…sustainable impact.

“The more I thought about it, the more I realized that public sector-led social innovation (“public sector innovation”) differs from social sector innovation in one absolutely fundamental way: it actually has a much better chance of having permanent, lasting impact from the outset. Many social sector innovations, like ones I’ve helped lead over the past 20 years, toil for years to build a successful model and then struggle for years thereafter to both get the attention of government and the adoption of the model by the public sector. In contrast, public sector innovation is undertaken with the assumption that if it is successful, it will go straight, “intravenously” into effect. No annual fundraising or advocacy necessary. The innovation and related funding will quickly displace the old way that government did business.”

–Ben Hecht, Mainstreaming Social Innovation With the Public Sector, 4/16/2012