PLY: From Salt Lake City to Australia via Boston, three crunchy stories as I complete a hectic wave of conferences (in Geneva), happy reading:
Salt Lake County Council Approves Preliminary Plan On Alternative To Fight Crime
FOX13
The Salt Lake County Council met for hours Tuesday afternoon, going over a plan presented by the Salt Lake County mayor that would continue taxpayer funding for inmates long after the jail bond is paid off.
They voted 8-1 to give preliminary approval to the idea.
“It is a system that we cannot tolerate in this county anymore,” Salt Lake County Sheriff Jim Winder said, making a plea before the public right before the council meeting on Tuesday. “We simply bring human beings in, process them and kick them to the curb.”
He’s talking about the incarceration system in the county. The sheriff and other leaders said what they’re doing isn’t working.
“We have people that are simply cycling through over, and over and over again,” Winder said.
He said inmates keep coming back to those county jail cells. Crime in the area has risen. The jail is overcrowded.
“We cannot jail our way out of our problems,” said Salt Lake County Mayor Ben McAdams.
Every year, taxpayers help contribute $9.4 million toward the 20-year bond that pays for the county jail.
The jail, and that bond, will be completely paid off in December.
Winder and McAdams want to keep that funding going, but use it in a new, but different way.
“In many cases the root cause is mental illness or drug addiction,” McAdams said of how inmates end up in jail in the first place. “We want to help them beat their drug addiction, manage their mental illness and get back into society.”
The county would do that by investing that $9.4 million into building a brand new community corrections center. Inmates would head there for treatment after jail.
The center would also fund three new “pay for success” initiatives: one, focusing on keeping inmates out of jail once released, two, on homelessness and the third to improve lives of at-risk children in hopes of preventing crime.
Social Finance Taps Government Insiders
Chris Morris – Boston Globe
It’s one of the most complicated experiments in the nonprofit sector: Private investors pay for social services and are reimbursed — with a profit — if the social program meets its goals. Known as “pay for success,” or “social impact bonds,” it’s meant to be a creative way to fund nonprofit programs and save the government money.
Boston is home to a pay-for-success pioneer: Social Finance, cofounded by Tracy Palandjian (right), a former consultant at Parthenon Group, Wellington Management Co., and McKinsey & Co. When the nonprofit organization was launched in 2011, Palandjian was its only employee — “it was lonely for quite a bit in the beginning!” she jokes — but it has now grown to about 30 people.
And Social Finance just hired two state government insiders: Navjeet Bal, former governor Deval Patrick’s revenue commissioner, is now its vice president and general counsel, and Alex Zaroulis, Patrick’s former communications director at the Executive Office for Administration and Finance, is director of communications.
Implications Of New Growth Phase In Australian Impact Investing
Alex Oppes – SVA Consulting
Impact investing in Australia has reached a significant milestone with a leading superannuation fund committing $30m to impact investment through a dedicated trust managed by Social Ventures Australia (SVA). Alex Oppes looks at what this means for impact investing in Australia.
The announcement of a partnership between HESTA and SVA with the launch of a $30m Social Impact Investment Trust represents a coming of age for impact investing in Australia. The Trust is the largest Australian impact investing commitment made by a superannuation fund. This article explores why this is a significant moment for the development of the impact investment market and explains what this means for investors and for the social sector.
Key facts: The Social Impact Investment Trust
Size: $30m
Target deal size: $1-10m
Asset classes: Debt/equity/social impact bonds
Target impact areas: Social and affordable housing, social sector organisations, social businesses, social impact bonds
Target returns: To be determined on a deal by deal basis, based on the risk of the investment
Investor: HESTA, the industry fund dedicated to Australia’s health and community services sector, with more than $32 billion in total assets and over 800,000 members.
Manager: SVA, a non-profit organisation that works to improve the lives of those in need. SVA offers impact investing, advisory and funding services.