Leading Social Innovation

Abstract

solving social problems—whether our perspective is from private enterprise, government, or civil society. While creative, passionate individuals from all sectors have always designed new approaches to help meet our toughest challenges, the difference today is that legacy organizations and government are coming to understand the promise of social innovation. Foundations, nonprofits, and community leaders are increasingly incorporating the signature performance-driven strategies, cutting-edge approaches, and citizen-empowering philosophies of social innovation into their work. Some governments impede the process while others open their arms to social innovators. The Obama administration is addressing this issue with a White House office to promote social innovation and a $50 million fund to help leverage the most promising efforts. Even as the social entrepreneurship movement makes strides forward, the ultimate success of any single innovation faces the stark reality that no real market exists for promoting the growth of these innovations—which instead depend for scale more on a political economy than a market one. Government shapes disruptive innovation as it dominates funding in most areas of social policy. Given the inherently political nature of public expenditures and a culture that rewards compliance while often ignoring the voices of clients, programs and policies that offer no evidence of success still remain funded year after year. Incumbent providers, confident of their intentions, naturally seek to protect their stake, while government bureaucracies protect these webs of invested