News and Insights

“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.” – Albert Einstein Washington State (WA) Department of Children, Youth, and Families (DCYF) Secretary Ross Hunter opened with the quote above at the 2019 National TANF State Directors’ Meeting, Helping Families to Overcome: Partnering to Build a Stronger Society on September 18, in a session that was live streamed and recorded. Along with Ballmer Group’s Washington Executive Director Andi Smith and Third Sector CEO Caroline Whistler, Secretary Hunter presented on DCYF’s agency-wide journey to transition ~$1 billion across over 1000 social …

Creating a national outcomes-based financing Data Advisory Council (DAC) to capture and share best practices for using data to measure the social impact of outcomes-based financing.  The investment community’s understanding of the impact made by outcome-based financing is hampered by a lack of data. As of now, there are no centralized, holistic databases of impact investing data (e.g. benchmarks, sample portfolios, returns and/or performance ranges, market deal terms) that the broader finance community typically uses. As such, investors do not have the same tools to evaluate their investments’ impact that …

This blog series is centered on Third Sector’s assessment on applicability of Pay for Success in higher education in partnership with a new cohort of stakeholders. This is post #4 of the series. “Systems achieve the outcomes they are designed to achieve,” Alex Bernadotte, founder and CEO of Beyond12 shared during a plenary at the National College Access Network (NCAN) conference in Indianapolis last month. Bernadotte explained the Higher Ed system is “inequitable by design” and failing underrepresented student populations: students of color, low-income, first-generation, and adult students, student-parents, English language learners, …

What does a low-income community look like? What systems and programs, while often well-intentioned, serve as the foot of oppression for keeping this neighborhood economically poor? After conducting this power analysis as part of the People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond’s Undoing Racism Workshop, hosted by Living Cities, there was no denying the immense privilege and power Third Sector has to influence systems and their outcomes for low-income communities and communities of color. This was a wake-up call for us. It helped us to understand the role we potentially play in perpetuating systemic …

Learn how Third Sector is leading the movement toward better outcomes for communities.

Third Sector is leading a team selected as one of three grand prize winners of the Government Effectiveness Advanced Research (GEAR) Center Challenge. The GEAR Center competition challenged respondents and problem solvers from the public, academia, and industry to build cross-sector, multidisciplinary teams to demonstrate the potential of the GEAR Center as a public-private partnership to improve mission delivery, citizen services, and stewardship of public resources. “GEAR Center Challenge submissions are promising examples of how innovative public-private partnerships can transform government mission delivery, service to citizens and stewardship. The GEAR …

After two years of research, assessment, and design, the County of Santa Cruz Human Services Department (HSD) has launched two new two-year outcomes-oriented contracts with subsidized employment service providers.

Third Sector CEO and Co-Founder Caroline Whistler recently participated in a Twitter Town Hall with her five fellow nominees for Independent Sector’s NGen Leadership Award for the 2019 Upswell Conference. The winner will be announced at the Upswell Conference in Chicago November 13-15. You can read Caroline’s responses to a Q & A with Upswell here and see her responses in the Town Hall below. A1: Structural racism in our public systems, which is a root cause of increasing economic disparities and injustice. Climate transformation that is already accelerating the …

Recently USAID published a guide for “Setting, Pricing, and Administering Performance Metrics in Pay-for-Results Programming.” The guide is intended to help those within USAID understand the basics of Pay-for-Results (PfR) contracts, their connection to current contracting practices and authorities, and how to think through the design of a new project. Third Sector contributed by sharing our experiences and how the lessons we learned in our work in domestic human services are equally applicable in the international development context. Our experience shows that there are six critical aspects when developing an …

Third Sector recently co-hosted a webinar with two college access and success providers, uAspire and College Forward, to discuss “Pay for Success Lessons Learned from the Provider Perspective.” As providers have a track record of supporting students day-to-day and understand firsthand what resources are necessary to ensure that students enroll in and graduate from institutions of higher education, the webinar focused on providing a platform for providers to share lessons learned with the four Pay for Success in Higher Education cohort sites. In the webinar, uAspire reflected on the organization’s …

Third Sector Managing Director, Kristel Kurtz, testified at an August 8th hearing held by the Boston City Council Committee on Public Safety and Criminal Justice (Docket #0781). The hearing, sponsored by Councilor President Andrea Campbell, was intended to review all grants and city funds available for violence prevention and intervention purposes, stemming from  Campbell’s concerns about the level of gun violence that persists in her district. Kurtz’s testimony, which can be viewed here and read in full here, described the importance of focusing contracts on measurable outcomes to achieve results …

Third Sector, BUILD Initiative, and The Ounce recently hosted a webinar with the Administration for Children and Family’s Office of Child Care to discuss “Increasing Access, Quality, and Affordability of Early Care and Education through Systems Building and Change Management.” With 146 participants across 40 states and Washington DC, the webinar highlighted activities that states can engage in through their PDG B-5 grants to create a shared understanding and formalized coordination across agencies. Showcasing the journey of three states (Connecticut, Washington, and New York) and their lessons learned, this webinar outlined the tangible ways in …

The Nonprofit Finance Fund (NFF) released a report, “Pay for Success: The First 25”. The report provides a deep analysis into the launch, impact, and implications of the first 25 Pay for Success (PFS) projects launched in the US. This report provides a baseline understanding of what goes into every PFS contract while also explaining components that often vary. By gathering the available information on each project in one place, the NFF provides a useful tool to draw conclusions from and build new ideas to improve upon the work that …

This blog series is centered on Third Sector’s assessment on applicability of Pay for Success in higher education in partnership with a new cohort of stakeholders. This is blog post #3 of the series. Third Sector recently launched a national Pay For Success in Higher Education cohort of four higher education state and system partners that are interested in exploring Pay for Success (PFS) as a way to fund wraparound student support services that improve enrollment, persistence, and graduation outcomes for underserved students. Common wraparound services include college application assistance, …

The $100 million Social Impact Partnerships to Pay for Results Act (SIPPRA) is a federal funding opportunity to scale outcomes-driven solutions that benefit communities across government funding silos. Round 2 Applications for Feasibility Study will soon be open during Fall this year.  State and local governments are invited to explore outcomes-oriented readiness through Round 2 funding, which will be used to cover 50% of the cost of a Feasibility Study. Third Sector looks forward to supporting communities and is available to partner with agencies to create an Outcomes Implementation Plan …

The Annie E. Casey Foundation and Third Sector staff led a two-day convening on how to align data, public funding, policy, and programs to improve outcomes for 18-24 year-old youth & young adults through community colleges’ platforms.  50+ attendees represented state departments of Labor, Education, and Human Services; workforce boards; community and technical colleges; service providers; universities; and state data centers from nine Southern and Southwestern states (AR, KY, MD, MS, NE, NM, RI, TX, & VA). Each state formed a “team” of experts to work directly with Third Sector staff …

Over the next two years, Third Sector will work with up to five nonprofit grantees of The James Irvine Foundation’s Better Careers initiative and up to ten local government agencies to advance economic opportunity in California through a $2M grant from the Foundation. Third Sector will facilitate partnerships between Better Careers grantees and public service agencies to co-design improvements on California’s public workforce funding system and pursue better outcomes in economic opportunity for the people they serve. The initiative will culminate in up to five implementation plans developed through an …

Third Sector announced its new PFS in Higher Education national cohort today with the selection of four communities that will receive training and technical assistance in using Pay for Success to fund student access and success programs.

Third Sector put together a short video to summarize our recent blog series, Strategies for Inclusively and Equitably Building a Diverse Team: Recruitment Process Changes. Third Sector Associate Joanna Kuang and HR Manager Danielle Antico take us through the three parts of the Recruitment Process Changes: Rewriting the Job Description Re-Evaluating the Summer Manager Compensation Package Restructuring the Interviews After watching this video, please follow the links above for more detail, or contact Danielle Antico at dantico@thirdsectorcap.org

In Part I of this post, we described how outcomes-oriented contracting can leverage linked data to inform government spending and support better service delivery and outcomes for individuals, families, and communities. We also described how Integrated Data Systems (IDS) can supply the critical data needed throughout the outcomes-oriented contracting process. In this post, we dive deeper into outcomes-oriented contracting as a high-value use case for IDS– providing examples from the Empowering Families cohort, outlining key considerations for building IDS, and discussing opportunities to combine these two strategies to enhance your …