National Service Agency Requests Applications for Social Innovation Fund Competition

[Lee Cruz]

CONTACT: Ashley Etienne

February 28, 2011 202.606.6944; [e-mail]

Washington, DC—The Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) today released a Notice of Federal Funding Opportunity (NOFO) for the 2011 grant competition of the Social Innovation Fund. Applications are due by 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time on Tuesday, April 12, 2011. “In its first year, the Social Innovation Fund has laid a sound foundation for improving the lives of thousands of people in low-income communities throughout the U.S.,” said Patrick Corvington, CEO of CNCS. “The second grant selection competition represents a critical next step toward demonstrating that the federal government – working in partnership with nonprofit organizations, private philanthropies, municipal governments and other key agents of change – can be an innovative and effective catalyst for tackling some of our most persistent social challenges.”

The Social Innovation Fund represents a new way of doing business for the federal government. Through an innovative public-private partnership, the Social Innovation Fund and selected local and national grantmakers co-invest in programs that increase the scale of community-based solutions that have evidence of real impact in three priority areas: youth development, economic opportunity or healthy futures. When the first round of grantmaking is completed in March, the Social Innovation Fund’s eleven 2010 grantees will have awarded nearly $100 million to approximately 150 innovative community-based non-profits organizations.

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