The Social Innovation Fund is an initiative of the Corporation for National and Community Service intended to improve the lives of people in low-income communities. It does so by mobilizing public and private resources to grow promising, innovative community-based solutions that have evidence of compelling impact in three areas of priority need: economic opportunity, healthy futures and youth development.
The Social Innovation Fund promotes an approach to giving that includes many of the fundamentals that members of the GEO community helped pioneer and that we have long advocated for, and the fund is closely aligned with our own mission to promote grantmaking strategies and practices that contribute to grantee success.
Opportunities to Participate: Social Innovation Fund 2012 Competition
The Social Innovation Fund has released the Notice of Federal Funding Availability (NOFA) for its 2012 grant competition. Successful applicants must be experienced grantmakers and will each receive grants of between $1 and $5 million per year for up to 5 years as well as technical assistance. Selected grantees will host open grant competition for nonprofits with evidence-based program models, provide on-going support to expand the impact of the subgrantees they select, and implement rigorous evaluations of their funded program models. The deadline for applications is 5:00 p.m. EST on Tuesday, March 27, 2012. For more information or to apply, please visit the Social Innovation Fund website.
The Corporation for National and Community Service will host a series of technical assistance calls and webinars for grantmakers interested in applying to the Social Innovation Fund's 2012 grant competition. For more information on these opportunities, please visit the Social Innovation Fund website.
How does the Social Innovation Fund work?
The Social Innovation Fund awards funds to grantmaking institutions ("intermediaries"), which provide the grantmaking mechanisms to deliver Social Innovation Fund dollars locally. These organizations have a track record of identifying, supporting and investing in the growth of promising nonprofit organizations. Each intermediary is required to match its federal grant (grants ranged from $1 million to $10 million each in 2010) dollar for dollar, in cash, and then regrant the funding to nonprofit organizations ("subgrantees") it has selected through an open and competitive process.
The nonprofit "subgrantees" selected by the intermediaries must operate programs to improve measurable outcomes in one or more of the fund’s designated issue areas and also are required to generate a dollar for dollar cash match for their grants. As a result, the Social Innovation Fund provides leverage by aggregating philanthropic and government resources so that the most effective approaches can be expanded to reach more people in need and key lessons can be captured and broadly shared.
To learn more, visit: www.nationalservice.gov/about/serveamerica/innovation.asp.
Social Innovation Fund: Grant competition history
In 2010, the first year of the fund, 11 intermediaries, including six GEO members, received awards in three priority areas — economic opportunity, healthy futures and youth development — and one award that crossed multiple issue areas.
In turn, these organizations selected 138 subgrantees to lead projects in communities across the U.S. — in 30 states as well as the District of Columbia are home to Social Innovation Fund projects.
In the second year of the program, five more intermediaries received Social Innovation Fund awards, and nine of the 11 first-round grantees received continuation funding that will enable them to continue to build their multiyear programs. Read the Corporation's August 4, 2011 announcement about the 2011 portfolio here.
The 2011 intermediaries have yet to select their subgrantees, but potential partners can learn more about possible project service areas here.
Opportunities to participate in the Social Innovation Fund
A key feature of the Social Innovation Fund is its emphasis on collaboration across sectors to grow social impact. There are many opportunities for grantmakers to be involved in the Social Innovation Fund, including as:
- An intermediary organization interested in applying to the Social Innovation Fund for a grant to invest in promising nonprofits.
- A funder interested in making a financial contribution to support either intermediary grantees of the Social Innovation Fund or their subgrantees. These collaborating funders do not receive federal grant money, but instead provide resources to help Social Innovation Fund awardees meet their match requirement.
See a growing list of grantmakers who are engaged in the Social Innovation Fund as collaborating funders and project partners here.
If you are interested in providing matching funds or want to learn more about projects happening in your community, check out profiles and videos of the 2010 and 2011 Social Innovation Fund portfolio.
