President Obama's Social Innovation Agenda
Cheryl L. Dorsey Interviews Michele Jolin
 What is President Obama’s “Social Innovation” Agenda and what does it mean for nonprofits and the social sector? Michele Jolin was the co-chair of the Innovation and Civil Society subgroup of the Presidential Transition’s Technology, Innovation and Government Reform Policy Working Group. She is also the author of “Innovating the White House: How the Next President Can Spur Social Entrepreneurship” which appeared in the Spring 2008 edition of the Stanford Social Innovation Review. Michele recently shared her views in an interview with Echoing Green President, Cheryl Dorsey.
Can you give our readers a bit of insight into the Presidential transition process and the charge of the Technology, Innovation and Government Reform (TIGR) Policy Working Group ?
During the campaign, the President set forth a clear vision for how technology, science and innovation can improve the lives of American citizens. He talked about how innovation can drive economic growth and create jobs; how harnessing technology and science can solve pressing national problems; why it's important to make government more open and transparent; and why its critical to leverage third-party organizations to advace the public interest.
The mandate of the TIGR group was to outline how to implement the President-elect's Innovation Agenda by identifying and describing the key decisions that needed to be made during both the transition process and in the first 100 days of the new administration.
As the Co-Chair of the Innovation and Civil Society subgroup of the TIGR group, on what did you specifically focus?
The President consistently has emphasized the importance of social innovation and civic engagement. He clearly recognizes the role that Americans can play in driving change in our society--filling health care gaps, transforming our nation's schools or leading energy conservation efforts. He has said: "When it comes to the challenges we face, the American people are not the problem--they are the answer."
Our work on developing the Administration's Social Innovation Agenda sat at the nexus of innovation and service and focused on strategies to make real the President's commitment to broad and long-term civic engagement including leveraging new media strategies to channel volunteers to public service opportunites; creative thinking on how to create a policy climate to spur greater innovation in the social sector; and outreach to various stakeholders in order to build the kind of cross-sector partnerships between government, nonprofits, foundations and corporations that will help drive the Social Innovation Agenda.
How can social entrepreneurs best participate in this moment?
Social entrepreneurs have a wonderful opportunity to offer the President and his Administration new, tested solutions to many of the challenges we currently face. The kind of innovative, results-driven work being done in communities all across this country will be highlighted and raised up by the Administration; shining this kind of light on the good works of the social sector is an appropriate use of one of the President's most important tools--the bully pulpit.
 Michele is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress. She is also a senior advisor to Ashoka. She served as chief of staff for President Clinton's Council of Economic Advisors from 1995-1999.
ColbertNation Meets ServiceNation
 Another member of the Echoing Green community, Alan Khazei, is also working to draw attention towards national service. Alan is now the CEO of Be The Change, Inc. and spoke to Stephen Colbert last month about their campaign called ServiceNation. Watch the Colbert video here.
Fellows Making Bold Moves
 2008 Echoing Green Fellow Josh Sommer experienced his moment of obligation in 2007, when he was diagnosed with chordoma, a rare form of brain cancer. Josh has committed himself to finding a cure for his own cancer–launching the Chordoma Foundation, and raising $500,000 in just over a year. In December, ABC News honored him as a 2008 Person of the Year. Do not miss this moving video at ABCnews.com about Josh's efforts.
 A recent edition of The Christian Science Monitor featured the incredible work of 2007 Echoing Green Fellow Melanie Edwards and her organization, MobileMetrix. In “How To Count The ‘Invisibles,’” Gregory M. Lamb discusses the origins of MobileMetrix and the influence that it has had on local youth across Brazil, who are employed to take demographic surveys with hand-held devices.
 It's hard to keep up with all of the press generated by 1994 Echoing Green Fellow Van Jones and his book The Green Collar Economy: How One Solution Can Fix Our Two Biggest Problems. He was named a "Hero of the Environment" by Time magazine, the"Sexiest Man Living" by Salon, and was recently the subject of a long feature in The New Yorker magazine titled "Greening the Ghetto."
 Last month, The New York Times ran a feature story on 2007 Echoing Green Fellow Chris Myers-Asch, founder of the Public Service Academy. It seems that not only the mainstream media, but the Washington establishment are beginning to follow Chris’s lead: as of this writing, the legislation to create the Public Service Academy has twenty-three Senate sponsors and 123 House sponsors. Read the full article here.
Echoing Green Announces 2009 Semifinalists
 Just eight short weeks ago, almost 1,000 ideas to make our world more equitable and peaceful came our way. Simply put, this is a beautiful thing. Despite our twenty-two year history of identifying, funding and supporting social entrepreneurs, it is always challenging to select just a third of our applicants to move forward in our selection process. Echoing Green staff and our dozens of seasoned evaluators were touched by the extraordinary goodwill, hard work, and dedication behind the printed word, resumes, and business plans. In these difficult times, just check out a few Echoing Green applicants–smart visionaries with bold ideas, who are armed with the head, heart, and hustle to see their ideas through.
Click here to read the names of the 300 organizations that were selected to proceed onto the next phase in our selection process. We'll be announcing the 2009 finalists in April. Stay tuned!
Web Tools for Social Entrepreneurs
New websites we recommend
- Socialentrepreneurship.Change.org - An excellent blog from the folks at Change.org
- Akoha.com - Akoha is a social reality game where you can earn points by playing real-world missions with your friends
- CO2Stats.com - a service that calculates your website's total energy consumption and helps to neutralize its carbon footprint
- GoodGuide.com - ratings of natural, green, and health products
- BetterPlace.com - working to build an electric car network
- BetterWorldBooks.com - a social enterprise that sells used books and invests in literacy programs around the world
What We're Reading
- Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Social Movement in History Is Restoring Grace, Justice, and Beauty to the World
 - by Paul Hawkin - Uncharitable: How Restraints on Nonprofits Undermine Their Potential - by Dan Pollotta
- Outliers: The Story of Success
 - by Malcolm Gladwell - Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us
 - by Seth Godin
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