OneStar: Strategies to Achieve Social Impact

Overview

The Texas Social Innovation Initiative (TSI Initiative) is based on the Social Innovation Forum developed by Root Cause.

The TSI Initiative is a unique opportunity for nonprofit organizations with proven, results-based programs to:

  • Receive statewide recognition for being an innovative model.
  • Expand their network of resources.
  • Build their capacities through technical assistance.
  • Prepare to scale and grow their impact.

The TSI Initiative gives innovative and results-oriented organizations the power to accelerate their development of enduring solutions to social and economic problems. By utilizing the TSI Initiative's support and guidance, organizations take greater strides toward efficiency, effectiveness and sustainability while simultaneously preparing for and soliciting support to scale their impact.

Meet the Recipients

OneStar would like to extend congratulations to all seven recipients of the first TSI Initiative. We look forward to working with them and watching how this opportunity enhances their programs over the next several months.

  • Big Brothers Big Sisters of North Texas provides one-on-one mentoring to children. They have developed strong and innovative partnerships with government as well as faith-based organizations. They also recognize the importance of outcome measures, utilizing randomized controlled trials funded by the federal Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. Their methods are so successful that they recently received national recovery funds to do consulting and help replicate their model across the country.
  • Central Dallas Ministries collaborates to achieve more success in every one of their 16 programs, including a groundbreaking collaboration with PepsiCo to expand their food distribution exponentially. They are also renowned for their ability to engage those they serve in volunteering at their organization. As the largest multi-service provider in the Dallas area, they see the people they serve not as "clients," but as neighbors with immense social and human capital.
  • Dallas Concilio of Hispanic Service Organizations has developed an outstanding partnership with their school district by understanding the social and cultural barriers to parental involvement in their community. By using program graduates as their teachers, they have built up strong community involvement in schools while maintaining a high level of trust from the people they serve. They have clear data that points to both changes in parents' behavior and improvement in children's grades. In addition, their light and scalable model can easily be shared with others.
  • The H.I.S. BridgeBuilders Education and Employment Training program gives cutting-edge employment training, free health care and more to the people it serves. The program's mentor component pairs students with mentors, often giving students their first experience with someone believing in them and investing in their lives. The program maintains strong partnerships with the local community college and the Dallas Housing Authority. In addition, the program serves as a temporary agency and placement service, hiring its graduates on a temp-to-hire basis or for long-term contract work while helping them find permanent employment.
  • Rainbow Days' program Family Connection is deeply committed to learning from their data and continuing to improve. They utilize randomized controlled trials and are in the national registry for evidence-based programs. By working with 22 different organizations, they provide a centralized menu of services with a decentralized delivery system. Their curriculum for their transient population includes ongoing, onsite behavioral health services, and is able to impact children who come to only one session as well as those in sessions for years. Their program can also be replicated anywhere.
  • The Shared Housing Center serves thousands of people a year through housing and follow-up support on a very limited budget. Their "Building Blocks for Success" initiative was created to evaluate their program and measure its success. Using strong partnerships for their mental health and childcare initiatives, including a mental health component on-site delivered by Parkland Hospital HOMES, they help their families focus on root causes for becoming homeless, enabling them to break destructive patterns. They have a very strong ability to keep track of their program's participants over time, and they have integral volunteer involvement.
  • Vision Regeneration, Inc. seeks maximum impact by viewing their work as a movement rather than merely serving a limited group of children. They created the nation's first Youth Promise Council, based on the federal Youth Promise Act. They also contract with Dallas County Juvenile Department for rehabilitation and intervention with adjudicated youth. Recognizing and leveraging the powerful role of cultural influences in the lives of youth, they also broadcast a TV show and have launched social networks that focus on ending youth violence.

What People are Saying about the TSI Initiative

The following online resources either have participated in spreading the word about the TSI Initiative, or have offered insightful commentary on this program:

About the TSI Initiative Partners

About OneStar

Texas has thousands of nonprofits, each with a different mission, but all working toward the goal of helping improve the lives of Texans. OneStar supports the nonprofit sector and its stakeholders through initiatives that increase civic engagement, research, rigorous evaluation and nonprofit organizational excellence. OneStar's goal is to achieve sustainable social impact throughout the larger nonprofit infrastructure. The nonprofit sector is comprised of many groups, together they are stronger, more dynamic and more effective in achieving positive impact on the social challenges of Texas communities.

About Root Cause and the Social Innovation Forum

Root Cause is a nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing innovative, proven solutions to today's most pressing social and economic problems. They support social innovators and educate social impact investors through advisory and consulting services, knowledge sharing and community building. By drawing upon seven years of experience with its Boston-based Social Innovation Forum, Root Cause is advising OneStar Foundation on the development of the Social Innovation Initiative.

The Social Innovation Forum accelerates the development of enduring solutions to social problems by directing an alternative flow of local resources to innovative, results-oriented organizations striving for efficiency, effectiveness and sustainability. Through an annual rigorous selection process, they choose Social Innovators demonstrating promising approaches to addressing specific social problems.

Visit www.socialinnovationforum.org to learn more about the Social Innovation Forum.

About Dallas Social Venture Partners

Dallas Social Venture Partners is a partnership of professionals, social entrepreneurs and foundations who are committed to strengthening our community through the thoughtful application of our collective dollars and business expertise.

DSVP seeks to invest in promising nonprofit organizations that predominantly serve at-risk children (infants to age 18) and/or education in North Texas.