With the recent release of the Social Impact Partnerships to Pay for Results Act (SIPPRA) notice of funding availability, communities across the country are exploring opportunities to apply for the first-ever dedicated federal funding supporting outcomes contracting. While SIPPRA requires projects to focus on verifiable metrics across 21 priority issue areas, the particular metrics are quite flexible – and the 21st issue area gives communities considerable room for innovation. As a result, policy makers, agency leaders and community organizations are wrestling with which metrics to include in their applications for

In late 2016, Third Sector and Stanford’s Center for Poverty and Inequality (Stanford) were awarded a Social Innovation Fund (SIF) grant under the Administrative Data Pilot (ADP) category.  After a rigorous competition, three sub-grantees were chosen to receive two years of technical assistance from Third Sector and Stanford to develop administrative data infrastructure and outcomes contracting processes, culminating in September 2019. This blog post illuminates how these three projects are using quantitative and qualitative data to improve outcomes for participants in social service programs.

“Not everything that can be counted counts,

Last year a bipartisan congressional effort resulted in a new $100 million fund available to states and local governments seeking funding for exceptional social service programs. The Social Impact Partnerships to Pay for Results Act (SIPPRA) gives governments a new opportunity to take advantage of federal funding to pay for proven outcomes.

Impact Management Skills Training January 30, 2019 in Boston, MA Description The Impact Management Skills Training is intended for those who seek to enhance their ability to generate positive outcomes for people and systems. Participants will improve their ability to get and use insights from their work to maximize positive impact. During the one-day training [...]

On December 13th, the Stanford Social Innovation Review published "Development Impact Bonds: There's Still No Free Lunch" by Kevin Starr. Please read our response below. Dear Kevin, Thank you for starting a conversation on development impact bonds (DIBs), as well as Pay for Success (PFS) more generally. As a practitioner of PFS, I wanted to share [...]

Coaching has become an increasingly popular method of intervention and has proven effective in a variety of settings. Economic Mobility Pathways (“EMPath”), for example, has codified a mentorship model that uses holistic goal-setting and individualized coaching to support people’s journeys out of the cycle of poverty. I first encountered the EMPath model during Third Sector’s work with the Department of Transitional Assistance on the Young Parents Program. There, we used EMPath’s Bridge to Self-Sufficiency (the “Bridge”) as a way to define and measure progress in a more nuanced way than