The mission of the Social Innovation Accelerator is to increase the sustainable social impact of nonprofit organizations in southwestern PA through the development of earned income initiatives.

Social Innovation Accelerator is a private 501 c3 operating foundation dedicated to assisting nonprofit organizations in southwestern Pennsylvania develop and launch earned income ventures that advance their missions, improve sustainability and social impact, and earn unrestricted dollars for their organization.

Our goal is to concentrate investments of capital, connections, knowledge, and field-tested systems to increase the viability and success of earned income ventures and their innovative approaches to social change.

By assisting organizations, we enable them to generate unrestricted revenue that reduces their reliance on contributed income from government, foundations and donors. We assist governing boards and executive management in providing better leadership in accordance with best practices. And we empower the staff of such organizations with the necessary skills to deliver more effective services within their communities.

The primary activities of the Accelerator include supporting ventures through direct actions that improve sustainability, impact, outcomes, and value to the community. This is done through a rigorous process, which includes researching and scrutinizing, consulting, and vetting organizations (potential ventures) and the opportunities they present (social enterprise).

Areas of venture focus are:

• Consulting: provide expertise in one or more areas related to social enterprise development.
• Networking: introduce ventures to appropriate stakeholders that can contribute to the venture's long-term success
  Validating: support ventures in key areas enabling them to demonstrate success through measurable social impact
• Building: employ custom diagnostic tools to evaluate the organizational capacity and growth
• Supporting: provide funds to assist with growth strategies, augment the cost of service providers, and assist in creating capitalization strategies
• It should be noted that, unlike a traditional foundation, providing grants is not the primary focus of the Accelerator. Rather, assisting nonprofits with earned income ventures to create more social and financial impact for their mission is the goal.

Our process looks like this:

Pipeline:
The path from inquiry to portfolio acceptance.

Prospect:
An organization or venture we are screening for potential portfolio inclusion.

Portfolio Candidate:
An organization that has made it beyond our screening process into Due Diligence. Such an organization should have a high potential for portfolio acceptance. This is a limited time frame. If an organization does not make it into our portfolio within 12 months, they are exited from candidate status and must reapply.

Active Portfolio Venture:
An organization that has been accepted into our portfolio. Portfolio status is formally reviewed every 6 months to ensure adequate progress.

This graphic shows our process, and shows that once we engage with an organization, we stay engaged. The process is one of initiation, exploration, engagement, and continual assessment.