Trump's Office of American (Anti-Social) Innovation

     This week’s articles from the Center for American Progress (1) and the Stanford Social Innovation Review (2), both published around President Obama’s election and inauguration, make it clear that lobbies and academic think tanks have major effect on White House policies, particularly at the beginning of a new administration. The ideas that Michele Jolin describes were translated (almost verbatim) into President Obama’s creation of the Office of Social Innovation and Civic Engagement (OSICP) in 2009.

     Obama is not alone; at least the previous three presidents established similar socially-oriented offices and organizations (3) early on in their administrations, undoubtedly at the insistence of their closest constituencies. President Trump has kept the tradition alive with the Office of American Innovation (OAI). However, there are a few important differences between, say, George W. Bush’s Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives or Obama’s OSCIP and Trump’s OAI:

1. ) The OAI is concerned primarily with engaging the private business sector. George H.W. Bush’s Points of Light program promotes public volunteerism with the sentiment that "what government alone can do is limited, but the potential of the American people knows no limits" (4); Clinton’s AmeriCorps also stimulated citizen volunteerism; George W. Bush’s Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives put religious nonprofits to work on social problems; and Obama’s OSICP promotes both volunteerism and heavy nonprofit sector support. Trump’s OAI, on the other hand, sees the new office’s mission to be to make the federal government “run like a great American company. Our hope is that we can achieve successes and efficiencies for our customers, who are the citizens” (5). To that end, one of OAI’s first actions was to host a technology summit with more than a dozen CEOs from the world’s largest tech companies. The agenda was primarily brainstorming about how to improve government function.

2.) The OAI isn’t primarily addressing social problems. Thus far, the OAI’s interest has been in “apply[ing] the latest innovations to government operations” (5), not to the largest and most pervasive social problems. Economic opportunity, public health, education, and the environment have been common focus areas for previous administrations’ social impact offices and programs. With the exception of its mention of the opioid crisis, the OAI has not raised these traditional social problems; instead, its focus areas are “reimagining” the VA, the federal tech and data systems, and infrastructure (5).

     Trump’s OAI has distanced itself from programs that engage the public sector in addressing social welfare issues, choosing instead to use the private business sector's insights to look inward at the government itself. No matter how much the administration tries to distance itself, however, it will undoubtedly remain the social investment “funder-in-chief” (6) and continue to affect the social innovation space. In that role, it is doing a disservice to the field by allowing the OAI to disregard the public sector’s value and turn a blind eye to society’s biggest problems.

References:

1.) Jolin, Michele. "Investing in Social Entrepreneurship and Fostering Social Innovation." The Center for American Progress, 21 Dec. 2007, www.americanprogress.org/issues/economy/reports/2007/12/21/3706/investing-in-social-entrepreneurship-and-fostering-social-innovation/. Accessed 3 Oct. 2017.

2.) Jolin, Michele. “Innovating the White House.” Stanford Social Innovation Review, 2008, ssir.org/articles/entry/innovating_the_white_house. Accessed 3 Oct. 2017.

4.) “Social Innovation Comes to Pennsylvania Avenue (SSIR).” Stanford Social Innovation Review, 2017, ssir.org/articles/entry/social_innovation_comes_to_pennsylvania_avenue#. Accessed 3 Oct. 2017.

5.) “Our History.” Points of Light, 28 Aug. 2015, www.pointsoflight.org/about-us/our-history. Accessed 3 Oct. 2017.

6.) Parker, Ashley, and Philip Rucker. “Trump taps Kushner to lead a SWAT team to fix government with business ideas.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 26 Mar. 2017, www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-taps-kushner-to-lead-a-swat-team-to-fix-government-with-business-ideas/2017/03/26/9714a8b6-1254-11e7-ada0-1489b735b3a3_story.html?utm_term=.6afd70ee15f1. Accessed 3 Oct. 2017.

7.) Skoll World Forum. “Why We Aren't Getting the Full Benefit of Social Innovation -- and What the Government Should do About it.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 1 Dec. 2012, www.forbes.com/sites/skollworldforum/2012/11/12/why-we-arent-getting-the-full-benefit-of-social-innovation-and-what-the-government-should-do-about-it/. Accessed 3 Oct. 2017.