Social Impact Investing

Mission
The mission of the Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation is to strengthen
and support the social sector. This includes nonprofit organizations, foundations, and
social entrepreneurs, non-governmental organizations, mission-driven business, and
multinational developmental banks.
Strategy
The White House Office of Social Innovation and Civic
Participation seeks to facilitate social innovation by
harnessing human capital and facilitating the
flow of financial capital. Based on
evidence that communities with
higher degrees of
civic health exhibit
better economic resilience, lower
jobless rates, and faster
returns to the workforce, the
Administration
believes that a
strong social sector leads to
better
economic
opportunity.
Tactically, the Office of Social
Innovation seeks
to unlock social
innovation potential on two
fronts: Unlocking human capital and
unlocking financial capital.
Policies and Programs
Priorities within harnessing human capital
The Office of Social Innovation drives federal policy regarding national service and
volunteering. This is based on research that indicates that communities with higher
degrees of civic health have increased economic resilience and lower rates of
unemployment. Such civic health can be measured by indicators such as the rates of
volunteering, voting, and the density of per capita nonprofits that provide essential local
services. It is consistent with scholarship that has shown that unemployed people who
volunteer have a higher likelihood of finding work than those who do not volunteer.
The data also indicates that interest in volunteering has reached extraordinary levels
with historic numbers of applications for public programs such as AmeriCorps and
Peace Corps. The popularity of non-governmental service programs such as Code for
America, DataKind, and Global Citizen Year also has grown in recent years. All seem to
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