An interesting trio of articles to end the week from Australia, UK & USA…
Do Social Impact Bonds Really Work For Charities?
Tim Smedley – The Guardian
A lot has been said and written about Social impact bonds (Sibs) in the past few years, but until now we’ve had little explanation as to whether they work and what it is like to be part of one.
Now as 10 Sibs, which are part of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP’s) three-year innovation fund helping disadvantaged young people, come to an end, we can get some answers.
Career Connect, a Liverpool employment charity, raised its £1.5m Sib in 2012 with the help of Triodos Bank. Investment came from fund manager Bridges Ventures, Big Society Capital and the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation.
Adviza, a careers advice charity, raised a £0.9m Sib (investors included the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, Barrow Cadbury Trust and Bucks county council) to help 14-15 year olds at risk of becoming neet (not in education, training or employment).
And Teens and Toddlers, a national charity that partners troubled teenagers with young children in local nurseries, raised a £0.8m Sib (investors include Bridges, CAF Venturesome and private equity foundation Impetus–PEF).
Central Valley Town Trying Something New To Combat Asthma
Alice Daniel – California Healthline
Stephani Pineda, a program coordinator for the Central California Asthma Collaborative, has walked through dozens of homes in Fresno County making recommendations to families whose children are at risk of asthma emergencies.
Her mission is to reduce indoor environmental triggers that can cause asthma attacks. Her suggestions range from the simple to the complex, from switching cleaning products to weatherizing a house.
The families are part of a unique two-year pilot program in Fresno County called the Asthma Impact Model.
The model focuses on families who are low income. The goal is to see if a social health program can improve care, reduce costly emergency department visits and save money. If the model is successful, it could attract investors to a social impact bond that would allow the program to expand.
The California Endowment funded the project with a $1.1 million grant.
Financial Investors Make Social Impact
The Australian
Progressive financing techniques are increasingly being applied in areas outside the financial sector, and are helping to solve some pressing social issues. At its core, the emergence of this approach, known as ‘social impact investing’, is representative of financial institutions, the private sector and Government working together towards more efficient and sustainable ways to fund the delivery of social services.
To this end, service providers are funded through private investment to run programs that address defined social problems. This enables the Government to spend its money more efficiently and make significant savings, while investors motivated by social impact get to see both an investment return (usually based on performance levels) and a quantifiable social benefit that they have helped to deliver.
Emmanuel Alfieris, executive director for Government, Healthcare, Education and Social Infrastructure, Institutional Banking and Markets, Commonwealth Bank, says it is “still early days” across the global social impact sector, however the appetite for social impact investing continues to grow with interest developing steadily from both the Government and potential investors.
Alfieris’ team helped to structure the second “Social Benefit Bond” issued in the Australian marketplace in October 2013, a $10 million bond to fund not-for-profit community support organisation the
Benevolent Society in its Resilient Families program. The program is an intensive family support service aimed at reducing the incidence of children entering out-of-home care.