Who Will Direct the White House Office of Social Innovation?

Published February 16, 2009 @ 01:34PM PT

President Obama deep in thought - perhaps about who to choose?

There is an increasing level of buzz and excitement around the not-quite-there-yet White House Office of Social Innovation (or is it the White House Office of Social Innovation and Civic Engagement?). The idea has been promoted (including on this blog during the Ideas for Change competition) by a number of actors, including the America Forward social entrepreneur coalition.

The important thing about it is that the Office would elevate a position related to nonprofits to the White House-level. Previously, the highest position of this type was the director of the Corporation for National and Community Service. This would give more voice if not necessarily huge new resources to civil society organizations.

The big speculation lately has been regarding the identity of the director of this new office. A must-read post by Todd Cohen today has lots of important thoughts about not only who might take the job but whether they'll be good for the nonprofit sector as a whole.

So with big hat-tips to John Kelly of Youth Today, Andrew Wolk of Root Cause, Todd Cohen of Inside Philanthropy, Peter Kafka of MediaMemo, and Rick Cohen of the Nonprofit Quarterly, here are the seemingly leading candidates:

Sonal Shah

Seemingly the leading contender, Google.org's Sonal Shah has a long and diverse record in the social change arena. She has worked with the Department of the Treasury and World Bank/IMF on issues related to debt relief and development in Africa. She consulted to help rebuild the banking system in Kosovo and Bosnia. Recently, she's worked for the Center for Global Development as well as the Center for American Progress. Since 2007 she's overseen Google.org's international development efforts, including a particular focused on growing small and medium size enterprises.

Ian Rowe

Last week, Root Cause founder Andrew Wolk wrote that he heard that Ian Rowe would be taking the reigns. Ian Rowe has a laundry list of things that relate him to the field of social entrepreneurship. He has worked with Teach for America, has been an Echoing Green Fellow and was a 2007 Knight News Challenge Winner. He was in director of Strategy and Performance Measurement for USA Freedom Corps at the White House. Most recently, he's worked as vice president of Strategic Partnerships and Public Affairs for MTV, where he's worked on the Think MTV initiative that works to spread awareness of global social issues.

Katie Jacobs Stanton

Katie Jacobs Stanton works in New Business Development at Google and has been involved in developing the Open Social Initiative, Google Finance, and the "Moderator" tool that allowed users to ask questions during the presidential debates and was later used on the transition site Change.gov.

The buzz around Jacobs Stanton hasn't been in the name of the "Office of Social Innovation" but as the nebulous "director of citizen participation." Peter Kafka of MediaMatters broke that news on January 28th and paidContent.org confirmed it. What relationship this position has to the Office of Social Innovation isn't defined but it's easy to see how they might be connected in some way.

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Two things: This sum up analysis from RCohen POLICY MEMO seem pertinent to keep in mind: In addition, the proposals from some of the national players lean toward providing incentives and benefits for larger nonprofits. The bias toward large nonprofits when the bulk of the nation’s nonprofit sector is comprised by smaller organizations (almost 94 percent of nonprofits have budgets of less than $1 million, according to NCN) is troubling, since there is no evidence that “moving toward scale” protects the roles of nonprofits in providing democratic voice to the constituencies they serve.

It may be unclear, but some of the proposals that these national nonprofit organizations had attempted to attach to the most important policy vehicle launched by the Obama Administration-the economic stimulus package-have not gotten traction. The Senate version of the economic stimulus bill omitted every one of the nonprofit-oriented incentive proposals described here, despite much lobbying: the nonitemizers, the IS bridge loan, the reduction of the foundation excise tax, and others (including the expansion of the IRA rollover to allow for contributions to donor-advised funds) all were left out of the Senate bill[25] and will likely not reemerge in the Senate-House conference version. In the end, with the huge diversity of nonprofits operating under the banner of 501(c)(3) status, the test of these proposals will be a matter of which communities benefit, which needs are met, not which nonprofits negotiate their way onto the inside track of the Obama Administration’s nonprofit agenda. As it always is, the fundamental benchmark will be, who benefits? That question has to be answered by the Obama Administration-and by the U.S. nonprofit sector.

Posted by Lee Dorsey on 02/17/2009 @ 07:47AM PT
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And the second,which I will post separately so that it is emphsized, is that constitutional protections against discrimination must be enforced. I am firmly against any federal monies going to organizations of any type that require discrimination in hiring practices or funding decisions, no matter that their supposed rational is 'religious.'
In the 21st century, this is now primarily occurring with discrimination against sexual orientation. Those of us who wish to protect and enhance equal rights for all individuals and families will be here to enforce this requirement.

Posted by Lee Dorsey on 02/17/2009 @ 07:49AM PT
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Is this really where government belongs? Is this an attempt at totalitarian government?

Posted by Charlie Reed on 02/17/2009 @ 09:37AM PT
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I don't think it is Mr. Reed. I believe it is a way to transform America, for the better... for the good of all.

I suggest you consider replacing the word GOVERNMENT with LEADERSHIP.

Is this really where LEADERSHIP belongs?

Do you see?

Sincerely,
Francesco Bellafante
Editor in Chief
Renegade's Bully Pulpit
http://iamthepresidentoftheunitedstates.com

Posted by F B on 02/26/2009 @ 02:15AM PT
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Nathaniel is the founding Director of the Center for Global Engagement at Northwestern University, which works annually with hundreds of students in dozens of countries around the world through curricular programs and student project incubation.