PLY: Encouraging stories all the way from Ontario down to Tampa Bay via Salt Lake county in North America today…
Ontario Moving Forward With Social Impact Bonds
Ontario
Ontario issued a report today regarding the development of its first Social Impact Bond (SIB).
Piloting Social Impact Bonds in Ontario: The Development Path and Lessons Learned provides a basic introduction to SIBs and summarizes the province’s development process to date.
Four SIB ideas have been shortlisted as potential pilot projects and further work will be done to determine their viability for implementation:
YOUCAN proposes to decrease future days of incarceration by up to 50 per cent for more than 500 participating young adults in Ottawa that have recently been imprisoned or are currently in closed custody.
Mainstay Housing proposes to provide stable housing and intensive support to 100 chronically homeless individuals. The program will focus on individuals struggling with mental illness who have been homeless for five years or more.
Confederation College proposes to improve employment for over 2,100 unemployed (or under-employed) individuals in northwestern Ontario, with a particular emphasis on youth-at-risk, First Nations peoples and others facing barriers to employment.
The RAFT proposes to target over 900 at-risk young people, primarily in underserved rural areas surrounding Haldimand-Norfolk County, Niagara Region and Hamilton, to increase high school graduation rates and improve employment and social outcomes.
Editorial: An Innovative Approach To Funding
TBO
A new funding model could turn the common complaint that government doesn’t operate like a business on its head and improve efficiency and cut costs in the process.
Under this “social-impact bond” or “pay for success” plan, private companies pay for public services but are repaid with interest if those services generate cost savings.
The Salt Lake Tribune recently reported how the local United Way and Salt Lake County are collaborating on the financing model in a pilot project to show Utah lawmakers the approach can work.
Under the plan, Goldman Sachs and J.B. Pritzker committed $7 million to fund preschool services and will receive 95 percent of any special-education savings to the state until the investments are repaid with interest.
The early results are encouraging. Last month, the United Way of Salt Lake gave the investment bankers a $267,000 check.