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Issue Brief #8:

Sustaining EvidenceBased Work after the SIF

A product of the National Assessment of 

the Social Innovation Fund (SIF)

August 2017
Issue Brief #8: 

Sustaining Evidence-Based Work after the SIF 

August 2017 

Authors 

Lara Malakoff, M.U.R.P. 

Janet Pershing, Ph.D. 

Submitted To 

Lily Zandniapour, Ph.D. 

Office of Research and Evaluation 

Corporation for National and Community Service 

For inquiries, please contact evaluation@cns.gov 

Acknowledgements 

Janet Griffith, Ph.D. and Xiaodong Zhang, Ph.D., of ICF, provided review and insights that informed the 

development of this product. 

About This Document 

This document was produced pursuant to a contract between the Corporation for National and 

Community Service (CNCS) and ICF (Contract Number: CNSHQ14A0006-0007).

ICF | 9300 Lee Highway | Fairfax, VA 22031-1207 | www.icf.com 

This document was commissioned as an independent study by CNCS. Views expressed in the document 

do not necessarily reflect the official viewpoints of the agency or its staff. This document is in the public 

domain. Authorization to reproduce it in whole or in part is granted. This document has been formatted 

to be readable by assistive technologies, in accordance with Section 508 regulations. 

Recommended Citation 

Malakoff, L. & Pershing, J. (2017). Issue Brief #8: Sustaining Evidence-Based Work after the SIF. (Prepared for 

the Corporation for National and Community Service, Office of Research and Evaluation). Fairfax, VA: 

ICF. 

About CNCS 

The Corporation for National and Community Service is a federal agency that engages millions of 

Americans in service through its AmeriCorps, Senior Corps, and Volunteer Generation Fund programs, 

and leads volunteer initiatives for the nation. For more information, visit NationalService.gov.
1. Introduction 

The Social Innovation Fund (SIF) Classic program leveraged 

public and private resources to grow community solutions 

based on evidence of results.1 The National Assessment of the 

SIF Classic program sought to document and capture the 

impact of the SIF on key program stakeholders. Findings from 

this multi-component independent assessment, conducted by 

ICF and sponsored by the Corporation for National and 

Community Service (CNCS) Office of Research and Evaluation, 

tell the story of the SIF and identify lessons learned. 

The SIF Classic program made grants to experienced grant-making organizations, which identified 

promising programs within communities through an open and competitive process. The SIF grantees 

matched the federal funds dollar-for-dollar and distributed the combined funds to high-performing 

nonprofit organizations that implemented the promising programs. SIF subgrantees also matched the 

funding they received dollar-for-dollar. All SIF-funded interventions underwent rigorous, independent 

evaluations to advance the base of evidence for the funded intervention. Programs were funded for five 

years, but grantees and subgrantees committed to ensuring that the programs they implemented would 

not end with the completion of SIF funding. The program required that subgrantees develop scaling 

plans, which often address sustainability, and SIF grantees actively supported subgrantees in their 

sustainability efforts by providing meaningful engagement, support, resources, and connections to help 

subgrantees thrive during and after the SIF. As a result, several years into their grants, many subgrantees 

were well-positioned to continue their evidence-based work beyond the period of SIF funding. 

This issue brief shares best practices and lessons about ways that SIF Classic grantees and their 

subgrantees approached sustaining evidence-based programs. The brief focuses exclusively on SIF 

Classic, so all references to SIF structure and its operations concern SIF Classic. The brief first discusses 

how grantees and subgrantees defined what it means for work to be sustainable. It then presents an 

overview of approaches they used to sustain key elements of the work financially, programmatically, and 

organizationally. The brief also includes examples of the support that grantees provided to help 

subgrantees sustain their programs. It presents action-oriented recommendations for grantees, private 

and nonprofit organizations, and policy makers. 

This issue brief was informed by interviews with five SIF grantees and two subgrantees of each grantee 

organization. At the time of the interviews, grantees and subgrantees were preparing for their SIF grants 

to end within 12 months. 

2. Defining Sustainability 

Grantees and subgrantees defined sustainability in several ways. 



 

Key Research Questions:

 How do SIF grantees and subgrantees 

think about sustaining the work beyond 

SIF funding?

 What approaches do SIF grantees and 

subgrantees take to ensure the work 

lives on?

 How do SIF grantees support their 

subgrantees’ sustainability efforts?

Programmatic: Continuing the program as it was implemented under SIF Classic;

1

 The SIF Classic program was one of two SIF grant programs funded by CNCS from 2010 to 2016. The other was Pay for Success 

(PFS). The Classic program united public and private resources to evaluate and grow innovative community-based solutions that 

have evidence of results in low-income communities. PFS was a contracting and financing model that leveraged philanthropic 

and private dollars to fund services up front, with the government or other entity paying after they generated results. This issue 

brief focuses on SIF Classic only, and references herein to the SIF structure and how it operated refer to the SIF Classic program. 
nationalservice.gov/research 3 

 Organizational: Identifying key elements of the SIF-funded program and weaving those elements 

into ongoing practices throughout the subgrantee organization; and 

 Systems and Policies: Influencing the policy landscape to ensure that key elements of the SIF-funded 

program become embedded in existing systems beyond the grantee and subgrantee organizations. 

As they considered sustainability, grantees and subgrantees thought about both financial sustainability—

securing the financial resources required to continue the work after the SIF—and non-financial 

sustainability—using what they had learned through the SIF to create long-lasting impact. When 

discussing sustainability in the nonprofit context, the National Council of Nonprofits refers to financial 

sustainability as well as to leadership succession planning, adaptability, and strategic planning.2 Others 

have defined financial sustainability as the ability to generate resources to meet the needs of the present 

without compromising 

the future, while 

describing the nonfinancial aspects of 

sustainability as the 

ability to develop, 

mature, and cycle out 

programs to be 

responsive to 

constituencies over 

time.3

 Some of the 

strategies adopted by 

grantees and 

subgrantees for 

achieving financial and 

non-financial 

sustainability are 

presented in the figure 

to the right. 

In terms of financial sustainability, many subgrantees, with the support of their grantees, developed a 

pipeline of additional grant or donation-based 

funding. United Way for Southeastern Michigan 

(UWSEM) hired a scaling manager who partnered

with each of the subgrantees to develop a pipeline 

of funding. The scaling manager had a combination 

of business acumen and knowledge of programs 

and local resources, which enabled her to establish 

a solid network of funding sources that not only 

achieved the SIF match but created connections 

between subgrantees and new funders to provide 

support beyond the SIF. 

 

"When planning for the future, it's critical that we continually 

keep the funder pipeline active. It's not something you can 

get complacent about, and you certainly do not want to 

depend on a single source. We've always looked a few 

years out. And particularly to multi-year funders we always 

ask ourselves, ‘when this one ends, what do we have to 

take its place?’ Of course, even if the end of the grant is 

several years out, the cultivation for those new sources 

needs to take place years in advance."

–Peter Katz, SIF Classic subgrantee, Genesys Works

Financial 

Sustainability

•Seek additional grant funding

•Incorporate into organizational budget

• Generate revenue with new payment 

models

•Provide services more cost effectively

Non-Financial 

Sustainability

•Improve data collection and analysis

•Build evidence

•Expand leadership capacity

• Collaborate with partners

•Scale the work

2 Source: https://www.councilofnonprofits.org/tools-resources/nonprofit-sustainability 

3 “Deconstructing Sustainability,” adapted from a chapter in Nonprofit Sustainability: Making Strategic Decisions for Financial 

Viability, by Jeanne Bell, Jan Masaoka, and Steve Zimmerman. Source: http://blueavocado.org/content/deconstructingsustainability
nationalservice.gov/research 4 

Under the SIF Classic program, Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) subgrantee Community 

Action Duluth used an evaluation and data tracking tool called “Efforts to Outcomes” to communicate 

the outcomes of its financial coaching program, bolstering its case when reaching out to prospective 

funders. The tool enabled Community Action Duluth to capture more sophisticated data about how 

many program participants increased their net worth and by how much. Data from this report informed a 

return on investment report that Community Action Duluth employed to garner financial support from 

corporate donors. 

In addition, some subgrantees chose to dedicate part of their organizational budget to sustain the work 

after the SIF funding. Others planned to reduce the financial gap by deploying programming and services 

more cost effectively. Still others implemented revenue-generating models designed to realize at least 

partial sustainability by the end of the grant, as described in the box below. 

Revenue-Generating Models for Financial Sustainability

 The GreenLight Fund’s subgrantee Genesys Works partnered with companies to place disadvantaged youth in paid 

internships. The companies were billed at a premium rate, which generated revenue that Genesys Works used for

operating expenses, training, and other growth initiatives.

 UWSEM helped subgrantee Leaps and Bounds Family Services and its other SIF subgrantees each develop a book 

documenting how the program was implemented. These subgrantees could then sell their book to disseminate 

information about implementing the model, generate revenue for the organization, and serve as a showpiece for potential 

funders and partners.

 UWSEM subgrantee National Kidney Foundation of Michigan sought to license its program and implement a train-thetrainer model, through which organizations would pay a licensing fee to receive training to implement the program.

In terms of non-financial sustainability, grantees and subgrantees were well aware that their work under 

the SIF could lead to long-lasting change. Subgrantees improved the ways in which they collected and 

analyzed data, built evidence, expanded leadership capacity, collaborated with partners, and scaled the 

work. Many of those interviewed noted that because the benefits of the improvements were obvious and 

applicable beyond the SIF-funded program, they expected the improved practices would continue. 

Grantees also helped subgrantees work toward non-financial aspects of sustainability. For example, LISC 

supported each of its Financial Opportunity Center (FOC) sites in developing a cross-sector inter-agency 

team that encompassed housing, health, behavioral health, and substance abuse. These teams became a 

core element of the FOC organizational structure and were expected to continue to troubleshoot 

challenges among the high-need populations served by the FOCs beyond SIF funding. 

Under the SIF, the GreenLight Fund’s subgrantee Year 

Up improved the capacity of its leadership and staff to 

break down silos and identify ways to support the work 

of others within the organization. For example, as 

corporate engagement managers recruited partners that 

would provide jobs or internships requiring specific 

skills, these managers coordinated with admissions staff 

to recruit students with those skills. Because the program 

relied on corporate partners to provide positions and 

required a consistent stream of students to fill those 

positions, the capacity of leadership and staff to make 

these connections proved essential for sustaining the 

program over the long term. 

“...one of the things that strikes me about our work 

with the SIF project over the past four years is that 

the lessons we have learned along the way are 

never going to go away. They’re now embedded in 

the fabric of how we think about our utilizers and how 

we think about collaboration on the local level. Those 

ideas will continue and be sustained even if the 

actual pilot and staff we’ve hired and the clients we 

serve might eventually go away. Those kernels of ‘aha; this is how we should be doing it better’ will be 

sustained.”

–John Merz, SIF Classic subgrantee,

AIDS Connecticut
nationalservice.gov/research 5 

Recommendations: 

 Identify one or more sustainability approaches to pursue: Continue a program, weave elements of a 

program into the organization, and/or embed program services in existing external systems. 

 Plan for financial sustainability: Develop a pipeline of funding, set aside additional organizational 

funding, find efficiencies, and/or implement revenue-generating models. 

 Plan for non-financial sustainability: Improve data collection, build evidence, expand leadership 

capacity, collaborate, and scale. 

3. Planning for Sustainability Early 

Early planning was key to establishing a successful sustainability approach, for both grantees and their 

subgrantees. SIF Classic grantees began assessing the capacity of potential subgrantees to sustain their 

models as they evaluated funding applications. The GreenLight Fund, for example, developed a 

sustainability hypothesis, which set forth pre-award indicators of ability to be sustainable including: the 

likelihood that applicants would successfully obtain funds from their projected revenue sources, the level 

of need in the communities where they planned to implement their interventions, and detailed plans to 

address those community needs during their SIF grants and beyond. Once subgrantees were funded, the 

Greenlight Fund incorporated those plans into engagement agreements that outlined expectations for 

growth and sustainability over the course of the grant. The GreenLight Fund monitored subgrantee 

progress toward sustainability according to these agreements. 

SIF grantees supported non-financial sustainability planning by subgrantees throughout the SIF funding. 

Grantees stepped back from implementation to ask difficult questions that helped their subgrantees think 

carefully about sustainability goals, milestones, partnerships, and data needs. They also convened peers 

to discuss best practices and progress toward sustainability goals. Venture Philanthropy Partners (VPP), 

for example, partnered with its subgrantees from the outset to establish milestones, such as hiring a staff 

member to implement a financial model. These milestones helped subgrantees structure their work over 

the course of their SIF grant in a way that supported long-term sustainability and allowed VPP to 

monitor progress and identify any assistance required for achieving the milestones. 

In terms of financial sustainability, grantees helped subgrantees position themselves to secure the 

funding they would need after the SIF by connecting them to local, public, private, and non-profit 

funders; writing recommendation letters; reviewing applications; identifying funding opportunities; 

helping them use data to tell their stories to prospective funders; and even contributing direct financial 

support. This support began early and continued throughout the SIF grants. 

Subgrantees often structured their programs with financial sustainability in mind from the outset. United 

Way for Southeastern Michigan (UWSEM) subgrantee Leaps and Bounds Family Services, for example, 

proposed a program only as large as the organization felt it could sustain once SIF funding ended. The 

program was designed to be implemented with $75,000 in SIF funding and an equal amount of match 

funding already in hand. Leaps and Bounds Family Services worked from the beginning of the subgrant 

to ensure that after the first five years, $75,000 could be secured through other sources to make up the gap 

left by the conclusion of the SIF grant. The Leaps and Bounds Family Services approach also included a 

contingency plan to use organizational reserves as needed if additional funding could not be secured by 

the end of the SIF grant. 
nationalservice.gov/research 6 

From the beginning of its grant, the GreenLight Fund’s subgrantee Genesys Works sought a more 

sustainable model for its program, which trains disadvantaged youth in technical and interpersonal skills 

and places them in paid internships. Genesys Works recognized the importance of securing 60% to 70% 

of the funding for its San Francisco Bay Area program from employers while simultaneously developing 

a pipeline of contributed income sources. As Genesys Works endeavored to cover most program costs 

through revenue, it continuously cultivated its base of corporate, institutional, and individual donors for 

contributions to cover the remaining 30% to 40%. 

Recommendations for Planning for Sustainability Early: 

 Establish pre-award indicators of organizational capacity to sustain the work. Revisit these indicators 

based on subgrantee progress to ensure their accuracy as predictors of sustainability. 

 Plan early for sustainability by setting sustainability goals and milestones, sharing best practices, and 

identifying partnership opportunities and data needs. 

 Plan from the outset for long-term funding and build a pipeline of potential funders or other revenue 

sources. 

4. Adapting and Improving Program Delivery 

SIF Classic evaluations validated the effectiveness of many subgrantee services. However, some 

subgrantees recognized that continuing to offer those services in the same way was not financially 

feasible without SIF funds. Applying what they had learned from the SIF experience, these subgrantees 

zeroed in on the elements of their SIF programs with the greatest impact, adapting to incorporate and 

sustain these proven elements as part of their overall program model. 

Subgrantees learned from experience to adapt their programs in order to provide better service 

sustainably. For almost 20 years, the GreenLight Fund’s subgrantee Year Up had offered career training 

service, including the learning curriculum, classroom space, infrastructure, and instructors. Although 

Year Up provided services to hundreds of students, the impact on the community and the careers of 

young people was not as substantial as hoped. The GreenLight Fund and Year Up launched a test case 

with SIF funding in which Year Up partnered with a local community college to offer the career training, 

including providing the curriculum, classroom space, and instructors. Students earned between 20 and 24 

college credits at little to no cost to themselves because most were Pell Grant eligible, and the college 

received tuition payments at no cost to Year Up. Thanks to this partnership, Year Up determined that 

serving 160 students per year would render the career training service financially sustainable, so it set 

that as its goal. In addition, Year Up observed 

that employment in the IT industry was 

shifting toward coding and application 

development and away from troubleshooting 

and help desk support. Year Up closely 

examined its curriculum and adapted the IT 

training to prepare students properly for 

employment in the changing industry. These 

adaptations transformed Year Up’s service 

delivery and demonstrated the effectiveness of 

the model. Through this pilot program, Year 

Up reached its sustainability goal of providing 

160 students with relevant career training. 

Refocusing Efforts Based on Outcomes and Financial 

Feasibility

VPP subgrantee Latin American Youth Center (LAYC) explicitly 

framed its sustainability plans for educating disconnected youth 

around its evaluation outcomes. LAYC’s SIF model demonstrated 

the effectiveness of two approaches to sustaining its work—

embedding the model within schools and serving youth 

disengaged from schools in community settings. Although the 

evaluation produced strong outcomes for both approaches, 

LAYC had to adapt to refocus on the financially sustainable 

approach. The school-based approach will continue with support 

from VPP. Continuation of the community-based approach will 

depend on LAYC’s ability to secure additional funding.
nationalservice.gov/research 7 

Subgrantees also applied evaluation results to 

improve their organizations, increasing efficiency, 

for example. Knowing that the SIF grant would end 

prompted VPP subgrantee College Summit to test 

new business models that would allow the 

organization to increase the efficiency and 

effectiveness of high school student enrollment in 

college. College Summit reduced its overhead by closing regional offices and operating from its national 

office. This permitted greater efficiency and flexibility when implementing the program in new locations 

because there was less need for local infrastructure. In addition, one staff member could oversee 

implementation of programs across locations and more easily identify gaps and opportunities and ensure 

correct allocation of resources. College Summit also shifted to a pricing model that made it easier for 

schools to reach more students, reformatted its summer workshop to accommodate more students, 

streamlined its data collection, and digitized much of its curriculum. All these changes were based upon 

external research and findings from the SIF evaluation. In the first year of the new model, the program 

served nearly five times as many students as the previous year at one-eighth the cost per student. 

Subgrantees also employed what they learned under the SIF to find new ways to sustain their programs 

and their models. United Way for Southeastern Michigan (UWSEM) subgrantee National Kidney 

Foundation of Michigan used its SIF grant to adapt its nutrition education program—Regie’s Rainbow

Adventure®—to make it sustainable. In order to sustain the program and ensure services continued to be 

delivered while also generating revenue, the organization explored opportunities to license its materials 

for use by other organizations on a fee-for-service basis. In order to disseminate the model and influence 

policy, National Kidney Foundation of Michigan also developed a train-the-trainer model so the program 

could be implemented more broadly by early childhood education centers that could include Head Start 

programs and recipients of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Education (SNAP-Ed) funding. 

Recommendations for Adapting and Improving Program Delivery: 









“If we want to be a truly national program that has national 

scope, then we need to figure out how we're going to pay 

for it, how we're going to grow it, and how we can be simple 

in operations to have low overhead and maximize 

resources.”

–Onuka Ibe, SIF subgrantee, College Summit

Analyze outcomes to identify the elements of the program for which there is evidence of 

effectiveness. Commit to reevaluating whether to sustain elements that lack evidence of positive 

outcomes. 

Implement programmatic changes—such as realigning services with changing markets and testing 

new pricing models—to deliver services in a more effective and/or cost-efficient way. 

Implement organizational efficiencies that support effective service delivery at lower cost, by taking 

actions such as streamlining back-office services or realigning staff. 

Disseminate the model and influence the policy landscape by identifying ways to implement the 

work more broadly. 

5. Embedding the Work in Existing Systems 

Some subgrantees sought to ensure that programmatic and organizational elements developed and 

refined through the SIF Classic would be sustained by embedding them in systems the organization 

already had in place. The Cara Program, for example, had the core mission of helping its clients—who 

were homeless or at risk of becoming homeless—secure long-term, sustainable employment. Through the 

Financial Opportunity Center (FOC) model, implemented with a SIF grant from the Local Initiatives 
nationalservice.gov/research 8 

Support Corporation (LISC), the Cara Program 

provided its clients with financial literacy services, 

resources, education, and access to credit-building 

products. The Cara Program saw that when clients 

developed healthy financial habits, their ability to 

secure a job, retain it for a year, and eventually 

reduce their risk of homelessness improved. As a 

result, the Cara Program placed renewed emphasis 

on financial literacy, integrated the FOC’s work 

throughout the Cara organization, and began to 

offer financial literacy services to all its clients. 

What began as a stand-alone service offered under the SIF grant will be sustained as an integral element 

of the Cara program. 

The SIF Classic enabled subgrantees to conduct more and better evaluations. As a result of how valuable 

the evaluations proved to be, some subgrantees chose to embed their newly-acquired evaluation skills 

into their organizational practices. For example, United Way for Southeastern Michigan (UWSEM) 

subgrantee National Kidney Foundation of Michigan noted that although its model may be scaled to 

include new measures after the SIF ends, the organization plans to continue some of the program 

evaluation methods conducted under the SIF grant and embed these practices into their future 

evaluations. National Kidney Foundation of Michigan expanded fidelity modeling to evaluate its training 

and ensure consistent implementation of the model. The SIF grant also enabled the subgrantee to 

incorporate qualitative data into its evaluation practices and use it to convey the results of its work more 

effectively. These evaluation lessons became part of the organization’s style of operation, enabling it to 

demonstrate results that make the case for sustaining its programming. 

Subgrantees also applied what they learned through the SIF grant to influence the policy landscape by 

encouraging other organizations to adopt its successful practices. Corporation for Supportive Housing 

subgrantee AIDS Connecticut, for example, hired systems coordinators to conduct outreach to hospitals 

to emphasize the value of a coordinated focus on healthcare and supportive housing, and the 

implications of releasing homeless clients onto the streets after they have received medical care. AIDS 

Connecticut also helped the Connecticut Collaboration on Reentry build its capacity to address health, 

mental health, and substance abuse issues as part of the services it systematically provided to clients reentering society after prison. Through these efforts, AIDS Connecticut extended its work beyond its own 

organization and embedded its effective practices in broader systems for providing supportive housing. 

Recommendations for Embedding the Work in Existing Systems: 







“When I think about sustainability, I think ‘Have you 

redefined how you do your work?’ Have you changed 

something that says, ‘We're now going to bring this into our 

core model, and this is how we go about our mission?’ For 

me that is what sustainability is about. You started off with 

this program or initiative, you've found value in it, you've 

shaped and refined it to make it really work, and it's now 

part of how you define what you do.” 

–Michelle Gilliard, SIF Classic Grantee, 

Venture Philanthropy Partners

Identify standalone services proven to be effective and embed them within organization-wide 

programming to ensure they become integral elements of the organization’s activities. 

Embed expertise acquired—such as evaluation skills—into practices within the implementing 

organization to produce more rigorous results that will make the case for sustaining programming 

demonstrated to be effective. 

Demonstrate the benefits of proven practices and encourage their implementation at a policy level 

and by other organizations. 
nationalservice.gov/research 9 

6. Collaborating to Achieve Sustainability 

Subgrantees found that established relationships 

with a variety of partners were critical for 

sustaining their work, and grantees drew upon 

their knowledge, experience, and influence to help 

subgrantees create these relationships. 

Collaborating with partners generated a range of 

benefits for sustaining programmatic elements. 

These benefits included partner organizations that delivered key elements of the programs, partnerships 

that strengthened the 

subgrantees’ ability to 

continue to offer 

services, greater 

exposure to assistance 

with fundraising, and 

best practices that 

enhanced their ability 

to deliver sustainable 

programming. 

In thinking about sustaining its work, United Way for Southeastern Michigan (UWSEM) subgrantee 

Leaps and Bounds Family Services emphasized ways that collaboration could ensure that target 

populations continued to be served, regardless of whether the programming continued. Rather than 

focusing narrowly on whether it could sustain the programming delivered directly under the SIF grant, 

Leaps and Bounds Family Services identified its specific services with strong evidence of effectiveness. Its 

staff then worked across the organization and with other local agencies to find ways to deliver these 

effective services, regardless of which entity provided them. For example, Leaps and Bounds Family 

Services might provide a home visit, find through the home visit that a child has developmental delays, 

and connect the family with another program to obtain child development services. This client-centric 

approach ensured that Leaps and Bounds Family Services could sustain services for its clients effectively

and efficiently, regardless of the organization providing those services. 

For other subgrantees, collaborations with national offices and “sister” sites helped build credibility, 

create a buzz, and leverage organizational infrastructure. For example, the GreenLight Fund’s subgrantee 

Genesys Works, located in the San Francisco Bay Area, collaborated with the Genesys Works national 

office in Houston and other sites in Chicago, Washington, D.C., and the Twin Cities to share resources 

and augment credibility. Working with the national office enabled the subgrantee to leverage 

organizational services like accounting, marketing, brand awareness, financial support, and best 

practices. 

Genesys Works also discovered that collaborating with other local stakeholders like school districts, 

corporations, city offices, and workforce development organizations extended its reach, adoption, and 

program effectiveness. For example, Genesys Works collaborated with school districts to recruit students, 

ensure that students earned credits enabling them to work longer in their internships, and keep students 

on course to graduate. The subgrantee also partnered with corporations, leading to changes in training 

and management that resulted in more successful internship experiences for both the company and the 

students. 

“...one of the things that...has actually helped get us on this 

growth path, is really being tied into and working side by 

side, developing relationships with community-based 

organizations so that we become a viable option for the 

population that we're looking to serve through other 

organizations that are touching that same population. 

Because without that, I believe we won't be sustainable.”

–Joe Coyle, SIF Classic subgrantee, Year Up

Collaborate with: Local Service Providers

•To combine units of service to meet individual needs

Collaborate with: National Offices

•To achieve economies of scale (e.g., back office services) and lend credibility

Collaborate with: Subgrantee Peers

•To share best practices, troubleshoot challenges, and identify opportunities
nationalservice.gov/research 10

The status of SIF Classic grantees as nationally-known grant-making entities offered another fruitful area 

for collaboration, because these grantees helped subgrantees make connections and demonstrate the 

effectiveness of their programs to new funders interested in sustaining effective programs. UWSEM 

involved subgrantee Southwest Counseling Solutions—which provided mothers of school children with 

job-specific English as a Second Language education—in the grantee organization’s National Center for 

Family Learning network. As a result, Southwest Counseling Solutions and the other subgrantees had the 

opportunity to present at the National Center for Family Learning Conference. UWSEM built on that

public recognition by helping Southwest Counseling Solutions publish in peer-reviewed journals and 

expand its reach to a broader academic audience, becoming more visible in the field nationally. 

Grantees also facilitated in-person and virtual peer-to-peer learning opportunities for their subgrantees, 

formal portfolio partner convenings, and site visits among their subgrantees. These steps helped 

subgrantees learn from one another, share best practices to enhance their programming, and direct their 

conversations toward sustainability. The Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC), for example, 

periodically convened all of its Financial Opportunity Centers (FOCs)—those funded under the SIF and 

those that are not—to network and share ideas, and LISC encouraged attention to sustainability at these 

events. Although FOCs may operate differently, they have found it worthwhile to share ideas with each 

other about ways to sustain their work.

Working With and Securing Buy-In from the Community

The SIF experience influenced the way that some subgrantees worked with communities to gain buy-in to sustain their work. 

As community organizers, Corporation for Supportive Housing subgrantee Avalon Housing in Michigan had community 

involvement wired into its DNA. The subgrantee formed new relationships with key community partners, garnering public 

commitment and investment from them. Avalon Housing is committed to providing supportive housing services to at-risk 

populations. By engaging with local public housing, healthcare, and criminal justice partners, the subgrantee:

 Gained a better sense of its allies and developed deeper relationships with community partners;

 Gained community support to work with Medicaid and provide housing vouchers to the population served;

 Established itself as a leader in the integration of supportive housing and healthcare; and

 Made the case for serving a difficult-to-serve population.

Through these activities, Avalon Housing ensured that the network would continue to support interventions documented as 

successful under the SIF subgrant. The organization attributed its success in community collaboration to constant and 

meaningful relationship-building, accountability to the mission, knowing whom to trust, identifying community leaders, 

communicating openly, strategically planning for inclusive meetings, and celebrating success. 

Recommendations for Collaborating to Achieve Sustainability: 

 Build and leverage relationships with partners, peers, service providers, and the local community to 

garner buy-in and support for sustaining the work, whether through the subgrantee organization or 

through a network of collaborating organizations. 

 Link demonstrably successful elements of a program to other programs and services within and 

across organizations as a way to broaden and sustain service provision. 

 Leverage the status of grantees as nationally-known grant-making entities to promote the work of 

subgrantees to national networks and other funding entities that have the resources to provide 

funding after the SIF grant ends. 

 Identify formal and informal opportunities to engage with peers and share best practices to increase 

the financial, programmatic, and organizational capacity needed to sustain the work. 
nationalservice.gov/research 11

The Board of Directors: A Team of Allies to Further the Mission

One of the ways that the GreenLight Fund truly partners with its subgrantees to support sustainability is by serving on the 

boards of directors for each of its SIF subgrantees. Taking a seat on the local subgrantee board gives the GreenLight Fund 

timely information about progress toward sustainability and provides subgrantees with needed support to meet their 

sustainability milestones. 

Although subgrantees of the GreenLight fund are themselves established organizations, they operate under the SIF grant to 

replicate their programs in new communities. By serving on their boards, the GreenLight fund calls on their CEOs, other board

members, and leadership teams to guide the organizations as they evolve in their communities, influencing their trajectories 

from the start. 

The GreenLight Fund’s presence on the local boards provides mutual benefits. Its presence provides key knowledge and 

resources to subgrantees, including connections to relationships in the philanthropic, public, private, and non-profit sectors;

knowledge of local geography; familiarity with people in leadership positions like mayors and school superintendents and 

knowledge of recent or upcoming leadership transitions; awareness of political shifts; and experience, advice, and expertise 

about scaling and sustaining programming. Serving on the boards also gives the GreenLight Fund a window into each 

organization’s financial stability, anticipated changes, and likelihood of sustainability.

According to the GreenLight Fund’s Casey Johnson, board membership is key to success with sustainability, “because we’re 

not in it for a year. We don’t just write a check and say ‘good luck we hope it goes well.’ We know that if we set up a shop in 

a community in a different part of the country than where your hub is, it takes a lot of work. It is very relational, and you need 

more than just a check. These organizations know that we have strong networks, and they know they can task us in our roles 

as board members.”

7. Conclusion

Through the SIF Classic, grantees and their subgrantees identified and implemented programs that work, 

and partnered to find ways to sustain those programs after the SIF. Their practices helped the programs 

live on in a variety of ways. Grantees and subgrantees identified and refined their approaches to 

sustaining their work by incorporating key aspects of financial and non-financial sustainability, began 

planning for sustainability from day one, adapted and improved their program delivery, embedded their 

work in existing systems, and collaborated to sustain the work. The SIF, through its sustained 5-year 

commitment to the programs, gave subgrantees the time and space needed to think about their 

sustainability goals and objectives, and gave grantees the time and resources needed to support them in 

their quest for sustainability. 

About This Issue Brief 

This issue brief was informed by discussions with: 

 Sarah Gallagher from Corporation for Supportive Housing (2011 SIF Classic grantee), John Merz and 

Cecilia (Cee Cee) Woods from subgrantee AIDS Connecticut, and Carole McCabe and Aubrey Patino 

from subgrantee Avalon Housing 

 Casey Johnson from GreenLight Fund (2012 

SIF Classic grantee), Peter Katz and Amy 

Lenz from subgrantee Genesys Works, and 

Joe Coyle from subgrantee Year Up 

 Seung Kim from Local Initiatives Support 

Corporation (2010 and 2015 SIF Classic 

“...the SIF experience allowed us to...get some great 

insights from other organizations and from research and 

actually start to put things in place. And we feel like where 

we've come out on the other end is a program and a 

financial model that's more stable...and sets us up for the

kind of scalability that we've been aspiring to for a long 

time.”

–Onuka Ibe, SIF Classic subgrantee, College Summit
12

grantee), Angie Miller from subgrantee Community Action Duluth, and Bob White and Lynnette 

Frazier from subgrantee the Cara Program 

 Jennifer Callans and Jeff Miles from United Way for Southeastern Michigan (2011 and 2016 SIF 

Classic grantee), Denise Dorsz from subgrantee Leaps and Bounds Family Services, and Crystal 

D’Agostino from subgrantee National Kidney Foundation of Michigan 

 Michelle Gilliard from Venture Philanthropy Partners (2010 SIF Classic grantee), Lori Kaplan from 

subgrantee Latin American Youth Center, and Onuka Ibe from subgrantee College Summit 

About the Social Innovation Fund 

The Social Innovation Fund (SIF) was a program of the Corporation for National and Community Service 

that received funding from 2010 to 2016. Using public and private resources to find and grow 

community-based nonprofits with evidence of results, SIF intermediaries received funding to award 

subgrants that focus on overcoming challenges in economic opportunity, healthy futures, and youth 

development. Although CNCS made its last SIF intermediary awards in fiscal year 2016, SIF 

intermediaries will continue to administer their subgrant programs until their federal funding is 

exhausted. 

The SIF was made up of two programs: Classic and Pay for Success (PFS). PFS was a contracting and 

financing model that leveraged philanthropic and private dollars to fund services up front, with the 

government, or other entity, paying after they generate results. The Classic program mobilized public 

and private resources to grow the impact of promising, community-based solutions that have evidence of 

compelling results in three areas of priority need: economic opportunity, healthy futures, and youth 

development. The operating model of the SIF Classic program, which was the focus of this Issue Brief, 

was distinguished by the following six elements: 

Innovation │ Evidence │ Scale │ Grantmakers │ Match │ Knowledge Sharing

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