received a call from Terri Steingrebe, the CEO of Bonnie CLAC.  Their founder, Robert Chambers, had been asked to say a few words about Bonnie CLAC at an event with the President on June 30, thanks in part to the good folks over at Civic Ventures where Bonnie CLAC won The Purpose Prize a few years ago.  Terri wanted some advice since Root Cause had developed the business plan for Bonnie CLAC a couple of years ago. (Their business plan is also featured in our book, Business Planning for Enduring Social Impact.)

As the next couple of days unfolded, it became clear that the day so many of us had been waiting for was upon us.  The President of the United States would formally speak about how government, non-profits, philanthropy, the private sector, and citizens can come together to scale the impact of proven solutions that are making a difference in communities across the country – and the President would issue a call to action.  As I write this, I can hardly believe it myself.

Too many people are asking: What will this mean? Who will it benefit?  To me, questions like these, while important, pale in comparison to the importance of a sitting president calling attention to an issue.  Call it social innovation, social entrepreneurship, social enterprise – we all know that we are talking about “investing in what works.” President Obama’s leadership in this area is changing the dialogue – you can feel it.   Too much money is being spent on too many models without enough progress on critical issues that we face in this country and around the world.  Today, Tuesday, June 30, a giant step is being taken to change that…and you can watch it live at 1:30pm here.

Late Saturday night, I got home and checked my email for the first time that day to find an invitation from the White House to attend an event with President Obama to highlight the extraordinary efforts in communities to solve some of our country’s toughest problems.  Needless to say, it was an exciting moment for me.
I had known something was being planned. A few days earlier I received a call from Terri Steingrebe, the CEO of Bonnie CLAC.  Their founder, Robert Chambers, had been asked to say a few words about Bonnie CLAC at an event with the President on June 30, thanks in part to the good folks over at Civic Ventures where Bonnie CLAC won The Purpose Prize a few years ago.  Terri wanted some advice since Root Cause had developed the business plan for Bonnie CLAC a couple of years ago. (Their business plan is also featured in our book, Business Planning for Enduring Social Impact.)
As the next couple of days unfolded, it became clear that the day so many of us had been waiting for was upon us.  The President of the United States would formally speak about how government, non-profits, philanthropy, the private sector, and citizens can come together to scale the impact of proven solutions that are making a difference in communities across the country – and the President would issue a call to action.  As I write this, I can hardly believe it myself.
Too many people are asking: What will this mean? Who will it benefit?  To me, questions like these, while important, pale in comparison to the importance of a sitting president calling attention to an issue.  Call it social innovation, social entrepreneurship, social enterprise – we all know that we are talking about “investing in what works.” President Obama’s leadership in this area is changing the dialogue – you can feel it.   Too much money is being spent on too many models without enough progress on critical issues that we face in this country and around the world.  Today, Tuesday, June 30, a giant step is being taken to change that…and you can watch it live at 1:30p

Volunteer Fire Departments: a Model of Social Innovation

Published
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Andrew
on June 29, 2009
in Uncategorized
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This past weekend I was in Jackson, New Hampshire, where I attended the town’s Covered Bridge Dance. You might be wondering what a Covered Bridge Dance has to do with social innovation. The community gathering was to support the Jackson Firefighters’ Association, the volunteer organization that supports Jackson’s volunteer firefighters. Volunteer fire departments – seems like an amazing social innovation to me! With limited tax revenues, towns across the country have long been utilizing volunteers to perform this core service for their community. I recalled that the town I grew up in also had a volunteer fire department, and that some parents I knew volunteered with it.

When I did a web search for volunteer firefighting, I got thousands of websites including volunteerfd.org, the ‘top volunteer firefighting resource.’ I also found this amazing statistic: according to the National Volunteer Fire Council, 73 percent of firefighters in the United States are volunteers. This is, to me, a perfect example of a social innovation that has spread and become a core part of a town’s model to perform a community service. Volunteer fire departments are terrific public-private partnerships based not on one specific organizational model, but on an innovative approach that can and has been adapted in countless communities across the country. It saves the tax payers money, utilizes volunteers in the community, and provides a critical community service. We can learn a lot from how volunteer fire departments have leveraged volunteers and spread and adapted a model for distinct community needs.

State Offices of Social Innovation?

Published
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Andrew
on May 29, 2009
in public innovation, role of government, social entrepreneurship and social innovation
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I recently had an op-ed published in the Boston Business Journal entitled “Time for civic leadership.” In it, I call for the establishment of an Office of Social Innovation in Massachusetts.

I believe that in order for us to advance a social innovation agenda, we will need to link federal initiatives to state-level activities. While I don’t yet have a specific perspective on how details of such an arrangement should be executed, I think we can learn from how the SBA and the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) link the two. As you know, in addition to the White House Office of Social Innovation, two states have already established similar offices: the Louisiana Office of Social Entrepreneurship was established within the Lt. Governor’s office, while in Texas, the Center for Social Impact is a nonprofit organization with a direct connection to state government – the governor even appoints the executive director. These organizational structures are similar to the way state-based Service Commissions have been set up, and these commissions are connected to AmeriCorps and the CNCS at the federal-level.

Please take a moment to read the op-ed, and then let me know: do you think a state presence is important? If so, what might be good ways to link this presence to federal activities? Comments encouraged below.

Here’s an excerpt from the op-ed:

“The public spiritedness and creative energy of Massachusetts citizens have often led to breakthroughs in the way we live. From being the first state to abolish slavery, to providing the first shelter for homeless women, to creating the program that became the model for AmeriCorps, the commonwealth¹s citizens have been pioneers in social innovation.

“Today - as the economic meltdown sends our social service providers scrambling to provide increased services with vanishing resources - Massachusetts should demonstrate civic leadership again, by establishing a state Office of Social Innovation.”

Click here to read the full article.

China’s Opportunity for Social and Public Innovation

Published
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Andrew
on May 18, 2009
in public innovation, social entrepreneurship and social innovation
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Last week I was in Portland, Oregon where I joined Greg Dees, David Sawyer, Kim Alter and others to contribute to the Social Innovator Leadership Program led by Mercy Corps. We worked with a 20-person delegation made up of representatives of China’s public, private, and NGO sectors from the All-China Youth Federation.

Besides the fact that it was my first time teaching using simultaneous translation − which was itself interesting − I was amazed at how engaged the participants were. As I reflected on the time I spent with these participants, it occurred to me that China, because of its recent adoption of capitalism, has a particularly interesting opportunity to advance social innovation. It was only 30 years ago that China began to explore free markets, and yet the country is already seeing market failures along with the vast opportunities to advance social innovation that come with those failures.

The leadership of the All-China Youth Federation got it, recognizing that it would take all three sectors to tackle issues of poverty, the environment and other society-wide challenges that will become even more pronounced as their economy continues to grow. The delegation was led by Dong Xia, the deputy secretary general of the All-China Youth Federation, who spoke with grace about exploring a program in China similar to the Peace Corps. In addition, I was able to spend some time with Jeffrey Q.G. Woo, the deputy director general of the Beijing Municipal Social Development Office, which, although it just launched, sounded a lot like our own White House Office of Social Innovation.

As I left to fly home, it struck me: the world truly is at an inflection point.

Why the Social Innovation Fund is on the right track

Published
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Andrew
on May 14, 2009
in public innovation, role of government and social innovation
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There has been a great deal of chatter since the Social Innovation Fund appeared, first in the Serve America Act, then in the President’s budget, and recently in some high-profile mentions by the First Lady, the Secretary for Health and Human Services and the Director of Domestic Policy Affairs.

Since then, a post by Allison Fine caught my attention when it was featured in a column in the Chronicle of Philanthropy. Ms. Fine presents three critiques of the Fund for which I offer an alternative point of view.

First, she says on her blog that Mrs. Obama’s description sounds an awful lot like the focus of venture philanthropy in the late 1990s on measuring the performance of organizations and trying to grow high-performing groups.

“But the reality is that real social change is too hard to measure in the bite-size pieces that the risk-averse government needs,” Ms. Fine says.

The venture philanthropy movement has had its critics from the start.  It has, however, brought to bear three crucial new practices in the nonprofit sector that I believe have accelerated social impact: growth funding, more rigorous measurement systems, and long-term funding. Is one organization going so solve an entire social problem on its own? No; but at the same time, organizations that do grow and are given the opportunity to showcase their results can generate attention on a social issue and, in doing so, increase the potential for talented practitioners and policy makers to address that social issue. Teach for America is one good example: in becoming nationally recognized, they have dramatically increased the dialogue, and thereby moved the dial, on a focus on teacher quality. Permitting these organizations to thrive under practices taken from the venture capital model has accelerated dialogue on a number of social issues as well as recognition for successful organizations and solutions.

Secondly, Ms. Fine is concerned about the White House’s emphasis on market-based solutions to social problems. “This is exactly what hasn’t worked in large part in the social sector in the last 10 years; that’s why for-profit schools are a bust,” she writes.

I’m not sure I really understand this point − it seems like quite an overstatement. Different solutions to social issues working with different constituents offer distinct approaches, and some may be able to use market-based solutions. In a chapter I wrote for the SBA, “Social Entrepreneurship and Government,” I outline no-market, limited market, and low profit market approaches. Market-based solutions, when utilized well, are an incredible opportunity to make better use of tax dollars while also serving a critical societal need, which allows tax dollars to now move on to meet other critical areas of need. Bonnie CLAC is a great example of this.

Finally, Ms. Fine says the administration is taking the wrong approach by supporting the scaling of nonprofit organizations. She suggests that, rather than trying to help charities build new offices and expand nationally, it should be creating “networks of problem solvers.”

“This is a heck of a lot less expensive than bricks and mortar,” she says. “The way you do it is provide intensive leadership development for creative people.”

This last point is, for me, an and, not an or. I am not quite sure why we would want to avoid scaling something that works − it may be more how you do it in terms of ensuring the local community is involved, not whether you do it. What we should also be doing a lot more of is thinking in terms of spread − the spread of the most effective, efficient and sustainable solutions and practices.

While I am not sure exactly what is meant by “networks of problem solvers,” this is a good concept if the idea is to bring synergies to organizations that are working on the same issue by streamlining successful approaches.  However, this is very difficult in practice because the nonprofit sector is currently set up in extreme silos with little incentive for organizations to collaborate as a network. This does present a prime opportunity for both the White House and the Social Innovation Fund to ask groups to come together in a more unified approach to an issue.

As we explore what Government’s role might be in a society in which the citizens take primary responsibility for developing innovative solutions to social and economic problems, we are posing a very complicated question. For so long, Government has played the role of service provider, and it will take a massive adjustment on everyone’s part to envision it as anything else. We must all realize that we are standing at the base of Mt. Everest and we have just put on our crampons: there are few answers yet, but we have an amazing opportunity to listen, learn, and adjust.