Creating
Policies and Ecosystems for Innovation
In a 2008 article, published in the Stanford Social
Innovation Review, titled, Innovating the
White House, author Michele Jolin outlines policy goals for a presidential
candidate to adopt policies that promote social innovation. Jolin recommends
four policy goals, only one of which suggests a non-investment or
funding-related recommendation. This particular policy goal addresses the
removal of taxes and regulatory barriers that prevent innovation by entrepreneurs.
There is an increasing amount of entrepreneurs using for-profit investments to
promote social impact, thus the line that differentiates traditional for-profit
behavior from non-profit behavior is more nuanced, but current regulations and
respective taxes fail to represent these nuanced entrepreneurial shifts in
behavior.
Jolin highlights the opportunity the White House has in
innovating its behavior to promote social innovation among entrepreneurs, and
suggests the establishment of the Office of Social Innovation and Impact as the
primary mechanism to enact these socially innovative policy goals into the
future. Conceptually, this mechanism for social innovation provides a
landscape, ecosystem, or framework for social impact.
Established in 2009, President Obama’s Office of Social Innovation and Civic
Participation (SICP) is a manifestation of much of Jolin’s recommendations.
The SICP currently operates as a mechanism to create an ecosystem that
facilitates social innovation and advances the public interest. Obama’s SICP strategy
re-conceptualizes how the aforementioned mechanism should function; instead of
promoting innovative programs “at the top,” the SICP promotes “bottom-up”
social innovation by equipping “cities and towns across the country” with the
necessary funds and resources “[to come] together to solve tough problems.” A
bottom-up strategy effectively democratizes the power of “the bottom” to socially
innovate “to the top.”
According to a “Harvard Family Research Project” that
evaluated the SICP practices, the SICP provides various non-monetary resources
to promote social innovation: “develop[ment] partnerships between the
government and nonprofits, businesses, and philanthropists” and support[ing]
the use of new media tools to encourage greater civic participation.” Aside
from providing monetary resources and incentives, support through partnerships
and shifting cultural norms whose outcomes are socially impactful, seems to me
like a more sustainable and innovative strategy that effectively creates an
ecosystem for innovation.
I tend to support the notion that effective social change
is helped by monetary incentives, but sustained by fundamental shifts in value
and behavior—most historical political, cultural, and social movements follow
this logic. The strategies of the SICP manifest this logic, however my research
cannot speak to SICP’s societal impact.
Do you think this logic and strategy is effective for
social innovation and impact?
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