Root Cause, a Cambridge-based nonprofit that supports social innovators by connecting them with and educating social impact investors, just announced their 26 finalists for their annual 2011 Social Innovator Forum. The five winning Social Innovators will be announced Tuesday, December 7th and will receive awards valued at over $100,000 as well as other services.

Root Cause is helping to create and foster what they call a “social impact market,” whereby nonprofit donations and funds are distributed based on that organization’s performance. Root Cause believes collaboration across sectors and social issues are at the core of this. After receiving $500k from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation in California, the company devised a rating system to helps donors “better invest.” The company does this by pinpointing a social issue, identifying best practices within that issue, compiling a list of organizations that implement those practices, and then speaking with those groups about their financial health, operations, and outcomes and results. After this due diligence and process, Root Cause then rates the charities within that social issue and releases a report.

This year, a sixty-person evaluation committee of social issue experts from the business, government and nonprofit reviewed 130+ applications to select the finalists. The Social Innovation Forum will announce just one Social Innovator in each of their five social issue areas, and finalists include:

Early Childhood Development:

• Boston Healthy Homes and Schools Collaborative (BHHSC), a program of Health Resources in Action
• Room to Grow
• Smart from the Start
• The Massachusetts Parent-Child Home Program
• The Parenting Journey, a program of The Family Center

Educational and Employment Opportunities for Vulnerable 14- to 21-Year Olds

• College Prep, a program of College Bound Dorchester
• Future Chefs
• Tempo Young Adult Resource Center, a program of Wayside Youth & Family Support Network
• The City School
• The Designery Program, a program of YouthBuild Boston, Inc.
• Workforce Development and College Access, a program of Sociedad Latina

Financial Capability: Enabling Economic Empowerment

• Families United in Educational Leadership (FUEL)
• Financial Futures Initiative, a program of Action for Boston Community Development
• Fiscal Health Vital Signs (FHVS), a program of DotWell
• One Hen, Inc.
• The Midas Collaborative

Healthy Aging: Pathways to Lifelong Wellness

• Chronic Care Community Corps (4C)
• Discovering What’s Next (DWN)
• Massachusetts Senior Action Council
• Positive Aging/Lasting Strength (PALS), a program of AIDS Action Committee of Massachusetts
• The LGBT Aging Project

Youth Academic Success: Supporting At-Risk Students in Grades K-8

• Alliance for Inclusion and Prevention (AIP)
• Boston Algebra in Middle Schools dba MathPower
• Friends of the Children – Boston
• Massachusetts Youth Committed to Winning (MYCW)
• Tech Mission, Inc.

Winning Social Innovators will receive the following benefits and services from the Social Innovation Forum and its partners, which have each pegged themselves to a social issue and include Cabot Family Charitable Trust, Amelia Peabody Foundation and Highland Street Foundation, Tufts Health Plan Foundation and John W. Alden Trust and Frank Reed & Margaret Jane Peters Memorial Fund I Anonymous:

• Receive four months of Root Cause consulting services.
• Be matched with a volunteer professional executive coach for a full 12 months.
• Develop an investment prospectus and a PowerPoint presentation that can be adapted for future fundraising, marketing, board recruitment, and volunteer recruitment.
• Gain access to the Social Innovation Forum’s social impact investment community, a growing network of people in the Boston area who are interested in supporting innovative solutions to social problems.
• Receive support on relationship-building from Social Innovation Forum staff.
• Receive graphic design, public relations, web, and presentation development support from the Forum’s in-kind partners.
• Be featured presenters at the Social Innovation Forum’s Eighth Annual Showcase event, in May of 2011. The event brings together leaders in business and government, academics, foundation representatives, and individual philanthropists.
• Receive a $10,000 grant from the sponsoring track partner in May 2011 and an additional $5,000 upon completion of a performance measurement process in May 2012.

You can follow Root Cause and the Social Innovators’ path to the awards on December 7th on Facebook and Twitter.