The ability of disadvantaged students to navigate a path to and through college has never been more critical in an era with a broad wage gap based on post-secondary educational attainment. While Pay for Success (PFS) has been deployed effectively in a variety of social policy domains, the movement has largely bypassed the field of higher education. This comes despite the fact that the achievement of longer-term metrics such as a persistence, graduation, and labor market outcomes, rather than student enrollment or other interim measures, are now driving the conversation

In the recent discussion concerning evidence-based practices, many practitioners believe that the current approach to collecting evidence, validating findings, and replicating evidence-based programs (EBPs) has distorted the funding system for social services. Others argue that relaxing the focus on evidence-based practices will welcome a world where once again anecdotes and heuristics guide funding decisions. At Third Sector, we believe there is another way forward: continuous impact measurement using administrative data. If government made low-cost impact management an element of their program oversight, it could better hold providers accountable for quantifiable

The social services sector is transitioning from a focus on ‘outputs’ measuring activity levels towards ‘outcomes’ measuring life impacts. Third Sector advises public agencies seeking to use the tools at their disposal, such as procurement, policy, and data, to better align with long-term success for their communities. While we want success to be defined in terms of outcomes and encourage this evolution of the field, we still see value in assessing outputs for several reasons.

Throughout 2017, Third Sector and its partners have delivered improved outcomes for vulnerable Americans while accelerating the nation’s transition to a performance-driven social sector. With over $1 trillion in public funding dedicated to social issues each year, our work provides catalytic implementation support that enables communities to effectively address problems such as lack of meaningful jobs, recidivism, and overuse of foster care. See below for highlights on how Third Sector moved over $260M in total public funding to outcomes in 2017 and is leading the effort to implement solutions so

The Pay For Success (PFS) field is evolving from initial Social Impact Bond-style projects launched by governments and supported by third-party (i.e., non-government) funding to agency and multi-agency engagements that shift the practice of how existing public funding streams are deployed for specific social programs. Across these projects, traditional cost reimbursement service contracts are being amended or replaced with outcomes-oriented contracts.

Last month, Actionable Intelligence for Social Policy (AISP), Third Sector’s data integration partner, convened government leaders from around the country to explore ways to embed administrative data into government programming and decision-making.

The three-day seminar marked the first in a series of Learning Community meetings over the next two years, during which ten jurisdictions will be building out and improving upon Integrated Data Systems (IDS), that embed ongoing administrative data sharing and evaluation across multiple government agencies.