PLY: Concerns over how former Governor Deval Patrick can make a SIB difference from Bain Capital while the question of Indian SIBs and their potential, e.g. for fighting slavery, arises alongside a run down on the UK election manifestos where I must admit to being pleasantly surprised that even the UK’s left wing Labour Party apparently favour SIBs. Happy scrolling:
How The UK’s Political Parties Line Up On Nonprofit Policies
Rick Cohen – NPQ
Charities Aid Foundation’s Steve Clapperton has done for the British political parties—the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats, Labour, the Greens, and UKIP—what we would love to do regarding American political parties (and we only have two with legitimate possibilities of power in Congress and the White House): He compared their published party “manifestos” to determine where they stood on issues of concern to nonprofits in the UK.
He discovered that “in the charity world at least there appears to be much more consensus between the parties than might have been expected.” With the exception of the UKIP on the far right, the parties largely support social enterprise, social impact bonds, and cooperatives, though the Green Party puts a special emphasis on co-ops.
India – Could Social Impact Bonds Fight Slavery?
Dallin Van Leuven – InPEC Magazine
To pay off a family debt of only $50, 13-year-old Roghini was “mortgaged” to a family that made matchboxes in their home. Paid only 30 cents for every 1,500 boxes she made, Roghini worked alongside 20 other children for 11 hours a day just to try and earn enough to eat—though she often went hungry. The abusive treatment she received drove Roghini into such a deep depression that she tried to end her own life. Finally, three years after she was sold into slavery, a local group was able to pay off the debt and free her.
Millions of men, women, and children are working in India under similar conditions. India’s justice system has tried to free them for decades, to no avail. New strategies are needed where politicians and judges have failed. It is time for investors to step up.
Rajasthan, India’s largest state, may offer a solution.
There, local and international organizations are teaming up to make an impact on another of India’s resilient problems: the education of girls. In the world’s first Development Impact Bond, an independent grant-making foundation raised 238,000 USD to fund an Indian-based non-governmental organization to work on retaining an extra 10,000 girls in school and expanding services for 20,000 children. Managed by an intermediary, the Development Impact Bond promises a return to investors if the organization is able to meet its goals within the three-year timeframe (paid for by an independent investment fund). In a country where 40 percent of girls do not reach the fifth grade, this initiative seeks to make an impact on a persistent social problem.
Doubtful That Patrick Will Be A Force For Good At Bain
Randy Albelda (Professor of economics at University of Massachusetts Boston) – Boston Globe
I WAS surprised and dismayed by former governor Deval Patrick’s decision to join Bain Capital in order to promote social-impact bonds (reported last week). These bonds are untested in large part because they have failed to attract private investors. This means they are not profitable enough yet. State governments will have to sweeten the pot, which means providing higher guarantees on the return on the private money.
In short, government will take all the risks and private investment firms get all the gain. Social-impact bonds are a privatization scheme in new clothing.
Profit-making from government spending on social services typically comes at the expense of the taxpayers, the workers providing those services, the recipients of the services, or some combination of all three.
The last thing the public sector needs to be doing is lining the pockets of the wealthy, and it is disappointing to me that Patrick is leading the charge.