No news stories elsewhere today but the good folks of Social Finance US have been brainstorming and as always their thoughts on 2015 make good reading. They come in no particular order but are as follows:
• Optimism will fuel the momentum of the Pay For Success movement (also referred to as Social Impact Bond). The US market will expand to include additional issue areas beyond recidivism that prove to be viable for PFS funding including teen pregnancy, early childhood, maternal health, veterans, adult education, and child welfare. There are currently seven PFS contracts in the US, and the number is expected to double in 2015.
• Nonprofit service providers will look at PFS financing for national expansion plans, such as Nurse Family Partnership (NFP), a program that supports first-time moms living in poverty by providing each mom with a registered nurse who provides her with home visits throughout pregnancy until the child’s second birthday that has been scientifically evaluated by multiple high-quality randomized controlled trials and has almost 40 years of evidence behind it. Yet, because of limited financing, it still serves only 2 to 3 percent of the need in the United States.
See Nicholas Kristof NY Times piece:
Excerpts
“The visits have been studied extensively through randomized controlled trials. Children randomly assigned to nurse visits suffer 79 percent fewer cases of state-verified abuse or neglect. The children at age 15 have fewer than half as many arrests on average. At the 15-year follow-up, the mothers themselves have one-third fewer subsequent births and have spent 30 fewer months on welfare.”
“Yet, because of limited financing, it still serves only 2 to 3 percent of the need in the United States. That’s a stark example of mistaken priorities. Here we have one of the most rigorously backed anti poverty programs in America, one that pays for itself several times over in reduced costs later on, and yet it has funds to serve only 2 to 3 percent of eligible families. That’s infuriating.”
• November 2014 Elections (at state and local levels) will demonstrate that PFS can and will work for both sides of the aisle with successful handoff and transition in 2015 across blue and red states.
• The debate on evaluation approaches and performance management will heat up. Standardizing costs of social services (like “Rate Sheets” in the UK) may still be a long way off in the US, but the pipeline of PFS projects underway combined with increased collaboration among funders, government, nonprofit providers, evaluators and pioneering intermediaries such as Social Finance and Third Sector Partners, will bring the US closer to understanding the true costs and benefits of social service programs; thereby increasing the potential for PFS by shortening the time to structure through increased sharing of data.
• We may see the first Federal-funded PFS project in the US. States and county governments represent the early pioneers of PFS in the US, but as issue areas expand so will the opportunity to break new ground and look at PFS to fund programs nationally.
• Washington DC PFS coalitions will rally to build support for evidenced-based policy initiatives (see Results for America) and the application of big data to fund what works (see bipartisan book, Moneyball for Government); foreshadowing 2016 campaign themes of government efficiency.
PLY: Those are fascinating US perspectives, anybody any thoughts for the rest of the world?