Comments on: Eileen Ellsworth on the Social Innovation Fund Process http://www.tacticalphilanthropy.com/2010/01/eileen-ellsworth-on-the-social-innovation-fund-process Fri, 09 Dec 2011 20:42:38 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Adin Miller http://www.tacticalphilanthropy.com/2010/01/eileen-ellsworth-on-the-social-innovation-fund-process/comment-page-1#comment-8444 Adin Miller Thu, 07 Jan 2010 20:34:15 +0000 http://tacticalphilanthropy.com/2010/01/eileen-ellsworth-on-the-social-innovation-fund-process#comment-8444 Great comments Eileen! Your points were also reinforced by the Council on Foundations in a short commentary published today. I was struck by your conclusion that “raising the minimum grant level to $5 million will prevent all but a tiny handful of very large foundations from applying." I ran a quick search on the Foundation Center database for community foundations with assets of $150M or greater (i.e., five times the size of Community Foundation of Northern Virginia and representative of the increase in the SIF match requirement) and came up with 69 foundations – mostly based in urban centers – that might have the resources to apply for a SIF grant. And that assumes that those foundations either have unrestricted resources available to them or can raise at least 50% of the match requirement within a short period of time. This might be a small pool of eligible applicants I also liked your argument to modify the draft NOFA's definition of low income communities. Your point that "“pockets of poverty”...are not neatly circumscribed by city or county borders" applies to Northern Virginia as well as other communities across the nation. I agree with your suggestion to set a percentage cut off for this definition (she recommends 30%) that would encompass the populations at the Federal Poverty Line as well others at the 150% of the Federal Poverty Line. I'm curious to know how that would work with other communities. I also appreciated your push to focus the evaluation efforts at the local community organization level instead of focusing on how an intermediary might run its SIF grant. However, not all foundations provide their grantees with the freedom to operate as they know best in their communities. There is a broad spectrum of how foundations interact with their grantees and I expect the Corporation will be very keen to assess the active (perhaps authoritative role) of foundations in developing, fostering, and nurturing local social innovation. Great comments Eileen! Your points were also reinforced by the Council on Foundations in a short commentary published today. I was struck by your conclusion that “raising the minimum grant level to $5 million will prevent all but a tiny handful of very large foundations from applying.” I ran a quick search on the Foundation Center database for community foundations with assets of $150M or greater (i.e., five times the size of Community Foundation of Northern Virginia and representative of the increase in the SIF match requirement) and came up with 69 foundations – mostly based in urban centers – that might have the resources to apply for a SIF grant. And that assumes that those foundations either have unrestricted resources available to them or can raise at least 50% of the match requirement within a short period of time. This might be a small pool of eligible applicants

I also liked your argument to modify the draft NOFA’s definition of low income communities. Your point that ““pockets of poverty”…are not neatly circumscribed by city or county borders” applies to Northern Virginia as well as other communities across the nation. I agree with your suggestion to set a percentage cut off for this definition (she recommends 30%) that would encompass the populations at the Federal Poverty Line as well others at the 150% of the Federal Poverty Line. I’m curious to know how that would work with other communities.

I also appreciated your push to focus the evaluation efforts at the local community organization level instead of focusing on how an intermediary might run its SIF grant. However, not all foundations provide their grantees with the freedom to operate as they know best in their communities. There is a broad spectrum of how foundations interact with their grantees and I expect the Corporation will be very keen to assess the active (perhaps authoritative role) of foundations in developing, fostering, and nurturing local social innovation.

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