The Corporation for National and Community Service held a conference call on October 15^th to describe the emerging Social Innovation Fund and address questions submitted by nonprofits and foundations that might want to participate.  To say that the conference call was well attended would be an understatement.  The SIF has generated lots of attention disproportionate to the relatively small $50 million appropriation recommended in President Obama’s FY2010 budget.  One reason is that the SIF isn’t meant to fund specific nonprofit program topic or themes like youth or education or health or environment.  Created by the SERVE America Act, the SIF will support efforts to strengthen and replicate nonprofit innovation.

According to the conference call, the CNCS will issue a Notice of Funding Availability (NOFA) for the program later this fall with grants to be given to regrantmaking intermediaries in the late spring or summer of 2010.  At this late stage, it’s hard to imagine that the SIF program managers at the Corporation are going to rejigger the program design much beyond what they described in the conference call.  But as observers and analysts of the intersection of nonprofit practice and government policy, we got to raise some questions about what the program will accomplish by delivering a paper at the Hudson Institute’s Bradley Center for Philanthropy and Civic Renewal on October 19^th.  Our paper, “Will the Social Innovation Fund Fund Social Innovation,” raised seven points or issues about the Fund: (more…)