The Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) today announced the appointment of Bridgespan Group co-founder Paul Carttar to serve as director of its Social Innovation Fund (SIF), which will aim to use $50 million in federal funds to leverage $200 million worth of public-private ventures aimed at community change and development.
Carttar was most recently an executive partner at New Profit, Inc., a national venture philanthropy fund. Before that, he was the chief operating officer of the Kansas City, Mo.-based Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, which makes grants to support entrepreneurship and education.
One of Carttar’s earlier ventures was the establishment of the Bridgespan Group, an arm of the major consulting firm Bain Co., which works with nonprofit organizations.
Bridgespan, through its partnerships with a number of grant makers interested in youth work, has become a major player in restructuring youth-serving nonprofits. Carttar founded the group in 1999 with Tom Tierney and Jeff Bradach, and stayed with Bridgespan until 2003.
“Paul’s track record of growing nonprofits, experience across sectors and leadership on social innovation is exactly what we need to move the SIF [Social Innovation Fund] forward,” CNCS Board Chairman Stephen Goldsmith said in a prepared statement.
The White House has an Office of Social Innovation, led by former Google.org executive Sonal Shah, which is part of the Domestic Policy Council. That office has a “strong interest in the success of the SIF,” said CNCS spokeswoman Ashley Etienne, but the corporation will be in charge of awarding innovation fund grants.
