Encouraging UK news, across the Atlantic, a promotion to head the White House’s efforts in pay for success (handy career hint: try to curtail any instinctive desire to use your own private email server) while Big Society pats itself on the back and mentions SIBs too. Happy scrolling:
Key Fund Invest In Social Impact Bond To Tackle Youth Homelessness
Social Enterprise UK
Key Fund has invested £150k into a new Social Impact Bond to help tackle youth homelessness across the North West.
The investment will enable regional charity Local Solutions to engage in a pay-by-results contract. Local Solutions has delivered innovative and life changing services to vulnerable people in North West England and North Wales since 1974.
The charity has a strong portfolio of accommodation services. It also runs Domestic Abuse Services, Domiciliary Care, Welfare Rights Advice, BullyBusters, Carers Support and a Water sports centre. In 2014, they were awarded the Freedom of the City of Liverpool in recognition of its outstanding contribution to the city.
Key Fund’s investment has allowed Local Solutions to enter a pay-by-results contract with the Cabinet Office and Department for Communities and Local Government’s £15 million Fair Chance Fund.
Pay-for-Success Expert Named To Lead White House Office
Alex Daniels – The Chronicle of Philanthropy
Dave Wilkinson, an adviser to President Obama with a background in community-development finance and pay-for-success efforts, has been named to lead the White House Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation.
Mr. Wilkinson will replace Jonathan Greenblatt, who in November announced plans to step down to lead the Anti-Defamation League, a leading nonprofit in the fight against anti-Semitism.
Big Society Has Succeeded & Society Is Stronger Than In 2010, Says Rob Wilson
Emily Corfe – Civil Society
The Big Society has succeeded and charities have more volunteers and more funding than when the government came to power in 2010, minister for civil society Rob Wilson said Tuesday.
Speaking at a hustings event run by All Party Parliamentary Group on Civil Society in Parliament, Wilson said Big Society was about “devolving powers, devolving responsibilities, getting communities involved and encouraging volunteering”.
But Wilson said the voluntary sector was reaping the rewards of new funding initiatives.
Pointing to social investment, Big Society Capital, and social impact bonds, he said: “We are reaching a tipping point in the next year or two when we will be able to unlock billions of pounds of social investment”.
“Social impact bonds and social investment is still quite new,” he said. “It is imperative that when you are doing something new and different that you continue to learn from that. But the broad view is that what we are doing is right.”
Wilson said a newly elected Conservative government would want to see localised funding and smaller voluntary organisations getting better access to government contracts.