PhilanTopic

Non-Financial Capital and Social Change

(Paul Shoemaker is executive director of Social Venture Partners Seattle and recently was named one of the "Top 50 Most Influential People in the Non-Profit Sector" by The NonProfit Times.)

The theme of this year's World Economic Forum gathering is The Great Transformation: Shaping New Models. A lot of people took a lot of time to write a convoluted description of what that really means. Let's boil it down to this: Because of the huge economic and social shifts taking place around the world, we don't have good models for understanding this "new norm" or for aligning stakeholders/citizens around a vision and inspiring institutions and individuals to realize those visions.

As some of you know, a few months ago I did the local TEDx about the power of human and social (not just or even primarily financial) capital to change our world in the years ahead. I think there are two parts of that message that might be relevant to WEF, and there's one I mentioned in the talk: our old ways of adding up the financial and institutional resources for community change flat out miss the power, potential, real, and often more enduring impact of human and social capital. (I give credit to SVP partner Bill Henningsgaard for articulating that.) This is starting to change, but we have to become much more intentional and specific about the role and value of non-financial capital in social change. That is a core part of our game at SVP.

This other one I didn't mention: another huge reason why human social capital is so critical is because the amount of money we can bring to bear on social issues is fixed, constrained, or even shrinking in many places. Whether we like it or not, that is not going to change anytime soon. Governments around the world are collectively tens of trillions (tr, not b) of dollars in debt. No matter your politics, that is a fact that unquestionably points to constrained public resources.

So the most plentiful, expandable assets we have are non-financial. Don't get me wrong -- money always matters. But if we want to increase the "supply" of assets for positive change, we're gonna have to do it in ways that are leveraged, creative, and expand human and social capital. How much difference can that make? I don't know for sure, but think about the "social value" that Facebook creates -- and the fact that it didn't even exist ten years ago.

What do you think? Given the challenges confronting us in 2012 and beyond, what does the social sector have to do to think -- and be thought of -- differently? How can we rapidly change the "equation for social good"?

-- Paul Shoemaker

Commentary: Now Is Not the Time to Forget About AIDS

(Dr. Vignetta Charles is vice president of programs and evaluation for AIDS United, where she leads efforts to measure and document program outcomes in the fight to eradicate HIV/AIDS in the United States. She is an alumna of the Harvard School of Public Health and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.)

Too often, I hear AIDS referred to as the "forgotten epidemic." With more than one million people living with HIV in the United States, nearly 60,000 new infections occurring each year, and nearly 640,000 people living with HIV/AIDS without the care they need, now is not the time for forgetting.

Fortunately, the July 2010 release of the first-ever National HIV/AIDS Strategy (NHAS) by the White House Office of National AIDS Policy offered long sought-after hope that our nation was finally buckling down and tackling HIV/AIDS on its own soil. The three pillars of the NHAS -- Reducing Incidence, Increasing Access to Care, and Reducing Health Disparities -- offer a blueprint for an effective response to the domestic HIV/AIDS epidemic and an opportunity for all of us in the corporate, philanthropic, and HIV communities to come together to establish clear goals and measurable outcomes to affect real change.

Earlier this year, on the White House blog, Melody C. Barnes, assistant to the president and director of the domestic policy council, reiterated this point in a post about the importance of leveraging private sector support for the NHAS. In her post, Barnes stated, "We know that some of our biggest successes in fighting HIV/AIDS have come about because of private-sector initiatives, and we've called on businesses and foundations to provide that next level of leadership by stepping up their efforts in a few targeted areas."

At AIDS United, we wholeheartedly agree. As do our private and public-sector supporters.

Together, Bristol-Myers Squibb, the Social Innovation Fund (SIF), and the Walmart Foundation have committed millions of dollars to community-driven programs that work to help people living with HIV/AIDS in our country's most vulnerable populations and communities access the life-saving HIV/AIDS care and support services that they need and deserve. These investments are a pivotal step toward real-time implementation of the NHAS, specifically the Increasing the Access to Care pillar.

Bristol-Myers Squibb's multimillion-dollar, multiyear investment was the private-sector catalyst for this unprecedented, laser-like focus on reducing societal and structural barriers to HIV care, supporting the work of five communities highly affected by the HIV/AIDS epidemic. The Walmart Foundation also stepped up as a key private-sector investor, enabling two other significantly affected U.S. communities to join in this critical access-to-care work.

But it was the $3.6 million public-sector investment of the Social Innovation Fund that has helped forge a true public-private partnership between all access-to-care funding partners, significantly expanding the scope of the initiative. In February, ten U.S. communities received a combined $2.7 million to develop innovative collaborative programs to improve individual health outcomes and strengthen local services systems, connecting economically and socially marginalized individuals living with HIV to high-quality support services and health care.

As the largest infusion of cash into the HIV/AIDS fight since the Ryan White Care Act, these SIF dollars promise to deliver a renewed sense of urgency in support of innovative, community-driven interventions and to change how we invest in improving the health outcomes of people living with HIV/AIDS in the U.S.

These innovative collaborative approaches rolling out in communities across the U.S. include:

• Mobile engagement teams: These teams will reach chronically ill HIV-positive people through street-based outreach and a full spectrum of support services, including psychiatric and housing support.
• Handheld technology: For outreach workers who need to record client data and contact information, the use of cutting-edge handheld technology will result in quicker service delivery, more immediate contact information, and better tracking of outcome data. At the same time, it will help eliminate several steps related to data entry, creating a leaner system of service delivery.
• Center of Excellence in HIV-positive women's care: Clinical care for women living with HIV will be integrated to address behavioral health needs, bilingual information and care, and childcare services. The Center of Excellence will be linked to clinical research, addressing a gap in existing research specific to women living with HIV/AIDS.
• Telemedicine: A ground-breaking approach to serving people who face a shortage of nearby HIV medical providers, one program will use video technology to allow local nurses to communicate and collaborate with medical providers at permanent HIV treatment sites.

The 2:1 match required by SIF creates an annual funding pool of nearly $10 million for these critical new programs. Each of the ten sub-grantee communities must raise its own match dollar-for-dollar from local private-sector resources, infusing that community with hundreds of thousands of dollars for innovative access to care partnerships that had not previously been available. It's a win-win for each SIF-supported community and funding partner and a sound investment in the "healthy futures" of each community as well as the health of our nation.

However, it's simply not enough that one organization is committed to change, that ten organizations are implementing change, or that our national governing body mandated a strategy for change. It's that we are working together -- public and private -- to roll out innovations that improve health outcomes for those who need it most.

Yes, we have secured unprecedented support for programs that have the opportunity to make a real difference in the lives of people living with HIV/AIDS in the United States. But we must continue our momentum and bring more public and private investors to our work so as to forge even more effective and innovative partnerships committed to ending the HIV/AIDS epidemic right here at home.