According to the Stanford Social Innovation Review, social innovation refers to a novel solution to a social problem that is more effective, efficient, sustainable or just than current solutions. The entrepreneurs behind these ideas recognize opportunity; they figure out what isn’t working and design new ways to solve problems.
Launched in 2013, United Way of Metropolitan Dallas’s GroundFloor is a mentor-driven social innovation fund and impact accelerator program that invests seed funding and resources to support innovators with social ventures focused on solutions that address challenges facing education, financial stability, and health.
In 2017 we began to collaborate with Accenture to amplify the impact of the GroundFloor program. The resources, expertise and financial support of Accenture helps to provide our Fellows with the funding, technology and mentorship necessary for impactful change.
Accenture’s senior business and technology consultants have served as volunteer mentors for the GroundFloor program’s social innovators as part of the company’s Skills to Succeed corporate citizenship initiative since 2015.
* SSIR’s definition of social innovation