On the horizon: the new "Investing in Innovation" and "Social Innovation funds"

For all of you horizon watchers out there, I wanted to create a forum topic for the new federal "Innovation" funding streams that have been much in the news lately, because they are starting to take shape, and they will certainly require a great deal of forethought and creative thinking on the part of your nonprofit, intermediary, school district, higher education, foundation and state education partners in order to positively impact the communities and youth we serve. There are two innovation funds that might impact mentoring and youth serving nonprofits, one from the US Dept of Ed and one that was part of the Serve America Act. Both are relatively (at least for us in the mentoring world) large funding streams, and RFPs should be expected this fall. If anybody wants to chime in with more information, please feel free to comment on this post!!!!!!!!

First off: The Investing in Innovation Fund from the US Dept of Ed:

Here is a link to an Ed Week article about remarks U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan last week, outlining some specifics on how the $650 million in educational "innovation" money will be doled out. http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/campaign-k-12/2009/08/attention_nonprofit... Note that the program has been renamed: The Investing in Innovation Fund or "I3." Also note that this is different than much of the other stimulus education funding in that nonprofits will be eligible to compete for this money directly (the rest flowed pretty much through states).

The first notice on the grants will be published in the fall, and the initial round of funding will start going out in early 2010. Applicants will need to have a track record of improving student achievement, graduation rates, and student matriculation. They will be looking for ideas that can be scaled up and sustained, which means they'll have to have some other source of private or public dollars. Grants can go to districts and nonprofits, including colleges, turnaround specialists, charter schools, companies, and others.

And grants for "proven programs" will likely be bigger than those for "promising but untested" programs. Sect'y Duncan delineated three categories of grants: 1) Pure Innovation grants of up to about $5 million to try out interesting ideas. 2) Strategic Investment grants of up to around $30 million for programs that need more research or capacity to scale up, and 3) Grow What Works grants, up to $50 million for programs that have already proven themselves and ready to grow and expand.

Secondly: The Social Innovation Fund in the Serve America Act

The Social Innovation fund was created by the landmark Serve America and allocates $50 million that will go through existing intermediary grant making organizations (such as Foundations) that will match the funds and then award subgrants to nonprofits and other organizations that will also match the funds (in a sort of reverse pyramid scheme to leverage the funding). Here is an FAQ on the fund from the Corporation for National and Community Service which will oversee it: http://www.nationalservice.gov/pdf/09_0716_serveact_sif.pdf

I thought these online posts from Tactical Philanthropy on "what is the fund" and "why it matters," gave a useful overview:

http://tacticalphilanthropy.com/2009/07/why-exactly-is-the-social-innova...
http://tacticalphilanthropy.com/2009/07/why-the-social-innovation-fund-m...

Thirdly: Promise Neighborhoods Initiative

Also of interest, there is $10 million in the 2010 Dept of Ed budget to fund a new initiative to essentially replicate the Harlem Children's Zone in neighborhoods with high poverty rates and low student achievement. The initiative would provide planning grants to non-profit & community-based organizations to develop comprehensive, neighborhood programs for children and youth, from birth through college.