Last year’s Fall RFQ resulted in the selection of the six outstanding organizations that are now part of REDF’s portfolio.  We anticipate adding one to three more groups by the end of 2011!

For details on the 2011 RFQ visit www.redf.org/rfq.

Evaluation of social programs might as well be alchemy or brain surgery for the mystery and complexity surrounding it.  The simple reality though is it’s worth doing when it leads to better results for the people we serve; and when the funders who pay the bills know they are maximizing the ‘social return’ on the dollars they invest. 

On the better results front – there are two outstanding publications worth reading.

Public/Private Ventures (P/PV) Priorities for a New Decade proposes a new way to evaluate nonprofits that engages practitioners as partners, and suggests how to use evaluation to improve program performance.  

And if you missed it, the Kania/Kramer piece in the Stanford Social Innovation Review (SSIR) makes a powerful argument – and offers practical approaches for assessing the collective impact of multiple entities, in dramatic contrast to the idea that one nonprofit by itself changes the world.

Worth reading:  on the human factor

I love everything Mario Marino – founder of Venture Philanthropy Partners — writes.  His two recent posts on how a leader sets organizational culture are stand-outs.  They match up nicely with a post from Dan Palotta on ‘the human factor’.

Worth reading:  on the ‘new hybrids’ – organizational structure

Several recent articles are about a subject near and dear to REDF’s heart – whether to structure an organization as a nonprofit or for profit – and the burgeoning alternatives that offer flexibility. 

REDF’s own paper outlining how to decide to be a nonprofit or for profit, “If the Shoe Fits” has always been one of our most popular publications.  A new piece by Alan Bromberger lays out an alternative ‘hybrid’ model.  And leading social entrepreneur Jim Fruchterman’s “For Love or Luchre” offers practical tips for social enterprise leaders trying to decide whether to be nonprofit or for profit.

Everyone says the topic of job creation is hot hot hot – but it probably gets a lot less mind-share from most of us than the topical headline of today’s blog.

I recently spent a week in Los Angeles and San Diego talking with lots of people in business, philanthropy and nonprofits about how the six nonprofits that just joined our portfolio and other groups will create jobs that end the cycle.

And actually, despite the ploy about the blog headline – I found tremendous excitement about making this happen.  Everyone understands what we’re trying to do:  expand the capability of nonprofits to operate businesses at greater scale, creating jobs that help people transition into the workforce, and the employee supports that make sure they succeed in keeping a job.

And we are gaining traction with companies (health care, waste management) and public agencies (schools and universities, utilities) that are intrigued with the idea of purchasing services from these enterprises as part of their supply chain that delivers extra value by also creating jobs for those who would otherwise be chronically unemployed.

I met with the dedicated, focused leaders of the two portfolio organizations we selected for our first foray into Los Angeles – Gregory Scott of the Weingart Center Association, and Mark Loranger of Chrysalis. I’ll focus on one of them here.

Weingart houses thousands of people who would otherwise be homeless and living on Skid Row in Los Angeles.  After five years at the helm, and just completing a state-of-the-art health center in partnership with JWCH, Gregg has set as a top priority creating jobs for the people who live in Weingart’s properties.

Meanwhile he is speaking out to galvanize action about what he sees, and inspire hope about what can be done – noting in a recent Black History Month piece in the Huffington Post the “unfortunate truth” that, “African-Americans are seven times more likely to be homeless than whites, and twenty times more likely than Latinos” – but going on to talk about what must be done to change that picture.

For those of you who have not visited Skid Row in Los Angeles, I have walked through the neighborhood on streets where literally hundreds of people – some just homeless, and others obviously ill with mental health or addiction problems — were sitting or lying on the sidewalks.  It never felt all that menacing or scary, just intensely depressing.  Especially when you’d look up at the towering office buildings of downtown Los Angeles blocks away – like a tragic abdication of responsibility for ‘leveling the playing field’ and treating all people with respect.

Committed, nonprofits, government, and the business community have concentrated on changing the neighborhood.  There is increasing development on some blocks with new offices and high-end apartment buildings.  Still many people who live in the neighborhood are homeless and extremely poor.  There have been major civic fights over gentrification, law enforcement, and the provision of housing and services.

Weingart is one of the neighborhood’s beacons, focused on creating opportunity and hope for the poorest people who live there with decent housing, health care, and now jobs.

This year, they will start at least one new enterprise, creating jobs for people to have a chance to take that all-important first step into the workforce.

One exciting thing about having a portfolio is that REDF has the chance to bring groups like Weingart that are just starting a social enterprise with organizations like Chrysalis that are experienced leaders in social enterprise and job creation, but are eager to expand, create new businesses, and do even more.

And we also have the chance to build on the learning and experience of a whole business network with others in the past and current portfolio that have done this work in the Bay Area, and in other parts of the country.

That spirit is also motivating us to create a national network of nonprofits that run businesses to create jobs for people who would otherwise have the hardest time getting into the workforce.  You will hear more about what we learn and what we do together here – stay tuned!

Today we make public the names of six of the organizations that will join our portfolio.  REDF will work with these groups and others selected later this year to expand their businesses so that at least 2,500 more Californians starting working by 2015. REDF’s new portfolio includes two groups in the SF Bay Area, two groups in Los Angeles, and two groups that will operate in multiple California geographies. Together they will employ people who had sky-high rates of unemployment before the current economic downturn – people who need these jobs urgently. We’ll be ramping up businesses that deliver property management services in affordable and supportive housing; enterprises that provide fresh, local produce and recycling; and all kinds of other valued services to our communities.

As we work with the new portfolio to create jobs as pathways into the workforce, we will also pursue our second objective to reach an even larger scale so that every community in the US understands how to accomplish this cost-effectively and with real impact.

With REDF’s portfolio, alumni portfolio, and other social enterprise leaders around the country, we intend to develop even stronger evidence and business models, and promote and expand the road-tested approach that combines sustainable businesses with evidence-based employee supports.

Most employers are reluctant to hire people caught up in the criminal justice system, or those facing homelessness, or struggling with addiction or mental illness.   And many of them are without the work experience to compete; although we know from 15 years of experience that they want to work and are able to.  Once they get some experience, employers are more likely to hire them.  They just need a chance.

With so many out of work, why create jobs for these particular people?

First and foremost, these are not strangers, but our uncles, aunts, cousins and neighbors.  They are young people who grew up in the neighborhood. They are veterans who came home traumatized, and became homeless or entered the criminal justice system.  They are among the six percent of our family members and friends with a serious mental illness. We shop at the same stores, attend church or temple together, and have sent our kids to school with them.

And it’s not only that they are part of our community.  If we do not do something now that reduces their incredibly high rates of unemployment, instead of working and contributing to our communities and our democracy, they will burden the economy and taxpayers with the myriad costs that accompany long-term unemployment.  Costs that too many Americans are now learning about first-hand.

The Social Innovation Fund (SIF), a federal program supported by the President and the Congress is fueling this effort with seed funding, fully matched by REDF and our private donors.  The point is to make good on a promise that Americans are rightfully skeptical about – that we can make progress on the critical issues of our time by maximizing private support, using the efficiencies of business methods, and delivering complementary support services that are proven to work.  This is our chance.  We’re at the starting gate.  Check out the competitors on the field, and what you can do to help us reach the finish line!

The other week, during the State of the Union speech, the President focused on how to create jobs in the US context, suggesting direct investments in business development, research and infrastructure.  This was followed with a White House event to announce “StartUp America” – an effort led by Steve Case and the Kauffman Foundation to spur innovation and business creation.  Fortune’s business blogger Dan Primack in a January 31 post responded with what he called “cynical optimism”.  But when I heard that the Social Enterprise Alliance (SEA) had been invited to attend, and had a chance to suggest that these investments also be made in social enterprises that create jobs for the most disadvantaged – I tilted from cynic to optimist.

While there’s plenty of debate about how much government can do to stimulate job creation, a  recent paper from the Harvard Business School and Pacific Community Ventures goes so far as to state that, “There is no market from which government is completely absent…”.  Think  government investments that created the worldwide web, and the nation’s web of highways for just two examples.

I heard an earful about these issues myself this last week traveling to Los Angeles and Sacramento where I met with business, government, and nonprofits about REDF’s effort  to create jobs for young people not in school or at work, and people exiting homelessness or incarceration; and a model that can be sustained and scale.   It’s the government’s Social Innovation Fund, along with private philanthropy that support our work – and it’s this kind of combination that does seem to work best.

In the Southland I was greeted warmly by the Board of the Los Angeles Economic Development Corporation – leaders of both business and government  when I had the chance to let them know about REDF’s plans to expand in California.  I met with self-described conservatives who run businesses and advocate for them who fully embraced our ideas about helping nonprofits create jobs for people otherwise shut out of the workforce – and eagerly sought to help.  I met people in government who wanted to connect the dots between community colleges and the people REDF’s enterprises employ; and between procurement and job creation.

My take after working in all 3 sectors over the past 3 decades is that practical people in business and government who care about their communities knows that it takes all sectors to create value for our families, neighbors, and colleagues.

It’s disappointing when public agencies mostly talk about how much they’re spending rather than about results; or offer little analysis of expenditures as compared to benefits.  It’s disappointing when government spends too little time talking to business and philanthropy to find out how to use public investment and regulation to create the most public good.

And it is disappointing that businesses often ignore the social conditions they may exacerbate.  Too often neither their balance sheets nor their lobbying efforts take into account the costs that communities may bear for the decisions they make.  Their private philanthropy may help the community, but they might be able to do more through their core business if motivated to do so.

So when we have huge budget debates, there is little reliable data or information to go on in figuring out what’s worth cutting and what’s not; what tax incentives or regulations should be preserved and which ones eliminated.

Some businesses and some government agencies are starting to show signs of progress.  The whole point of the Social Innovation Fund is to create more evidence about what works, and facilitate replication and scale when warranted..

As the public continues to debate the roles of business and government in job creation, REDF will work with SEA and others to demonstrate that nonprofits also play a vital role in innovation and job creation, while generating data on costs and results that informs, and we hope influences business and government action.

Stay tuned right here – February 15 we’ll announce our new portfolio and the partnerships they have forged between business and government to create jobs!

Congratulations, and please get some rest.  We’ll need all the energy you have for the next four years.

When Governor Schwarzenegger was first sworn in as Governor in November 2003, Californians faced an unemployment rate of 6.6% — 5.4% when he was reelected in January 2007.

You take the oath of office with an official unemployment rate hovering above 12% — about 2.5 MILLION people officially unemployed, while the State budget runs a stubbornly huge deficit year after year.  Simple version as you well know: state spending exceeds revenues by a long shot.

Respectfully, lead with a positive vision.  Nothing motivates like hope for the future.

And one of the most hopeful signs from a brutal election season was the recent poll indicating overwhelming support for compromise from everyone on the political spectrum in order to achieve results.

Set priorities + garner the necessary support to act on the priorities + follow through aggressively + measure results + adjust accordingly = a shot at a decent first two years for your incoming Administration.

As far as priorities go – put job creation at the top of the list.

What can the government do?

Bright spots. Identify what’s working now at the local level to create jobs, and deliver incentives to create more.  Who is creating jobs?  What incentives do they need to do more?  To incorporate better wages and more positive environmental impact?  How can government help connect the dots?  How can we use already appropriated funds more efficiently?  How can government get out of the way?

When things move – help them move.  When things stall, find out why.  When things don’t work, stop funding them.  Shine a spotlight on those creating jobs.  Shine a spotlight on those standing in the way (regardless of party or ideology).   Fight cronyism with facts.

Some examples:

• Initiatives by local government in Los Angeles, from all ends of the political spectrum —  from the community benefits agreements pioneered by LAANE, to emerging leadership appointed by L.A.’s Mayor.

• Creative economic development efforts in Fresno – which has among the nation’s highest unemployment rates – ranging from the new Mayor’s focus on downtown revitalization to neighborhood efforts that support children so parents can work.

• Housing developments creates jobs.  Facilitate the dozens of major development projects now in the pipeline but stalled. Work in partnership with savvy local redevelopment and housing agencies.

Innovate. Everybody is looking for the ‘next big thing’ to get the economy going.  California’s unusual combination of higher education, venture capital, philanthropy, thinking/acting outside of the box, technology, land, and our big, diverse population positions us to lead the country.  Use the tools government has to encourage innovation in the economy and in the social sector.

• Do business with double bottom line companies. Government procurement amounts to billions of dollars.  Channel some of it to fuel ‘double-bottom line social enterprises’ that create jobs for those who otherwise depend on taxpayer support (people with disabilities, people on parole, young people disconnected from school and work –‘graduates’ of the foster care system).  A low cost way to reduce public expenditures.

• Private-public partnership. Engage with California philanthropy.  The center of private wealth and philanthropy has moved rapidly from New York to California.  The most creative social capital investing is happening right here.  Foundations and philanthropists have their own priorities, but are more eager than ever to achieve real impact and scale.  Private-public partnership can add fuel to economic growth.   Mobilize and incentivize to channel resources toward job creation – especially for poor and disadvantaged communities where philanthropic support has lagged over the years (as documented by current Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg in a piece for the Wall Street Journal authored a few years back when she was at Google).

Signing off, with respect for your willingness to take on the hard work – we offer a hand to help as we can, and hope that you will get the job done.

We want people to pay the price for crime.  We want to feel safe.  We also enjoy stories of redemption and transformation.  But for very practical reasons businesses offer few opportunities for people who have been in prison to get jobs, which we know from evidence is the greatest way to firmly break the cycle of crime and incarceration.

Two recent articles showcase the two sides of the coin. – “Imprisoned, Rehabilitated and Unemployed”, a distressing tale of a man imprisoned years ago who has worked for decades since then to prepare to be a firefighter with no luck due to that mark on his record.  Meanwhile, “Why I Hire Convicts and Former Gang Members” spotlights Electronic Recyclers International (ERI) founder and CEO John Shegarian who affirms the benefits of giving people a second chance.   Knowing about ERI’s overall commitment to employment of people with barriers, a few months back REDF helped broker a new business relationship between St. Vincent de Paul of Alameda County and ERI.

Ultimately, REDF’s work will have its most powerful impact when private sector businesses begin to incorporate the lessons of the social enterprises we work with into the management and hiring of their front line workforce.  Namely: people with tough histories are fully able to turn their lives around and become excellent employees given the chance to work, and management practices that foster their success.  Hiring these individuals and successfully managing them will reduce the high costs businesses pay now for all the churning at the front lines of their workforce.

That’s why we were heartened to note that REDF was featured in the San Francisco Business Times Annual Bay Area Giving Guide read by business leaders throughout the SF Bay Area.  We hope that many of them consider new partnerships with REDF and with job-creating social enterprise — incorporating them into their supply chain, while also supporting and investing in social enterprise growth.

Last note – a provocative piece in Friday’s Wall Street Journal, about Carlos Slim and his assertion that private sector job creation is the best anti-poverty strategy, asks if wealthy individuals accomplish more by investing in new businesses rather than funding philanthropy.

I would say philanthropy has leveraged powerful change where the market has failed.  As an example, REDF and others have demonstrated definitively that young people and adults who have been homeless, or in prison, or have a mental illness can work and want to work.  However millions of them are unemployed even in the best of times because the private sector does not provide them a way to enter the workforce.  This results in taxpayer, family, and personal costs that are avoidable.

Private philanthropy is the fuel that creates the nonprofit-run social enterprises that in turn create jobs and are willing to take the initial risk to hire these individuals and get them ready for private sector employment.  Thousands of people are in the workforce as a result – more every day.  What do you think?  Where and how is philanthropy most effective in solving problems?

I’m thinking about them again today as we provide a sneak preview of REDF’s new 2011-2015 Strategy which we’ll announce at our Benefit on September 30, at which we are honoring our committed partners Mitchell Kapor and Freada Kapor Klein and Matthew Cate, Secretary of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

With the support of our Board of Directors and our Advisory Council, REDF has created an ambitious five year plan to create jobs for thousands of young people and adults who would otherwise be unlikely to work due to histories of chronic poverty, homelessness, incarceration, addiction, or mental illness.

We also aim to develop a social enterprise business model that will employ many more people in a sustained way across the country for years to come. Enlarging the circle of opportunity so that many more people can work is critical to our families and communities, and also to our economic future. It’s something that should appeal to people on all sides of the political spectrum.

Think about your own work history – that of your family and friends. On a personal level, I know I am motivated by respect I have for the risk-taking and hard work of my grandparents.

Their son – my father — eventually brought my family to the other end of the job market, giving us a wholly different life. He became an attorney, and an elected official (who first honed his oratory next to that pushcart). But one thing never changed – the significance of work as a centerpiece of our lives. It meant we could earn a living, do things, and help those we loved. And it was also about more than that. Work was about relationships, contribution, opportunity and hope.

I remember the powerful stories my father heard at work on the weekends when we’d miss him because he’d be at his office. A woman came to him in tears because her son had become addicted to drugs and stolen everything she had in her home. A man in a wheelchair was devastated because he could not get a job. Creating opportunities to help people solve these practical problems motivated his work as a legislator.

I learned that transformative change — for people and communities — is possible. I learned what opportunity means in a world where the playing field is not always level.

Over the next five years, REDF will work with partners across the state to create social enterprise jobs for thousands of Californians who have been shut out of the workforce. We will learn from our work on the ground how to develop a widely-replicable social enterprise model that creates job opportunities and pathways that bring people into the economic mainstream throughout the country.

To do this, REDF is seeking eligible organizations to become part of our portfolio. We will work with organizations running social enterprises that are selected through our open and competitive process, including an online Request for Qualifications.

With your engagement, help, and support we will succeed. Join us. Spread the word. Learn more about how you can help create jobs, opportunity, and hope.

Today we also publicly initiate the first phase of our federal Social Innovation Fund (SIF) grant.  The posting of our inaugural Request for Qualifications (RFQ) starts an open, competitive process for nonprofits and their partners to apply to become part of REDF’s portfolio and a SIF subgrantee.

It is with great pleasure that REDF announces the launch of our RFQ.  Completed applications must be submitted by 5:00 PM Pacific Standard Time (PST) on October 15, 2010, although submissions prior to the deadline are encouraged and accepted.

The administering federal agency for the SIF notes that the SIF is “a new way of doing business for the federal government that stands to yield greater impact on urgent national challenges” and that the SIF, “sets a higher standard for evidence, empowers communities to identify and drive solutions, and creates an incentive for grant making organizations to more effectively target funding to solutions that generate real impact.”

In this spirit, REDF developed the RFQ.  For more details about eligibility requirements, evaluation criteria, selection process, and documents required to complete the application, please download and review this PDF document.

It is unacceptable that so many Californians have had little or no access to the workforce,  especially when we understand the high price they, their families, and the members of our whole community pay when people who can and want to work cannot find a way to do so.  It is even more unacceptable when we know how to create pathways for them to succeed.  It’s time to change that picture.

Please join us by helping REDF spread the word by forwarding this post to your networks, sharing about REDF’s RFQ on Facebook and Twitter, and telling any interested organizations to visit: www.redf.org/rfq.

After I presented an overview of social enterprise, an extraordinary local nonprofit, the Street Saints, grabbed me and my fellow panelist Roger Williams of the Annie E. Casey Foundation for a quick tour. Street Saints employs gang members in a screen printing business, accompanied by intensive team building and support. The company was started by a local businessman who turned his t-shirt silkscreen shop over to a social mission after printing one too many t shirts to memorialize the death of local teenagers (and gang members). Street Saints was started by seven men who say they were once ‘part of the problem’ — and decided to dedicate the next several decades to turning around their Southwest Fresno community. After watching nonprofits come and go when the grant funding ran out, they started this diversified service and social enterprise organization with the slogan ‘reclaim, restore, equip, repeat’.

After an uplifting visit to their early childhood education program, they drove us by a homeless encampment; a devastated scene of hundreds sleeping out in the street. Their ranks had been thinned by a City effort to place many of them in housing – and there is low cost housing in Fresno – but with little service-enriched supportive housing available for people with mental health and substance abuse problems, many are still living outdoors. The previous City administration had created a small park in the midst of this scene with – literally – tool sheds that people were using as shelter. It seemed like a picture out of the Great Depression.

Back at the Summit, Roger Williams had highlighted how ‘anchor institutions’ like hospitals and schools can contribute to redevelopment and workforce development through procurement from locally-owned businesses. A focus of REDF’s current work. In Cleveland, for example, a major hospital decided to invest in creating a local laundry service bringing jobs directly into the community.

Participants in the Summit from Southwest Fresno articulated acute concerns that the economic development plans of the City focused on downtown and neighborhoods close to downtown, and that the City was unresponsive to their needs. They suggested several ideas about how to integrate Southwest Fresno into the downtown plan . Roger Williams reflected on his work in post-Katrina New Orleans and advocated that communities not wait for government to lead – but get them to follow success when communities organize themselves. Gus Newport described a creative way that a low-income Boston community got attention. Residents put the bumper stickers of a mayoral candidate on a thousand rusted cars that had been dumped in their neighborhood, called the media, and got immediate action hauling the cars out.

A rousing few days in Fresno left me fired up by the creativity and power in local communities where people are organizing to create jobs and hope right now. REDF is eager to get involved and help. We post our first-ever Request for Qualifications on September 20 so that we can identify the nonprofits we will work with and fund over the coming years to expand social enterprise in California. Spread the word.