May 28, 2009
White House Officials Discuss Plans for Social-Innovation Office
By Suzanne Perry
Washington
The new White House Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation was created without much fanfare. In fact, even though it has been operating for several months, it has never been formally unveiled.
But the office, set up to promote creative and effective ways to tackle social problems, is slowly starting to emerge as a public entity. The White House briefly outlined its goals in a statement last month to announce that the president was proposing $50-million in his 2010 budget for a social-innovation fund. And after months of working behind the scenes, White House officials have started to speak publicly about the office’s plans.
Melody Barnes, director of the White House Domestic Policy Council, and Sonal Shah, who heads the new office, told The Chronicle the office is giving priority to working with the Corporation for National and Community Service, the federal agency that runs national-service programs, to set up the social-innovation fund.
The money, which was authorized by the national-service law enacted in April, will help nonprofit groups expand successful programs, or set up promising new ones, with a heavy emphasis on measuring results. The projects will require matching money from private sources or local governments.
While the White House is looking for “new ideas” and “new models,” Ms. Barnes said that traditional charities should not feel excluded by the talk of innovation. “Innovation isn’t necessarily about new or old in terms of new groups or old groups,” she said. “It’s about impact and effectiveness.”
In addition to getting the social-innovation fund to work, the White House office is coordinating with other agencies on ways to promote entrepreneurial social projects, the two officials said. For example, it is working closely with the Education Department, which won $650-million in federal economic-stimulus money for its Invest in What Works and Innovation Fund.
To carry out the “civic participation” part of its name, the office is exploring ways to use the White House Web site to encourage people to get involved in solving social problems. It is also working with the White House Office of Public Engagement and others to encourage people to volunteer over the summer.
The social-innovation office is set up under the Domestic Policy Council, the body that coordinates domestic policy making in the White House, and has four employees: Ms. Shah, former head of global development at Google.org, the seach-engine company’s philanthropic arm; Michele Jolin, former senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank; Carlos Monje, a former Obama campaign worker who also worked in Mr. Obama’s Senate office; and Charles D. Anderson, a former Obama campaign worker who just graduated from the Harvard Kennedy School. Howard W. Buffett, a grandson of Warren Buffett, the investor and philanthropist, worked on an Obama administration transition group that paved the way for the White House office. He is an unpaid adviser on the staff.
Following are excerpts from The Chronicle’s interview with Ms. Barnes and Ms. Shah:
Q: The White House says it wants to “catalyze partnerships between the government and nonprofits, businesses, and philanthropists.” How will that work?
A: Ms. Barnes: This fits into the president’s larger goals of doing business in a different way in Washington, the idea that every good idea does not come from government. Government should be effective and efficient and should handle its responsibilities well, but it also should be a partner with the philanthropic and business communities and the social-entrepreneurial community to address our largest challenges and meet those goals, whether it’s health care or education, energy, housing, the list goes on and on.
This office is one of the key engines in the administration to make sure we’re engaging with those communities, that we are brainstorming around those ideas, that we’re looking for ways to take the idea from idea to fruition.
Q: The office does not have the budget to award grants. How do you see your role? As a bully pulpit?
A: Ms. Barnes: We’re more than a bully pulpit. There are four staff people, several of them with significant experience in this area. We’ve got some good and experienced minds working on this. They’re also working with the staff in the cabinet agencies and the departments to leverage all of our resources as we’re reaching out and working with business and philanthropy.
Ms. Shah: We’re also a coordinating body, so we can bring different groups together from different agencies. We can bring someone from health care, someone from the social-innovation fund, and someone from education together to have a conversation about doing things similarly across the board and working across agencies.
As we see ideas that may not necessarily fit into one agency or another, we can also help direct and create partnerships that might not otherwise have existed. A lot of the foundations will come here and we’ll know about projects or programs taking place in different agencies and being able to link them up with the right groups that are working on it and figuring out ways that partnerships can happen.
Q: Will you have a formal structure—an advisory board, for example?
A: Ms. Barnes: We are investigating and thinking about that now and engaging with our senior colleagues here. But we already have had so many meetings and conversations with the philanthropic and business and NGO [nongovernmental organization] community that we’re getting great ideas.
Q: Are you planning any kind of formal unveiling of this office?
A: Ms. Shah: What we wanted to do, to be fair, is accomplish a few things and then talk about how the social-innovation fund is working. We didn’t just want to announce an office and not have anything backing it.
We’ve been working away; the national-service legislation is a big part of what we were working on, we’re working on a few things for the summer. As those pieces come together, you’ll see more discussion about it.
Q: What are your immediate priorities?
A: Ms. Shah: We’ll be focusing on the social-innovation fund, which we believe is critical for setting a precedent for other types of programs. We’ll be working closely with our colleagues in various agencies to see if there are ways to create parallel funds or at least to harmonize some of our discussions.
Q: How do you define “innovative”? Can a traditional charity qualify?
A: Ms. Barnes: Often when there’s change, people believe we are leaving what’s been working over time behind. The idea is to add capacity and to bring new ideas and new people and new models to the fore and to the task of addressing these big challenges. This shouldn’t be seen as the White House turning its back on the more traditional allies and moving on to something new. An organization that’s been around for 80 years can have an innovative idea, an idea that will have significant impact and build capacity.
Q: What relationship does this office have with the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships?
A: Ms. Barnes: That office is also a part of the Domestic Policy Council. The [two offices] are housed together and are two of the leading DPC offices in terms of being outward-facing and engaging actively and almost daily with the community outside, beyond the government. Sonal and Joshua [DuBois, head of the faith-based office] and their staffs work very closely together.
Q: How are you using the Web to encourage civic participation?
A: Ms. Shah: We work very closely with our new-media colleagues at the White House about how we can continuously ask and take in input on ideas that we may have or [on] what people are doing. For example, when the president went to Missouri to give his speech a few weeks back, we asked on the White House Web page what people were doing in their communities and how they’re making a difference in service. We’ll be doing some of that even over the next few months.
Q: What happened at the recent meeting in Washington to discuss summer volunteer projects?
A: Ms. Shah: The first lady met with over 350 organizations to talk about her passion, which is that service is critical. We’ll have more announcements coming out in the next few weeks.
This was the first outreach meeting to talk about why it’s important to learn about what some of the challenges have been in the past and to move forward in terms of how do we engage more effectively with the community, all sectors of the community—the service sector, nontraditional players, faith-based groups, bringing them all together.
What we saw that was fascinating was the number of people that had never talked together before talking to each other about things they could leverage from each other.
Q: Will you be involved with state and international social-innovation projects?
A: Ms. Shah: We have been talking to quite a few of the states. We’re talking to our colleagues about the international piece also, both the Peace Corps, [the U.S. Agency for International Development], and others. We are in the process of figuring out how to work together on that, too. We believe service is service whether it’s in the U.S. or going to serve overseas.
Q: Will you be working with for-profit companies that have social missions?
A: Ms. Shah: [We will] keep the social-mission for-profit community as an ongoing discussion to figure out what our role might be there, because we need to be sure we’re coordinating with our colleagues at [the Department of] Commerce and at [the Small Business Administration] and other agencies. I think we’ll keep that as a discussion we’d like to move forward with, but in the short term we have a fairly full agenda.
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My twenty years of nonprofit experience lead me to the opinion – particularly in this economy – that we need more collaboration between existing agencies and less proliferation of new and struggling nonprofit groups.
Secondly, let’s ask ourselves how much government meddling we really want in the charitable sector? The camel (and not just his nose) is already pretty much in the tent. At a certain point, why not shut down and hand it over to the government to do it all?
One other thing… Is there any certainty that this is not a back door way to fund the criminally innovative ACORN, or other groups that are simply party activist entities. Let’s keep a close eye on the real intent of this initiative. I’m not so sure it is needed or a nonpartisan idea. We already know it is expensive.
— Doug May 28, 05:11 PM #
Right on, Doug!
I would add that social innovation and entrepreneurship cannot occur unless there is the funding to support it. It seems to me that President Obama’s attempts to reduce tax benefits for donors is a contradiction to “social innovation.”
Innovation in any form happens best in the private sector.
— Kevin Feldman May 29, 08:35 AM #
Doug it is very disappointing and indeed disingenuous that you did not see the social good that ACORN brings to the poor, voiceless and marginalized members of our citizens.
FYI, Social initiatives are needed to reach out to the millions of disadvantaged people in our country. Even if the entire budget of social related services gets upto $1 billion, it is still far less than $900 billion that went to fat-cats in corporate welfare during the last 8 years. So quit this myopic argument, it is childish.
— Pinky Dresner May 29, 12:52 PM #
“Innovation in any form happens best in private sector” Kevin.
Mr. Kevin, did you really research this hypothesis before publishing it? There is absolutely no fact, study or relevant history to support this your outlandish conclusion.
If your government has no role to play in the affairs of its citizens, why do we have them? Why not simply move to disband them? Do you now see the anarchy, chaos and mayhem that will befall your un-intended consequences?
Moreover, while the bush regime gave away $8 trillion in supplus to the wealthy 1% of our population, he cut social services and you my friend looked the other way and said nothing.
But now there is a $200 million attention being paid to social programs, you are screaming foul.
Either you are being a blatant hypocrite or you simply have no empathy for the 60 million of our citizens (black and white, old and young) who depend on these initiatives one form or the other.
Finally, profit-making or shall we say greed-motivated private sector, is not inherently structured to service these common good initiatives, hence your above comment holds neither truth nor commonsense logic.
— Pinky Dresner May 29, 01:05 PM #
This is socialism. Our children and grand-children will be paying for all this socialism. By the way please look at the truth about who pays the most in taxes: according to a 2007 Tresurey Dept. report the total taxes paid by the richest 5% in 1990 was 44%. (who was President in April 2000?) In 2005 the richest 5% paid 60% of taxes paid. Interesting that the argument that all Bush did was give tax breaks to the rich doesn’t fly if one would look for the truth and not the liberal media. It is very difficult for the private sector and ordinary people to help not-for-profits when we’re paying for trillions of dollars of debt.
— Rich May 29, 10:54 PM #
The goal of our Founders, and the intent of our constitution, is to provide for ALL persons the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
We are promised equal opportunity, not equal outcomes. Socialism promises equal outcomes – but only delivers equal misery. Pinky (is that a real name?), please show us where socialism has ever delivered prosperity to a nation? I’m not talking lowest common denomination health benefits (with all their flaws), but true prosperity.
Only in a nation where persons are free to pursue their dreams, without the fear of government force taking away their earned property through excessive taxation, only in such a nation is prosperity a promise available to all who will work, innovate, create jobs for others and produce the goods and services needed by others.
That is called capitalism. What Obama is doing is called socialism. It will not work – and the good works of nonprofit organizations will be among the first to suffer. Freedom creates prosperity. I realize that there is no automatic equality. Who would want that? Who would want a government-imposed low ceiling that limits our opportunities and our dreams.
Government has NEVER created prosperity, and never will. All it can do is spread the wealth around – by force. As first a pastor and then a fundraiser, I’d rather share the wealth through philanthropy. We cannot have it both ways.
— Doug May 29, 11:12 PM #
Just one more comment. When I talk about prosperity, I am talking about the very lifeblood of nonprofit organizations. Who is it who supports and sustains our charitable agencies every year? It is people who have prospered to some extent, persons who have done well enough in our economic system to have some discretionary dollars to give away. (Remember the 80% from 20% or even 90% from 10% rule? Think about that.) And then sometimes, when we are very fortunate, we stir the imagination and dreams of persons with great assets – which fund our new initiatives, buildings and endowment funds. And give those persons an opportunity to make choices that help them to grow as humans, to develop spiritually.
Yes, there are some greedy persons, Pinky, but there are many more prosperous persons who are exceedingly generous. If you are a fundraiser, you know them. So please stop trashing them. Take a look at how our system does actually work. The greedy will get their due. Let’s not miss the forest for a few bad trees.
I do not know why more people do not thrive in our economic system – especially now that so many racial and gender barriers have come down. Sometimes, and I realize not always, it is a matter of initiative. Sometimes, persons are truly disadvantaged.
How do we help such persons along? I have dedicated my life, as have many others, to making a difference through voluntary giving. That is a truly wonderful thing. But we must choose: voluntary or forced, prosperity-driven philanthropy or government reallocation through massive taxation. We can’t have it both ways. I for one want to live in America – not Europe.
— Doug May 29, 11:46 PM #
Interesting discuss. Lots of good points and bogus points. My real q is, can they do anything with 4 people? I was super excited to see an office of social innovation, but now it seems to be a bit of a PR stunt? Am I wrong? I am trying to withhold judgment, but as information dribbles out there seems to be less to it. Any thoughts? Thanks all and thanks to Chron for the interview.
— @campus_entre May 30, 04:49 PM #
Obama is not a socialist. That’s too outrageous a propaganda point to address at length. Goodness—he’s pro-capitalism. I guess those of you who think he’s a socialist must think FDR was also one. When, in fact. he saved capitalism. Obama merely sees that government can play a role in helping certain activities that can benefit from government support. He’s not taking anyone’s rights away.
I do agree that for-profits can play an important role in social innovation. In fact, that’s the main focus of my blog—http://trueslant.com/annefield.
For-profit social ventures, in particular, can play a vital role here particularly because they don’t need handouts from anyone. For that reason, my issue is whether or not this Office will include this type of business sooner rather than later. I don’t think we have the time to wait.
— Anne Field May 31, 03:50 PM #
It seems to me there are plenty of matters that need to be addressed, more than enough for all those who would bring innovative solutions. It’s great to see some attention (and perhaps funds) on social innovation and mission-based enterprise.
— Paul Osterlund Jun 1, 05:48 PM #
As a huge fan of collaborative efforts, across all sectors, I am encouraged by the Intention of the Social Innovation Office. It seems a small enough budget in relative terms, if it can broker shared efforts among private, public and non-profit sectors. Government is a “service sector” first and foremost. Connecting innovative thinking (whatever its source — many innovations come from the non-profit, academic, faith-based worlds) is a service beyond the scope or intention of other sectors individually.
I would ask for greater transparency as the Office develops however.
— Catherine Porter Jun 2, 02:45 PM #
Great Q&A. I particularly appreciate Melody Barnes’ statement that “An organization that’s been around for 80 years can have an innovative idea, an idea that will have significant impact and build capacity.” Our organization, ZeroDivide, has funded several innovative projects that combine youth tech training and social enterprise. One organization, Change Agent Productions, is a program operated through a YMCA in Long Beach. Another, Bay Area Video Coalition, was founded in 1976. Both are creating innovative programs that bring economic opportunities to the communities they serve.
— John Hoffman Jun 3, 08:17 PM #