Innovative Policy Matters

Innovative Policy Matters

Non-profits and social entrepreneurs have the flexibility and know-how of how to address the issues and topics facing their immediate and targeted communities. By financing their evaluation and impact strategies, governments will not only gain more information about which best practices and models are most effective, but they will also contribute to the investing trends that reward the work that works! 

Evidence-based research on program performance[1] can allow the United States and other nations to make more informed decisions about funding and investing in the social innovation and non-profit sector. By not taking into consideration the vast range of possible approaches to help specific and unique challenges, governments run the risk of wasting millions of dollars while also not helping groups and citizens solve the problems they face. Even in instances where policy like basic income could very well help mitigate loss of income with workforce displacement, we saw in the reading that [2]this policy’s design cannot be applied on a standard basis across the board. Some governments just do not have the financial bandwidth to support the costs of carrying out the policy and evaluating its effectiveness. However, governments can take advantage of the smaller scale of social entrepreneurs and nonprofits to experiment and test out new approaches. Feedback on these projects can inform policy makers on how successful methods can be applied at a larger scale or be suggested as a best practice model.

There are hundreds of thousands of non-profits, civic groups and social entrepreneurs domestic and abroad tackling a wide range of issues, using various methods to do so. It seems to be less than probable that one or a few methods of supporting these initiatives will best meet the needs of all.

Policies regarding funding social innovation must be dynamic in design in order to work within the budgetary constraints of the government and meet the evaluation and feedback loop needed to assess the impact. Obama’s administration was on the correct path with the creation of the White House Office of Social Innovation and Civic participation. This group’s research, funding and presentation strategy has allowed them to build bipartisan support around social impact and draw attention to both the social and economic benefits to investing in social innovation.

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[1] https://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/04/14/equal-opportunity-and-social-innovation-obamas-policy-agenda/

[2] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jan/03/finland-trials-basic-income-for-unemployed