PLY: No need for me to add anything, three good stories to add to your day in SIB-world, happy reading:
Social Impact Bonds Make Their Mark
Karen Mahlab – Business Spectator
Some of the world’s biggest financial institutions are looking at it. Some of the world’s wealthiest citizens are debating its merits. Yet “impact investing” is still a mysterious concept to many private investors.
Simply put, impact investing is investing money intentionally in order to have a positive social or environmental impact, as well as delivering a financial return. There are many different asset classes involved in impact investing. One of the most discussed are social impact bonds.
In Australia the best known social impact bond is the Newpin program.
Creating A Lasting Bond: Utilising Social Benefit Bonds To Help Combat Family Violence In Australia
Corrs Chambers Westgarth – Lexology
We first reported on “social benefit bonds” – the innovative financial instrument that pays a return based on the achievement of agreed social outcomes – in 2012, when the NSW government announced the trial of a $10 million social benefit bond involving the Benevolent Society. The funding raised from the Benevolent Society bond was set to be channelled into a program (Resilient Families Service) to support more than 400 at-risk families over five years with the end goal of keeping vulnerable children out of foster care.
Fast forward three years, and the Resilient Families Service has so far seen a 27% reduction in the number of children entering foster care compared with a control group. While there has undoubtedly been a positive social outcome of the first year of the Benevolent Society bond, what about the financial outcomes?
Global Social Innovation Round-Up #29
Ellie Ward – Pioneers Post
Two pay for success programmes (commonly referred to as social impact bonds in the UK) have been launched in South Carolina and Connecticut in the US last week.