School staff and knowledgeable practitioners chose the 25
finalists from among the year's top entries.
The 25 programs
designated as finalists were visited and evaluated by teams of
researchers and practitioners who reported their findings to the
national committee. The committee met for two days to review the
applications and to interview representatives of the finalists.
From this group 10 were selected as Innovations award winners and
recipients of Foundation grants of up to $100,000.
In the
following two years, 1987 and 1988, Innovations Awards were given
to a total of 20 other programs out of a pool of some 2,000
applicants. Then in 1989 the Ford Foundation called a one-year
pause in the program. The idea was to sum up the lessons to be
drawn from the first three years of program activity—both for
the Foundation and for the public. A summary of those lessons is
available in this book and also in two films.
Both the films
and the book concentrate on eight programs. They were selected to
demonstrate how innovation can improve the quality of individual as
well as civic life. The brief chronicles of these programs in the
following chapters are intended to appeal to a wide audience,
including state and local government employees. For practitioners
who struggle with seemingly intractable public problems on meager
resources, and for citizens who repeatedly indicate that they want
public officials to be more than mere caretakers, this report
offers clear and compelling evidence that real accomplishments are
possible.
EIGHT
INNOVATIONS
The programs
described in this book represent new ways of solving complex
problems—from segregated neighborhoods to school dropouts.
Many have helped to transform relationships among public officials,
the constituencies they serve, and others in the community,
including religious and voluntary organizations, businesses, and
labor unions. By stimulating cooperation and communication, the
programs have substantially broadened the possibilities for
positive change. Other programs have imaginatively applied new
technologies to transform basic operating procedures or necessary
services, thus providing unexpected benefits to the public.
Each case of
innovation has unique qualities: first the novel idea itself and
then the particular circumstances that shape the way the idea is
put into action. The observations below are intended to provide an
overview of the book's descriptive chapters. These summaries
concentrate on the innovation itself; subsequent chapters describe
the process by which the innovation was achieved.