The Corporation for National and Community Service has announced new Social Innovation Fund grants totaling $13.9 million to grantmaking organizations with strong track records of developing successful, innovative programs that tackle some of the country's most urgent needs.

The two-year grants — which all recipients are required to match — will address challenges in the areas of affordable housing, homelessness, obesity, early education, and literacy. The five new grantees include the New York City-based Corporation for Supportive Housing, which was awarded $2.3 million to expand and replicate models in four cities that combine health, housing, and social services serving an estimated four hundred homeless individuals per year with complex health needs; Denver-based Mile High United Way, which received $3.6 million to fund subgrantee programs that leverage community volunteers to improve third-grade literacy rates in up to fifteen rural and urban areas in Colorado; NCB Capital Impact in Arlington, Virginia, which was awarded $2 million to scale and replicate long-term affordable homeownership programs that build the capacity of local organizations in up to ten cities; the U.S. Soccer Foundation, which received $2 million to replicate its Soccer for Success program in twelve cities; and the United Way of Southeastern Michigan, which was awarded $4 million to build a portfolio of replicable early childhood learning communities and raise the skills and proficiencies of children entering kindergarten in ten needy communities in the greater Detroit area.

In addition to the new grantees, the 2011 SIF competition provided continuation funding to nine of the eleven inaugural grantees, enabling them to continue building their multiyear programs. During the past year, the intermediaries have worked to implement key elements of the SIF approach, including rigorous evaluation plans and creating sound platforms for learning communities.

"The Social Innovation Fund demonstrates that the federal government — working with nonprofit organizations, private philanthropies, and others — can create innovative solutions for community's toughest problems," said Robert Velasco, II, acting CEO of the Corporation for National and Community Service. "Together with the grantees from last year's inaugural class, these five new grantees will both drive impact in the communities they serve and benefit the nonprofit sector as a whole."