White House Office on Social Innovation

By Aaron Hurst on January 22, 2009 7:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

The Holy Grail for nonprofit lobbying these days seems to be the creation of a high-ranking government position dedicated to their issue. Getting a cabinet post or an office dedicated to a specific issue creates a sustained voice in public policy.

The "service" field has recently scored wins in California and New York with the creation of volunteerism cabinet seats that have been filled with strong leaders from our community. It has created a lot of excitement in the field, but neither post has influenced significant growth in spending, and as a result little change has occurred. The roles are de facto unfunded mandates.

President Obama recently announced for the creation of a White House office on social innovation. This appears to be the result of successful lobbying from America Forward and David Gergen.

Both service and social innovation are good things.  They are both critical to our society.

That said, service and social innovation are a means and not an end.  They will never win large budgets when competing for dollars against programs framed around an end like eliminating hunger, improving housing or strengthening defense.

Creating a high profile government role also gives way too much power to a single voice.  For example, look at how President Bush used the EPA to advance policies that were not in the best interest of protecting the environment.

We don't need another government agency or office.  Rather, we must demand more dynamic and flexible leadership across the existing agencies. Each agency needs a team focused on Research & Development.

Obama's cabinet members need to look at their departments and think creatively about how to leverage service and social innovation to achieve their goals faster and better while using fewer resources. They need to audit legacy programs to see where red tape is preventing innovation and collaboration.