Mayor Martin Walsh announced on Monday an effort to identify ways to improve post-high school graduation outcomes for Boston Public Schools’ students. The City has worked with Third Sector to release a Request for Information (RFI) to identify effective programs and services that will increase access to higher education and training and would be funded through a Pay for Success model. The Office of the Chief of Education, along with the Boston Public Schools, have put forth efforts to improve outcomes for youth, including the High School Redesign effort and Success

It’s graduation season, which means people across the country are thinking about entering the job market. Third Sector Capital Partners, a grantee of the Social Innovation Fund’s Pay for Success program, is currently working to improve employment outcomes for urban young adults by working with Year Up, a Boston-based organization that seeks to improve employment outcomes for urban young adults. Year Up’s Professional Training Corps (PTC) model is an intensive one-year program for 18-to-24-year-olds who are disconnected from both school and work. In 14 locations nationwide, Corps participants spend six months

Third Sector was named a 2015 Game Changer by the Boston Globe Magazine in this week’s issue, which featured CEO and Co-Founder George Overholser’s bet “that data will help make a difference solving some of the most intractable social problems, from juvenile delinquency to homelessness.” The article also cites Third Sector’s work on the Massachusetts Juvenile Justice PFS Initiative, where Roca, Inc. is working with over 900 young men in Boston, Chelsea and Springfield in order to reduce the days they spend in jail and increase their employment opportunities.

John Grossman, Co-President and General Counsel, and Marcia Chong, Senior Analyst, have authored a blog post for the Harvard Law and Policy Review. Pay for Success: Pay for Success Calls for Innovation in Non-Profit, Contract and Securities Law focuses on how innovative thinking in nonprofit and tax law, government contracting, and securities law will be needed to support the growth of the PFS field.

Both John and Marcia have been intimately involved in developing the PFS contracts and other legal agreements for the Massachusetts Juvenile Justice Initiative and the Cuyahoga County Partnering

The Salt Lake County Pay for Success Initiative has released two Requests for Proposals from qualified non-profits to provide comprehensive services that can improve criminal and other relevant outcomes for high-need populations. The two proposals are focused on criminal justice/recidivism and child/maternal health. Since 2014, the County has been working to assess the viability of implementing Pay for Success projects in the County. In January, Mayor Ben McAdams announced the selection of three issue areas to move forward with Pay for Success contracting: child/maternal health, criminal justice recidivism, and homelessness.

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Santa Clara County just launched a Request for Proposals for its Acute Mental Health: Frequent Users Care Coordination Pay for Success Project. The selected agency will enter into a Pay for Success (PFS) contract with the County, under which the County only pays for services if and when successful results are achieved. This PFS initiative is the first in the U.S. to target mental health and the second PFS project in the County and in California, positioning the County at the forefront of the national movement towards performance-based contracting for