Colorado and Ohio Departments of Higher Education Make Strides in Collaborative Efforts to Improve Student Success Outcomes

Over the last two years, the Colorado Department of Higher Education (CDHE) and the Ohio Department of Higher Education (ODHE) have worked alongside Third Sector to develop projects that finance evidence-based services to improve student outcomes to and through college. Collectively, these efforts are known as the Partnerships to Achieve Student Success (PASS) initiative and have been philanthropically supported by the ECMC Foundation and the Kresge Foundation.

PASS aims to launch two pilot pay for success (PFS) projects that will forge direct funding relationships between public systems of higher education and

500% increase in workforce enrollment and program completion for previously underserved youth in a workforce development program in Virginia 33% reduction in psychiatric emergency room visits by chronically homeless  in California 50% fewer days in jail and 61% fewer arrests for high-risk, high-need criminal offenders in Utah 22% improvement in speedy access to mental health [...]

On his first day in office, President Joe Biden signed an executive order that called for a “comprehensive approach to advancing equity for all, including people of color and others who have been historically underserved, marginalized, and adversely affected by persistent poverty and inequality”.   Federal agencies, guided by the Office of Management and Budget are [...]

Third Sector and the Harvard University’s Center for Education Policy Research (CEPR) collaborated to lead an Outcomes-Based Contracting (OBC) Summit, a four-workshop virtual series exploring outcomes contracting in K-12 math instruction. The OBC Summit was funded by Schmidt Futures.   Summit participants learned about the nuances of outcomes-based contracting and defined an approach for their organization. [...]

Governments are struggling to do more with less–that’s the key message we took away from our conversations with leaders in social service agencies across the country.

In a series of workshops held in partnership with MassHire Workforce Boards and Career Centers, Third Sector worked with MassHire partners to share initial steps participants could take to make their services more outcomes-oriented, thus improving outcomes for jobseekers and employers in their communities.  MassHire partners were interested in learning these initial steps they could [...]