REDF is an intermediary that provides grants and technical assistance to employment social enterprises, businesses with a double-bottom line that hire and provide training to people facing barriers to employment. REDF has a focus on those who have faced homelessness, incarceration, mental health illness, or “opportunity youth.” In 2015, REDF was awarded a federal Social Innovation Fund (SIF) grant for the period 2016 – 2020 to fund a national portfolio of 22 employment social enterprises and evaluate the effectiveness of the program model. With its feedback research grant, REDF will work with RTI International, a nonprofit research institute, to embed and integrate a perceptual feedback study into the evaluation of the SIF work with the aim of answering the following questions: Are participants’ perceptions about the effectiveness of social enterprise programs predictive of subsequent job placement and retention or secondary outcomes?
