After a week laced with much ideological relation to SIBs, two encouraging stories to end the week from opposite ends of the Commonwealth: Canada and New Zealand.
Have a great weekend.
NZ – Well Managed, Social Bonds Have Great Potential
Jenesa Jeram – Otago Daily Times
It is too early to judge social bonds.
For a concept few people had heard of before, social bonds have attracted a fair bit of criticism very quickly.
Some of the criticism is steeped in ideology.
But there is also criticism – potentially warranted criticism – that highlights the risks associated with performance-based contracting.
Making The Case For Outcome-Based Social Impact Investment
Barry Critchley – Financial Post
Sir Ronald Cohen, generally regarded as the father of British venture capital, and now the leader in the fledgling social impact investing movement, has a message for Stephen Harper: get aboard because “Canada can be a global leader.”
Social impact bonds, a form of financing that’s been in England for half a decade, “tap into the need of government to find new and effective ways of delivering social services. Others put up the risk capital [and governments] pay on [a successful] outcome,” said Cohen, who was in Canada this week for a meeting of the G-7’s Social Impact Investment Taskforce.
Terms such as accountability, payments made for success and not for inputs, and efficiency underpin Cohen’s argument for an investing form with three legs: the outcome’s funder (government or a foundation); the investor (who is hoping for a financial and social return) and the organization doing the delivery.