Good News for Social Entrepreneurs on Whitehouse.gov

Yesterday, just before President Obama was sworn in, Change.gov was taken down and the new Whitehouse.gov was revealed. The Obama Administration website is officially a blog.

There are a few things I'd like to see them do differently. VentureBeat's Anthony Ha recognized that unlike Change.gov, there's no ability to comment on the blog. There's just a "contact us" form that only allows 500 characters. This does matter, because it means that at least for now the site is all PR, no engagement.

That said, let's assume that this is just the first step in a far more engaged strategy that actually sees the White House using creative ideas like the "Citizen's Briefing Book" to find out what Americans really care about. Based on the way the president ran his campaign and transition, I think this is a reasonable working assumption. There's also a lot of great stuff on the site already. The organization is simple and easy and I love the history and background information they have.

But of course, in the long run, what really matters is policy. Whitehouse.gov continues the Change.gov and my.BarackObama.com traditions of simplifying the major policy bullet points. So what's there for the social entrepreneurs?

• Social Investment Fund Network: Use federal seed money to leverage private sector funding to improve local innovation, test the impact of new ideas, and expand successful programs to scale.
  • If the team does this well, it could be really exciting. I think the way that Good Capital was brought into a larger investment for Adina Drinks in order to focus on the fair trade/social mission side of things could be a good model for partnerships for this initiative
• Social Entrepreneurship Agency for Nonprofits: Create an agency within the Corporation for National and Community Service dedicated to building the capacity and effectiveness of the nonprofit sector.
• I've written before that I would prefer an Office of Social Innovation in the White House, but this is a great step if it does its job well. We don't need just another bureaucracy, but I think an in-house shop that could work to collect, structure, and share best practices for training and impact assessment could be tremendously valuable.
• Promote College Serve-Study: Ensure that at least 25 percent of College Work-Study funds are used to support public service opportunities instead of jobs in dining halls and libraries.
• Either this idea is new or I just hadn't noticed it before, but I love this initiative as a tool for inspiring social entrepreneurship. I spent 12 hours a week for all of college working in a gym and then staying up late to develop my social projects. I'd love to see colleges get creative about this so that student social entrepreneurship initiatives, with defined and trackable goals and results, could count towards College Serve-Study. If any one from the Obama team is watching, I'd be happy to share what I think that could mean...
• Engage Retiring Americans in Service on a Large Scale: Expand and improve programs that connect individuals over the age of 55 to quality volunteer opportunities.
• This is another real opportunity to promote social entrepreneurship. Young social startups often need skills they don't have access to, and a pool of professionals could be exactly what the doctor ordered.
• New Energy for America: Help create five million new jobs by strategically investing $150 billion over the next ten years to catalyze private efforts to build a clean energy future.
• I mean, do I really need to write about how this could be a huge opportunity for social entrepreneurs?

So imagine this. Its 2011. We've finally sloughed off the worst of the recession, and are rebuilding with smarter institutions that better harness the networked talents of individuals. The moment for social entrepreneurship has arrived as the mood in the social benefit sector is squarely centered around capturing the lessons and practices of what works - old or new - and iterating around what doesn't work as well as it could. At the University of Michigan, and engineering student comes up with a product that will revolutionized energy consumption in the third world, finds a retired executive to help her write the business plan for the product, gets a small "challenge" investment from the a partnership with a large foundation and the US Social Investment Fund Network, and changes the world. We'll see..