The Social Innovation Fund (SIF), an initiative enacted under the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act, targets millions of dollars in public-private funds to expand effective solutions across three issue areas: economic opportunity, healthy futures, and youth development and school support. This work seeks to create a catalog of proven approaches that can be replicated in communities across the country. Administered by the Corporation for National and Community Service, SIF leverages a 3:1 private-public match, sets a high standard for evidence, empowers communities to identify and drive solutions, and creates an incentive for grantmaking organizations to more effectively target funding to promising programs. The SIF is part of the federal government's broader agenda to redefine how evidence, innovation, service, and public-private cooperation can be used to tackle urgent social challenges.
The Center for Economic Opportunity SIF project, led by the Mayor’s Fund to Advance New York City and the NYC Center for Economic Opportunity (CEO) in collaboration with MDRC (hereafter referred to as the Mayor’s Fund SIF Collaborative), will replicate, improve, and continue testing five antipoverty programs that draw on strategies that have shown evidence of effectiveness in New York City and elsewhere: Jobs-Plus, WorkAdvance, Family Rewards, Project Rise, and SaveUSA. MDRC is also participating in a second SIF initiative with the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation and the Bridgespan Group.
