National Service Agency Selects Local Organizations to Develop Pay for Success Projects

Cities, states, and nonprofits among those who will receive funding 

WASHINGTON, DC – The Corporation for National and Community Service’s (CNCS) Social Innovation Fund (SIF) today announced 27 subgrantee organizations selected to receive technical assistance services through its Pay for Success (PFS) grant program. The funding will advance and evaluate innovative PFS projects in fields ranging from early childhood interventions to chronic homelessness.

“The Social Innovation Fund is changing the way the government serves the public by using rigorous evidence evaluations to find what works and make it work for more people,” said Wendy Spencer, CEO of the Corporation for National and Community Service. “We couldn’t be more enthusiastic for the first Pay for Success subgrantees, whose work will help address challenges facing low-income communities nationwide.”

The subgrantees represent a diverse group of communities and states including Arkansas; Austin, Texas; Grand Rapids, Mich.; Memphis, Tenn.; Nevada, New Mexico; Newark, N.J.; San Francisco and San Diego, Calif., Spartanburg, S.C., and more.

The SIF Pay for Success (PFS) initiative is designed to help gather information about how the PFS model can be implemented effectively. The initiative will also strengthen and diversify the pipeline of state and local governments as well as nonprofit service providers that are ready to participate in PFS, attract capital to solutions that work, and collect and share knowledge about every step of the PFS process.

The 27 subgrantees were selected through open competitions run by SIF PFS grantees: Corporation for Supportive Housing, Green & Healthy Homes Initiative, Harvard Kennedy School Social Impact Bond Lab, Institute for Child Success, and Third Sector Capital Partners. These organizations will help support cities, states, and nonprofit organizations working to develop new models of funding high-quality, effective social programs that produce measurable outcomes for individuals and communities. A complete listing of the new subgrantees is available here.

Representing a new way of doing business for the federal government, the SIF unites public and private resources to evaluate and grow innovative community-based solutions that work. These solutions must have at least preliminary evidence of results in low-income communities in three priority areas: economic opportunity, healthy futures, and youth development. The SIF will also capture and share best practices and lift-up models with potential for replication.

The new SIF PFS projects include:

• Ending Community Homelessness Coalition received an award from the Corporation for Supportive Housing to help identify payment structures for a Pay for Success project in Austin/Travis County, Texas that will promote supportive housing for super utilizers of expensive, crisis healthcare services. 
• Third Sector Capital Partners awarded Pay for Success services in Oregon to Marion and Multnomah Counties, Friends of the Children, and Oregon Health Sciences University to explore PFS strategies to support disengaged youth involved in the county and state child welfare and justice systems. 
• The State of North Carolina received an award from the Institute for Child Success for a feasibility study to analyze the use of Pay for Success to potentially expand home visiting and child literacy programs.