News and Insights

Public agencies and their partners hold important, yet largely unused, administrative data on individuals, families, and communities. These data are routinely collected in the course of service delivery, and taken together, form a rich picture of people’s experiences and trajectories. The challenge is that all too often, each agency, department, or program only has access to one piece of a larger picture. When we start to bring these pieces together, important connections and opportunities are brought to light that can improve the lives of individuals and families. For example, access …

This is the fifth of five posts in a series of blog posts that explore Third Sector’s progress in evaluating and redesigning our recruitment practices with a diversity, equity, and inclusion lens. Alongside gathering Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) baseline data that now informs our understanding of the composition of our candidate pipeline, we recognize the importance of ensuring each step of our interview process is equitable. Each summer, Third Sector hires two “Summer Managers” to join our team for a 10-week internship assisting with client engagements and special initiatives …

This is the fourth of five posts in a series of blog posts that explore Third Sector’s progress in evaluating and redesigning our recruitment practices with a diversity, equity, and inclusion lens. Alongside gathering Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) baseline data that now informs our understanding of the composition of our candidate pipeline, we recognize the importance of ensuring each step of our interview process is equitable. Each summer, Third Sector hires two “Summer Managers” to join our team for a 10-week internship assisting with client engagements and special initiatives …

This is the third of five posts in a series of blog posts that explore Third Sector’s progress in evaluating and redesigning our recruitment practices with a diversity, equity, and inclusion lens. Alongside gathering Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) baseline data that now informs our understanding of the composition of our candidate pipeline, we recognize the importance of ensuring each step of our interview process is equitable. Each summer, Third Sector hires two “Summer Managers” to join our team for a 10-week internship assisting with client engagements and special initiatives …

This blog series is centered on Third Sector’s assessment and applicability of Pay for Success in higher education in partnership with a new cohort of stakeholders. This is blog post #2 of the series. As you may have read in our first blog of this series, we are developing a national cohort of higher education institutions, college access and success providers, and funders that are interested in exploring Pay for Success (PFS) as a way to fund wraparound student support services that improve matriculation, persistence, and graduation outcomes for underserved …

Opportunity Zones are a community development program authorized by the federal Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (2017), with the goal of encouraging patient capital to invest in long-term community development projects. The federal legislation allows newly authorized Opportunity Funds to aggregate and deploy capital by investing a minimum of 90% of assets in designated census tracts and investment types. In return, investors in Opportunity Funds can defer, reduce and even eliminate their federal capital gains taxes after five to ten years of local investment. Read more about how Third Sector …

Last month, the Empowering Families Learning Community co-hosted a webinar with Listen4Good, an initiative of the Fund for Shared Insight. This blog post highlights key learnings from the webinar and  opportunities for readers interested in building some of these best practices in their own context. Overview of Empowering Families: The Empowering Families Initiative is a national cohort of communities working to improve outcomes for children and families through the use of Integrated Data Systems (IDS) and outcomes-oriented contracting. Through the Empowering Families Initiative, seven state and county governments have received …

This blog series is centered on Third Sector’s assessment and applicability of Pay for Success in higher education in partnership with a new cohort of stakeholders. This is blog post #1 of the series.   National Student Clearinghouse data reveal that while African American and Latinx students are enrolling in postsecondary institutions at similar rates to white peers, they are 11% less likely to matriculate into college the first fall after high school graduation. Additionally, even though the national six-year completion rate reached its highest level for all students in …

This is the second in a series of blog posts that explore Third Sector’s progress in evaluating and redesigning our recruitment practices with a diversity, equity, and inclusion lens. Central to Third Sector’s role in the social services ecosystem is our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion. Before formally committing to using a diversity, equity, and inclusion lens to critically examine our culture, norms, and client-facing approaches, we had long recognized the importance of, and worked towards building, a more diverse team. In 2018, we wrote about our blind recruitment …

This February, the Empowering Families Learning Community convened in Utah’s Wasatch Valley for the cohort’s sixth and final in-person meeting. The Empowering Families Learning Community participated in Sorenson Impact’s annual conference, The Winter Innovation Summit. In addition to participating in the broader conference, Third Sector also hosted a series of breakout sessions that reflected on the impressive work the Learning Community has accomplished to date. During these breakout sessions, Empowering Families sites heard from inspiring guest speakers who are implementing equity-driven and outcomes-oriented contracting strategies across their government agencies, and …

Tools for Improving Outcomes for Children and Families: An Interactive Workshop on Selecting Metrics and Building Feedback Loops to Deliver Results On April 4th, Third Sector Director H. Kay Howard and Senior Associate Miranda Beggin, along with Laura Ganci, PhD, LMFT, Director of Research and Evaluation at Children’s Services Council of Broward County (FL) will share multiple examples of learning together in partnership with nonprofit providers to select metrics and leverage data to drive continuous improvement and equity in this interactive workshop. The session will use case studies from the national Pay for …

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 …

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.

As of February 2019, Third Sector Asia will be officially rebranded as Tri-Sector Associates – a homegrown Asia and Oceania focused brand that will continue to be a global collaboration with Third Sector Capital Partners, Inc. Third Sector is one of the leading organizations in the US in implementing innovative Pay for Success contracting models that drive government resources toward high-performing social programs. Since 2017, its affiliate Third Sector Asia has been exploring how to best adapt the Pay for Success model to the social sector in Asia and Oceania. …

Third Sector CEO Caroline Whistler spoke at the Workforce Frontiers Symposium in San Diego about our work with the San Diego Workforce Partnership and how result driven pay-for-performance approaches can actually improve people’s lives. Caroline talks about the need to embrace accountability but develop flexible and innovative approaches to human-centered on-the-ground funding. She demonstrates that a different way of funding the system is possible and aligning resources with measurable results will effectively help communities in need. Watch her full speech below.

The recent Stanford Social Innovation Review article “Social Impact Bonds: More Than One Approach” highlights the work of Santa Clara’s Project Welcome Home and Los Angeles County’s Just-in-Reach project, both of which Third Sector has been deeply engaged.  The article discusses how social impact bonds differ between projects and geographies, and how those differences impact implementation. More specifically, it points to Project Welcome Home as a great example of multiple funders working at difference risk levels and roles. And among the authors’ recommendations, they suggest that in the design of Pay for …

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 we will present frameworks and examples, then work through their application using real field experience and participant-driven exercises and case studies of relevance to participants. Participants will benefit both from international third party standards relevant …

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 a perspective on the topic formed by witnessing the field change over the last four years. Although I echo your skepticism that DIBs are a panacea, it is important to note that these efforts have …

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 …