Foundation for Social Inventions

In 1989, Alferenko established the Foundation for Social Innovations, a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit in USA. Henry Dakin, chairman of the Dakin Company and philanthropist, and Peter Goldmark, then President of the Rockefeller Foundation, supported the idea and provided organizational support. Initial funding was provided by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Ford, and Charles Stewart Mott foundations. FSI had offices in Juneau, San Francisco, and New York City. ==Notable projects==

Space Flight Europe-America 500 The Space Flight Europe-America 500 was a private spaceflight conceived in 1992 with the aim of increasing trade between Russia and USA. The flight was followed by a Russian-American entrepreneur exchange program promoting development of small and medium-sized businesses in Russia. During the course of the program, over 10.000 young unemployed people had been sent for 4–6-week internships in the United States for developing entrepreneurial skills and gaining experience. Friendship Flight '89 In 1989, The Foundation sponsored 11-year-old Tony Aliengena's flight across the Soviet Union with stops in towns, normally closed to foreigners. That was one of the many projects FSI sponsored in an effort to open closed Soviet societies through people-to-people diplomacy. Soviets Meet Middle America In 1988, Sharon Tennison's Center for Citizen Initiatives partnered with FSI in a first-ever, non-governmental citizen exchange program, Soviets Meet Middle America. Over a two-year period, 400 Soviet citizens in small groups of four persons traveled to 265 American cities where they stayed in some 800 private homes, and were interviewed by thousands of American newspapers, radio and TV programs. ==Umbrella function==

In the U.S.S.R., people had difficulties in forming private associations because there was no law that would allow for the creation of a non-governmental organization. FSI, with a structure designed to create self-propagating communities of support for entrepreneurs and innovators, had a unique mandate to launch new organizations under its auspices, and used it to establish and provide organizational and financial support to over 300 non-governmental organizations, including the Union of Chernobyl Liquidators, the Folk Warriors Association of Social Programmes, which focused on helping miners and their families, the Russian Union of Afghanistan Veterans, the Flight Safety Foundation International, Stas Namin Centre, and Interfax. ==References==