Social Innovation Fund was started in 1994 and became recognized as an extremely effective Lithuanian non-governmental organization working in many different spheres such as democracy building, women’s human rights, gender equality and diversity, as well as social inclusion of socially disadvantaged groups (unemployed, disabled, immigrants, youth-drug users, women survivors of domestic violence, trafficking and prostitution, etc.).
During more than twenty years, the SIF has been involved in more than 100 different national, European and international projects partnering with NGOs from many countries. We have been and are involved in many projects aimed at increasing employability options to target groups as well helping our target groups to recognize and pursue new entrepreneurial opportunities including social entrepreneurship and starting new enterprises. As the Coordinator for several European projects, in 2010 we began exploring the possibility to invite partners from the USA to join our European partnerships to enrich our activities and outcomes and share their expertise.
From year 2010 one of the priorities of Social Innovation Fund (SIF) is to educate young people, especially young women with disadvantaged background, young mothers, and young people with fewer opportunities, including disabled young people, young people Not in Education, Employment, or Training (NEETs).
Nowadays the Social Innovation Fund is seeking for implementation of social innovations through the creating Social clusters (including International social clusters). The idea of Social cluster means fostering cooperation between the political, governmental, scientific, private and non-governmental organizations in order to solve the specific problems in the fields of the public interests and societal gain, such as promotion of gender equality and equal opportunities, women’s empowerment, social welfare and well-being at workplaces, overcoming unemployment, social rehabilitation and social integration of the vulnerable groups, violation of women human rights, violence against women, trafficking, etc.