Andrew Wolk

Deval Patrick’s commitment to advancing social innovation in Massachusetts

Posted on 16. Apr, 2010 by Andrew.

Today was a landmark day for anyone interested in improving the way we address social problems in Massachusetts. In a ceremony at Year Up this morning, I joined Governor Deval Patrick along with Vanessa Kirsch and Kim Syman from New Profit, Inc. and a group of over 40 nonprofit leaders including Jumpstart, Playworks, Year Up, [...]

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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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Watch the live stream from Dallas

Posted on 09. Dec, 2009 by Andrew.

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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. [...]

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Michelle Rhee, Public Innovator

Posted on 12. Nov, 2009 by Andrew.

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

Posted on 27. Aug, 2009 by Andrew.

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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