ShareThis

Today at a White House event, President Obama will publicly launch the White House Office of Social Innovation and appeal to  Congress to fully appropriate the Social Innovation Fund that was authorized as part of the Serve America Act.  Watch it live here!

 

At the event, four organizations will be profiled and will have speaking roles.  We know that one of them is Bonnie CLAC - for whom Root Cause wrote the business plan and whose plan we featured in our How-to Guide "Business Planning for Enduring Social Impact". We are hearing that two of the three others are Genesys Works and Harlem Children's Zone.

 

It is exciting that government is taking such a public role in encouraging and supporting what works.  Our CEO, Andrew Wolk, is there in person today, so visit his blog for more updates.

 

See below for the official press release:

 

THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Press Secretary

____________________________________________­_________________________________­­­­­­­­­­­­_____________

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

June 30, 2009

President Obama To Highlight Innovative Programs that are Transforming Communities Across the Nation

President Calls on Foundations, Philanthropists, and the Private Sector to Invest in Community Solutions

 

Today, President Obama will highlight innovative non-profits programs that are making a difference in communities across the country.   Programs such as Harlem Children’s Zone, Teach for America, HopeLab, Genesys Works, and Bonnie CLAC have developed models that are demonstrating results.  These programs and others like them have the potential to make progress in education, training, health care, and other areas in more communities across the country.

 

The President will call on foundations, philanthropists, and others in the private sector to partner with the government to find and invest in these innovative, high-impact solutions.  Now more than ever, we need to build cross-sector partnerships to transform our schools, improve the health of Americans, and employ more people in clean energy and other emerging industries.  These community solutions will help build the new foundation for the economy and the nation.

 

The President also asked Melody Barnes, Director of the White House Domestic Policy Council, and her innovation team to search outside of Washington for the programs that can most effectively transform communities and change lives.

 

Background on the people who will share their stories during the conversation on community solutions:

Geoff Canada, Harlem Children’s Zone

Since 1990, Mr. Canada has been the President and Chief Executive Officer for Harlem Children's Zone. Mr. Canada grew up in the South Bronx in a poor, sometimes-violent neighborhood. Despite his troubled surroundings, Mr. Canada was able to succeed academically, receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree from Bowdoin College and a master's degree in education from the Harvard School of Education. After graduating from Harvard, Mr. Canada decided to work to help children who, like himself, were disadvantaged by their lives in poor, embattled neighborhood. In 2006, Mr. Canada was selected by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg as co-chair of The Commission on Economic Opportunity, which was asked to formulate a plan to significantly reduce poverty. In 2007, he was appointed co-chair of New York State Governor's Children's Cabinet Advisory Board.

Harlem Children's Zone, Inc. has experienced incredible growth, from the number of children served to the breadth of services provided. In 1997, the agency began a network of programs for a 24-block area: the Harlem Children's Zone Project. In 2007, the Zone Project grew to almost 100 blocks and serves more than 8,000 children and more than 4,100 adults. Over the years, the organization introduced several ground-breaking efforts including the Baby College parenting workshops, the Harlem Gems pre-school program, the HCZ Asthma Initiative, which teaches families to better manage the disease, the Promise Academy, a high-quality public charter school; and an obesity program to help children stay healthy.

 

Pat Christen, HopeLab

HopeLab is a nonprofit organization in Redwood City, California, founded by board chair and philanthropist Pam Omidyar. HopeLab combines intensive research with cutting-edge technology to improve the health and quality of life of young people with chronic illnesses. HopeLab is dedicated to finding solutions that have broad impact, and works closely with tweens, teens and young adults to create fun, innovative products that meet their needs. Among them is Re-Mission, HopeLab's groundbreaking video game for young people with cancer. Data show that that Re-Mission improves treatment adherence and other key health outcomes, which were recently published in the medical journal Pediatrics. HopeLab is also developing products to combat sedentary behavior in children as a way to fight the effects of childhood obesity.

 

Pat Christen is the President and CEO of HopeLab. She will share the story of Richard Ross, a 12-year-old seventh grader, who is one of HopeLab's "kid experts" testing a new product called gDitty. The product is designed to motivate middle-school kids to be more physically active. Kids wear the gDitty activity monitor, then connect it to the gDitty website to redeem activity points for rewards. gDitty is another example of how HopeLab is harnessing the power and appeal of technology to measurably improve kids' health.

 

Robert Chambers, Bonnie CLAC

Robert Chambers is the president and co-founder of Bonnie CLAC. His experience working at an automobile dealership, watching low-income individuals forced to pay high interest rates when they purchased cars, led him to the form the organization.  Headquartered in New Hampshire, Bonnie CLAC is an award-winning not-for-profit organization that helps people from all walks of life acquire fuel-efficient, affordable and reliable vehicles.

 

Bonnie CLAC’s program helps clients build creditworthiness and provides car selection and purchase assistance to help low- and moderate-income individuals create savings, improve their access to health care, and reduce carbon emissions into the environment. Since its founding in 2001, Bonnie CLAC has guaranteed over $12 million in loans for more than 1200 clients, most of whom fall below HUD low-income guidelines.

 

Vanessa Nunez, Genesys Works
Vanessa Nunez grew up in a home where a single-mother raised her three girls. Since she was 13 years old, she worked to help support the family, sometime two jobs at a time. Vanessa was working as a hostess at a restaurant, called the Aquarium, when she heard about Genesys Works.  She came into the program in 2007 and went through Genesys’ Works’ rigorous year-long training program.   After successfully completing their training program, Vanessa was assigned to work with a new Genesys Works partner, Marathon Oil, a Fortune 500 company. At the time, Vanessa was only one of only two students there. This year they will have 10 students in that company. Vanessa now attends the University of Houston and is still working in the corporate information technology department at Marathon Oil.

Genesys Works is a Houston-based non-profit organization that trains and employs high school students to perform technical services for major corporations. Founded in 2002, the organization seeks to enable economically disadvantaged high school students to enter the economic mainstream by providing them with the knowledge and work experience required to succeed as technical professionals. Over 95 percent of Genesys Works graduates go on to college. Genesys Works has locations in St. Paul, Minnesota and Houston, TX and is planning to open a Chicago location in 2010.

 

Steve Goldsmith

Stephen Goldsmith earned a national reputation for innovations in government while serving two terms as mayor of Indianapolis. He transformed the delivery of city services; his efforts to revitalize urban neighborhoods through creative partnerships with community and faith based organizations have been held up as a national model.

 

Goldsmith is Daniel Paul Professor of Government and director of the Innovations in American Government Program, at Harvard’s Kennedy School where he hosts an Executive Session on Transforming Cities through Civic Entrepreneurship. He also serves as the vice-chair of the Corporation for National and Community Service.

 

He served as mayor of Indianapolis from 1992 to 1999. Prior to this time he served as Marion County district attorney for twelve years.

 

 

Below is a list of expected attendees at today’s event on Community Solutions:

MEMBERS OF CONGRESS:

Rep. Jim Moran (D-VA)

ADMINISTRATION OFFICIALS:

Department of Education Secretary Arne Duncan

Budget Director Peter Orszag

SPECIAL GUESTS:

Geoffrey Canada, Harlem Children’s Zone

Robert Chambers, Bonnie CLAC

Pat Christen, HopeLab

Dave Cieslewicz, Mayor of Madison, Wisconsin

Steve Goldsmith, Harvard Kennedy School

Vanessa Nunez, Genesys Works

Sara Presler, Mayor of Flagstaff, Arizona

OTHER EXPECTED ATTENDEES INCLUDE:

(in alphabetical order by last name)

Raolat Abdulai, New Freedmen's Clinic

Ellen Alberding, Joyce Foundation

Rafael Alvarez, Genesys Works

Michael Anders, Morgan Stanley

Hector Avellaneda, Genesys Works

Diana Aviv, Independent Sector

Richard Barth, KIPP Schools

Josh Bekenstein, Bain and Company

Kara Bobroff, Native American Community Academy

David Bornstein, Author

Jeff Bradach, Bridgespan Group

Arthur Brooks, American Enterprise Institute

Elliott Brown, Springboard Forward

Michael Brown, City Year

Tony Brunswick, LIFT

Andrew Butcher, GTECH

Kelley Caffarelli, Home Depot Foundation

Geoffrey Canada Jr., Harlem Children's Zone

Dan Cardinali, Communities in Schools

James Cleveland, JumpStart

AnnMaura Connoly, City Year

Dr. Charlotte Cowan, Author

Ann Cramer, IBM

Cameron Cushman, Kauffman Foundation

Carla Dartis, Tides Center

Alfa Demmellash, Rising Tide Capital

Allison Devore, StreetWise Partners

Suzanne DiBianca, Sales Force Foundation

Cheryl Dorsey, Echoing Green

Bill Drayton, Ashoka

Mallika Dutt, Breakthrough

Alex Forrester, Rising Tide Capital

Tom Freedman, Freedman Consulting

David Friedman

Mark Fuller, Monitor Group

Marilyn Gaston, Gaston and Porter Health Improvement Center

Christopher Gergen, Duke University

David Gergen, Center for Public Leadership

John Gomperts, Civic Ventures

Christine Greenhow, Admission Possible

Tiffany Gueye, Building Educated Leaders for Life (BELL)

Steve Gunderson, Council on Foundations

Chuck Harris, Sea Change Capital Partners

Ben Hecht, Living Cities

Scott Heiferman, meetup.org

Philip Henderson, Surdna

Sara Horowitz, Working Today—Freelancers Union

Frederick Humphries, Microsoft

Dominique Jackson, Communities in Schools

Thomas JenkinsJr., Nurse-Family Partnership

Gladys Jensen, Jensen Foundation

James Jensen, Jensen Foundation

Alan Khazei, Be the Change

Vanessa Kirsch, New Profit

Matt Klein, Blue Ridge Foundation

Chris Koch, GTECH

Gara LaMarche, Atlantic Philanthropies

Carol Larson, Packard Foundation

Jonathan Lavine, Bain Capital

Pat Lawler, Youth Villages

Mark Levine, The After School Corporation (TASC)

Felix Lloyd, Skill Life

Gary Maxworthy, Farms to Families

Terry Mazany, Chicago Community Trust

Jim McCorkell, Admission Possible

Darin McKeever, Gates Foundation

Margaret McKenna, Wal-Mart

Bill Milliken, Communities in Schools

Ted Mitchell, New Schools Venture Fund

Vanessa Nunez, Genesys Works

Mark Nunnelly, Bain

David Olds, Nurse-Family Partnership

Pam Omidyar, Omidyar Foundation

April Osajima, Girls, Inc.

Sally Osberg, Skoll Foundation

Gayle Porter, Gaston and Porter Health Improvement Center

Alma Powell, America's Promise Alliance

Bruce Reed, Democratic Leadership Council

Chandra Ribeiro, Bonnie CLAC

John Rice, Management Leadership for Tomorrow

Julie Rogers, Meyer Foundation

Sharon Rohrbach, Nurses to Newborns

Martha Rollins, Boaz & Ruth

Nancy Roob, Edna McConnell Clark Foundation

Zack Rosenburg, St. Bernard Project

Richard Ross, HopeLab

Alex Rossides, Growth Philanthropy Network

David Saltzman, Robin Hood

Smrthi Sathe, Blue Engine Media

Paul Schmitz, Public Allies

Jon Schnur, New Leaders for New Schools

J.B. Schramm, College Summit

Eric Schwarz, Citizen Schools

Tom Sheridan, The Sheridan Group

Mark Shriver, Save the Children

Tim Shriver, Special Olympics

Bobbi Silten, Gap, Inc.

Shamina Singh, Citi

Ed Skloot, Duke University

Erik Smith, Blue Engine Media

Ralph Smith, Annie E. Casey Foundation

Alan Solomont, Corporation for National and Community Service

Jonathan Soros, Soros Fund Management

Tim Sparapani, Facebook

Ben Starrett, Funders Network

Dorothy Stoneman, YouthBuild USA

Lester Strong, Experience Corps

Kerry Sullivan, Bank of America

Kim Syman, New Profit

Luis Ubiñas, Ford Foundation

Julius Walls, Greystone Bakery

Kelly Ward, New Profit

James Washington, Harlem Children’s Zone

Diana Wells, Ashoka

Shelly Whelpton, Sheridan Group

William White, Mott Foundation

Andrew Wolk, Root Cause

Trineca Yellock, JumpStart

Kyle Zimmer, First Book

 

###