Save The Social Innovation Fund

Established in April of 2009 with passage of the bipartisan Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act, the SIF was designed to more effectively and efficiently tackle some of our nation’s most entrenched challenges like historic high school dropout rates, inadequate access to healthcare and school preparedness for at-risk children. Developing a new role for government as a catalyst for public-private partnerships, the SIF enables investment in proven solutions, releasing the expertise and resources of the private and philanthropic sectors to collaborate in solving the country’s greatest social challenges, and fostering the growth and replication of effective nonprofit organizations across the country.

The innovative partnership between government and the philanthropic community created in the SIF not only allows for a competitive and highly accountable process, lacking in many government programs today, it provides a 3:1 match for every government dollar invested, enabling the American taxpayer to see a leveraged return on their investment.

At a time when government at all levels, local, city and federal, is trying to do more with less, we must continue to look for innovative ways to foster cross sector collaboration. Government can’t do all the work alone, and there aren’t enough non-profits in the world to reach every community affected by these challenges. Rather than relying on traditional government theory that a few well-intended professional bureaucrats at the top can craft effective solutions to community challenges, the SIF establishes  that to be truly effective, we need a mix of both top down and bottom up problem solving.

Amidst our country’s economic uncertainty and the pending Congressional budget decisions that will have widespread impact on American citizens, we should utilize every tool available to ensure that taxpayer dollars are being invested effectively and efficiently. Designed to change the conversation about the appropriate role for government to play in addressing many of our country’s social challenges, the SIF is just such a tool.

In communities across the country, including here in Washington, D.C., investments made possible by the SIF will have a real economic impact. The Washington AIDS Partnership is a perfect example.

As a recipient of SIF funding thanks to a recent AIDS United grant, The Washington AIDS Partnership is now able to support the implementation of its Positive Pathways program, an evidence-based structural intervention which will address barriers to HIV medical care for African-American women living in the poorest neighborhoods of Washington, D.C. Through a network of trained peer Community Health Workers hired by and placed in community settings, Positive Pathways will identify out-of-care women, build peer-based trust and inform them about living with HIV, provide personalized assistance to help them enter and navigate service systems, and support them throughout the early part of their medical care until they become fully engaged.

Quality treatment is extremely effective in preventing the transmission of HIV, which in turn has the opportunity of saving taxpayers millions of dollars, but our efforts need the type of significant funding made possible by AIDS United and the Social Innovation Fund.

Across issue areas like education, healthcare and youth development, SIF funds are making possible better outcomes at lower costs. This type of investment is right not just for our federal government, but for our states and local communities alike.

The budget passed by the U.S. House of Representatives in February would eliminate this initiative before it has barely even gotten off the ground. Public private partnerships like those created by the SIF can move America forward further than any one sector has the ability to do alone. As illustrated in the recent GAO report, the American taxpayer deserves a more effective, efficient, and accountable government. As the economy continues to create pressure on service delivery systems to do more with less, the Social Innovation Fund may be the first step to redefining how government can work – if Congress would just give it some time.

Channing Wickham is the executive director of the Washington AIDS Partnership.