In an announcement made today about the US government’s Social Innovation Fund, President Barack Obama highlights the Scaling What Works project. This three-year project of Grantmakers for Effective Organizations (GEO) is supported by a coalition of over 20 grantmakers. The aim is to clarify what is and isn’t working on the ground, thus ensuring that public and private resources, including Social Innovation Fund funding, can flow to the highest-performing non-profits.

The $5 million fund will be awarded this summer to a series of grantmaker intermediaries with experience and expertise in helping high-performing non-profits to grow. Both the White House and the backers of Scaling What Works see the initiative as well placed to assist that process.

The project will serve as an ongoing convener, liaison and information broker between the field of philanthropy and the public agencies involved with the Social Innovation Fund. The project’s funders, who have invested to the tune of $5 million, include, among other major names in the US foundation field, Atlantic Philanthropies and the Ford, Gates, Kellogg, Mott and Packard Foundations.

‘By helping grantmakers better understand how to partner with successful nonprofits in gathering data about their results and then prepare for growth, we’re not only strengthening the facts on the ground but also the context in which high-performing organizations do their work,’ says Kathleen Enright, president and CEO of GEO. ‘As such, Scaling What Works holds the potential to contribute to the overall capacity and effectiveness of hundreds of grantmakers and thousands of nonprofits far beyond those directly involved in the Social Innovation Fund.’

For more information
http://www.geofunders.org