One useful background story on Impact Investing and leading today’s news, an interview on the SIB world..
Strengths And Misperceptions Of Social Impact Bonds: An interview With Jeffrey Liebman, Professor, Harvard Kennedy School
Andy Feldman – Gov Innovator
Social Impact Bonds (SIBs) — also known as Pay for Success — are relatively new in the U.S., but interest has grown quickly at the local, state and federal levels in just a few years. Two states (NY and MA), as well as New York City, are already implementing SIBs and about a dozen other states and cities are designing them or are considering doing so.
To learn more about Social Impact Bonds, we’re joined by one of the nation’s leading experts, Jeffrey Liebman. He is a Professor at the Harvard Kennedy School, Director of the Taubman Center for State and Local Government, and Director of the Social Impact Bond Technical Assistance Lab (SIB Lab) at the Kennedy School. He previously served on the leadership team of the White House Office of Management and Budget in the Obama Administration.
In our interview, we discuss:
- the key features of SIBs
- why interest has grown so quickly among public leaders
- common misperceptions about the approach
- the role of the SIB Lab
What Needs To Happen For Impact Investing To Be The World-Changing Force It Could Be
Fast Company
The idea of deploying capital not only to generate a profit but to create some social return–“impact investing”–has come a long way in the last few years. From benefit corporations to social impact bonds, we now have plenty of variations on the theme, but perhaps not as much progress as first appears.
For example, a recent report from the Global Impact Investment Network and JP Morgan said the world’s 125 leading impact investors will raise their commitments by 125% this year. And yet, there’s universal agreement in the sector, even among its biggest champions, that it’s nowhere near the force it could be.
Various recent reports and books have attempted to identify bottlenecks to further growth. The latest comes from an international task-force set up by the G8 group of leading industrial nations. Called the “Impact Investment Report“, it’s a comprehensive survey of the scene, combined with some detailed proposals for what needs to happen if impact investing is to gain steam. Here are a few ideas we picked out.