Welcome to SIB News: Two articles today. The first is wonderful – all about SIBs which I firmly believe are a key way forward to allow society to deliver a safety net and better services to improve society. The second delves mostly in to social impact investing where I have to admit, I am not so clear I follow the logic – and the addition of endless committees and the like only make me more cynical about the prospect of impact investing really being, er, sustainable, to use that favoured word.
Social Impact Bonds: Getting Better At Doing Good
Joe Kennedy III – Boston Globe
When you walk into the unassuming Chelsea headquarters of Roca, you see the hallmarks of a thriving, urban non-profit. Teenagers draped on couches in the lobby. Posters proudly touting participants’ achievements lining the walls. Doors leading to a modest gym, job training classes, and crowded offices.
But there is a word you hear repeatedly around Roca that sets it apart: data. Dedicated to reducing recidivism in high-risk youth and helping disengaged young people break the cycle of violence and poverty, Roca is compulsively data-driven and outcomes-oriented.
Their four-year program for juvenile offenders is measured, analyzed, and evaluated every step of the way. Each participant is closely monitored, which allows Roca to see which interventions work and which don’t. An enormous database tracks progress through the program and holds the organization and its participants accountable for the results. Those results, so far, have been exceptional. Last year, 89 percent of young men in the final stages of the program had no new arrests and 69 percent were holding down jobs.
That success is worth replicating. But in a time of limited government resources and tenuous economic recovery, how can we take best practices carefully honed by local service providers like Roca and scale them, to systemically address some of our Commonwealth’s and country’s most wrenching social shortcomings?
Social Entrepreneurs Establish Alternative Commission On Social Investment
Sam Burne James – Third Sector
An Alternative Commission on Social Investment has been set up by social entrepreneurs and advisers, and will investigate issues in the social investment market and suggest how to make it more accessible.
It is led by David Floyd, MD of the east London-based community interest company Social Spider. He has taken on the role of commission team leader, with two advisers: Dan Gregory, a consultant and former civil servant, and Nikki Wilson, also a consultant, who has worked in grant-making and assessment.
The work of the commission, which starts this month and will culminate in a report published in February, is steered by a 15-person team of commissioners from a variety of backgrounds including Ian Marr, chief executive of Aberdeen YMCA, Julia Morley, a lecturer in accounting at the London School of Economics, Holly Piper, a senior invesment manager at the social investor CAF Venturesome, and Asheem Singh, director of public policy at the charity chief executives body Acevo.