The Social Innovation Fund (SIF), a program of the Corporation for National and Community Service that received funding from 2010 to 2016, is one of a set of tiered evidence initiatives that was designed and implemented at the federal level during President Obama’s administration. The key objectives of the initiative were to (1) invest in promising interventions that address social and community challenges and grow their impact and (2) invest in evaluation and capacity building in order to support the development and use of rigorous evidence to measure the effectiveness of each funded intervention (i.e., to “move the evidence needle”) and inform decision making. The SIF proved successful in strengthening and sustaining the capacity of its implementing partners to conduct rigorous evaluations when put through a robust impact evaluation of its own at the national level. It has also spurred high-quality local evaluations that are building knowledge and a body of evidence across the supported program models to inform practice. The SIF’s evaluation technical assistance program was critical to its success, and as such, its design and approach holds interesting lessons for the larger field. This article discusses the structure and key features of the SIF as a grant making model, its evaluation requirements, and embedded approach and process for evaluation capacity building and the delivery of technical assistance, the tools and resources that it generated to support its goals, the evidence supporting its success, and how those lessons can inform other organizations and initiatives.

社会创新基金 (SIF) 是国家和社区服务公司的一项计划，从 2010 年到 2016 年获得资助，是奥巴马总统执政期间在联邦一级设计和实施的一系列分层证据计划之一。该倡议的主要目标是 (1) 投资于有前景的干预措施，以应对社会和社区挑战并扩大其影响； (2) 投资于评估和能力建设，以支持开发和使用严格的证据来衡量有效性每个资助的干预措施（即“移动证据针”）并为决策提供信息。事实证明，当在国家层面对其自身进行强有力的影响评估时，战略投资基金成功地加强和维持了其执行伙伴进行严格评估的能力。它还促进了高质量的本地评估，这些评估正在跨受支持的计划模型构建知识和大量证据，为实践提供信息。SIF 的评估技术援助计划对其成功至关重要，因此，其设计和方法为更大的领域提供了有趣的经验教训。本文讨论了 SIF 作为资助模式的结构和主要特征、其评估要求、评估能力建设和技术援助交付的嵌入式方法和流程、它为支持其目标而产生的工具和资源，