Preparing for a Pay for Success Opportunity

Massachusetts, like many other states and municipalities across the US, is grappling with a tremendous challenge: With increasingly strained budgets and growing social need, how can government funding be directed towards evidence-based programs that offer demonstrated cost-savings? Pay for Success and Social Impact Bonds (PFS/SIB) have emerged as potential mechanisms for making smart investments in effective social interventions by changing the way Government allocates and invests its resources -- focusing on results and outcomes. In short, funding what works.In May 2011, Massachusetts issued a Request for Information (RFI) with the goal of helping the Commonwealth determine "the areas of government activity where success-based-contracting strategies have the potential to improve outcomes and/or reduce costs." The Justice System is one area of government activity with the potential to illustrate both improved outcomes and well-defined cost savings for the Commonwealth. In addition, Massachusetts has a variety of established service providers that offer preventative initiatives to populations involved with the Justice System, particularly young people. One of these successful and well-known providers, Roca, had worked with Third Sector Capital Partners (Third Sector) for a year and a half to prepare itself to be a successful candidate for this PFS/SIB opportunity

U.S. Food Aid: It’s Not Your Parents’ Program Any More!

Much has changed in the 50 years since modern food aid began with the enactment of U.S. Public Law 480 in 1954. Yet contemporary policy debates often become derailed by failures to appreciate the significant changes that have already occurred. This paper identifies the most important of these changes and explains how these set the stage for further desirable changes to U.S. food aid programs.food security, humanitarian assistance, hunger, poverty, safety nets, surplus disposal, trade promotion, Agricultural and Food Policy, Food Security and Poverty, International Relations/Trade,