Beginning this Thursday, July 29, the Harvard Kennedy School is letting the public sit in on candid conversations between pairs of social innovation leaders as part of its Power of Social Innovation Series. The webinars will be free with advance registration and, after the conversation, will allow the audience to interact with the presenters. Topics include how government funding affects innovation within social service delivery systems, what happens when social entrepreneurship and government interact, and how to build and mobilize member-based organizations.

Full details and registration information here.

Patrick Corvington, CEO of the Corporation for National and Community Service, yesterday announced the list of grantees selected for the government's $50 million Social Innovation Fund. The inaugural portfolio consists of 11 intermediary grantees, which will then distribute the funds to an array of competitively selected subgrantees. Twice represented in the latter group is Year Up, a member of Root Cause's own first class of Social Innovators back in 2003.

Though a small portion of the federal budget, the award represents a paradigm shift in the public sector, for the first time acknowledging the need for data-driven innovation in effecting social change. The White House has requested $60 million for next year's award.

Below the fold, read detailed descriptions of each grantee, or take a look at the 2010 Social Innovation Fund Fact Sheet.

Congratulations to all grantees!

CNCS CEO Patrick Corvington will announce the 2010 Social Innovation Fund grantees on Thursday July 22nd at 10:30 AM ET at the Corporation for National and Community Service.  The event will also be accessible via a live webcast; watch it here.

In the meantime, check out our recent post summarizing various bloggers' assessments of the strengths and challenges of the final SIF.

Here's the text of the press release, also available here:

One year ago, President Obama officially announced the upcoming launch of a Social Innovation Fund (SIF) that would call on “foundations, philanthropists, and others in the private sector to partner with the government to find and invest in innovative, high-impact solutions.” He went on, “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.” For more in depth information about this White House announcement read our blog post.

We hope you’ll take a look at the newest feature on the Public Innovators site: PI Profiles. It is our chance to highlight the amazing work of public innovators around the country like:

This week Rep. Betty McCollum (D-Minn.) introduced “The Nonprofit Sector and Community Solutions Act” (H.R. 5533). The purpose of this bill is to improve coordination between the nonprofit sector and the federal government by establishing a bipartisan, 16-member U.S. Council on Nonprofit Organizations and Community Solutions, as well as the Interagency Working Group on Nonprofit Organizations and the Federal Government. It would also compile data on the health of the nonprofit sector.

Currently no federal agency or congressional committee has responsibility for evaluating, building, or maintaining the capacity of the nonprofit sector.

According to Diana Aviv, CEO and President of Independent Sector, the federal legislation would: “produce annual reports and recommendations and convene summits; create interagency coordination by being located in the White House (e.g. similar to the Social Innovation Fund); and require the Department of Commerce to collect the kind of data it compiles about the for-profit sector and make it available to the nonprofit sector.” Data provided by the Bureau of Labor Statistics would include nonprofits as a distinct category of employer.

Yesterday, the bigBANG! event in Dallas’ Union Station convened a community of over 300 social entrepreneurs, nonprofit leaders, investors, philanthropists, and others to spark social innovation in Texas and catalyze impact. The event included 20 microsponsors, 17 corporate sponsors, 14 socially conscious businesses, and 7 innovators. Dallas Social Venture Partners (DSVP) organized the first of its kind in Texas with the hopes of maximizing the knowledge and expertise of the participants to advance the best solutions to North Texas’ social problems. The ultimate message -- “do good better”.

The event featured a “pitch stage” from which the seven innovators selected by the Texas Social Innovation Initiative (TSI) presented their business model and vision, as well as their resource needs to a full room of “impact investors”.

One week ago Michelle Obama and Patrick Corvington, the CEO of the Corporation for National & Community Service, announced the initial phase of philanthropic commitments to the Social Innovation Fund (SIF) at a White House event.

The SIF will fund innovative results oriented solutions to the country’s most pressing social problems. It has three areas of focus: Economic Opportunity, Youth Development/School Support, and Healthy Futures.

The following private foundations and philanthropists are committing a total of $45 million over the next two years to match SIF grants or invest in other innovative community solutions:

• The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation ($10 million over 2 years)

• John and Ann Doerr's Family Foundation ($5 million over 2 years)

• Omidyar Network ($10 million over 2 years)

• The Open Society Foundations’ Special Fund for Poverty Alleviation ($10 million over 1 year)

• The Skoll Foundation ($10 million over 2 years)

Additionally, Mrs. Obama announced that more than 130 community foundations around the country signed a letter in support of the SIF and the Administration’s commitment to social innovation.

Even before the dust had time to settle after the UK elections, Prime Minister David Cameron made a call for ‘deep and serious reform’. What’s unusual about this call to action? Reform will be delivered through social enterprise.

According to an article at Social Enterprise Live, “the new government would support social enterprises, mutuals, co-ops and charities to give them greater involvement in the running of public services.” Cameron is calling the movement “Big Society”; while the name may carry some unfortunate connotations, the concept and its UK manifestation bear encouraging opportunities for the future of social innovation and government.

A coalition organized by Grantmakers for Effective Organizations has emerged as a key player in leveraging the Social Innovation Fund experience. Twenty-one grantmakers will come together to form Scaling What Works, a $4 million initiative that will support collaborative learning among the intermediaries selected by the SIF.

The coalition goals are to not only support collaborative learning, but also to transfer lessons learned from the SIF experience to a much larger audience, enabling community solutions to scale more quickly.