The responsibility for addressing important social issues today is shared among levels of government, across agencies, among sectors, on many levels. One of the most challenging tasks in government or the private sector is to achieve alignment among those groups whose coordinated action is essential to creating workable solutions.

Over the last decade, the Fund has looked at streamlining systems in two ways—through large-scale interactive planning initiatives and through harnessing the potential of the Internet. In the early nineties, as an extension of the Fund’s strategic planning program, the Fund sought out methodologies that would allow large numbers of participants from city agencies, nonprofits, the private sector and foundations to come together around complicated issues to create common and achievable goals and outcomes. The first application was directed to stopping the emerging TB epidemic.

In 1994, the Fund created its Center for Internet Innovation to use the World Wide Web to achieve better outcomes for underserved communities by addressing problems of large scale. The Fund’s Domestic Violence Application, for example, helps to integrate the multiple components of the family court system to streamline and simplify the process required for an Order of Protection.