Secretaries' Innovation Group
Best practices in using performance criteria to generate positive outcomes - November 2022
* Social Finance Overview
Michael Grossman and Jake Segal, Social Finance
- Social Finance has helped state and local agencies assess problems, create programs likely to succeed, fund, measure and adapt operations in a continuous improvement loop in which success payments are recycled into funds for new projects. They will describe some of their current outcome based state and local initiatives, such as:
Google has funded a training program through Social Finance in which payments to trainers are paid a portion of their costs upfront and receive additional payments only if their graduates land and keep higher-paying jobs.
An outcomes rate card is a menu of outcomes that defines how much a government is willing to pay each time that a positive outcome is achieved. A score card rates vendors against metrics. Both can be used together to improve performance and reduce per outcome costs.
Pay It Forward Funds create sustainable cycles of training that are focused on outcomes. Students who experience positive employment outcomes repay the cost of their training, paying it forward into a common fund to support future students.
Data insights help make predictions such as the likelihood of homelessness, allowing agencies to step in to help at-risk individuals with preventive measures.
How the State Workforce System Can Influence Community Colleges to Perform Better - November 2021
* Outcomes-Driven Funding & the Future of Employment Data
Michael Bettersworth, Vice Chancellor for Innovation, Texas State Technical College
- Why do we care so much about our statewide community college system? As Willie Sutton would say… “because that’s where the money is”. Community and technical colleges educate more people each year than apprenticeship programs, coding bootcamps and government job training combined—nearly 11 million students a year before the pandemic, compared to fewer than 500,000 from all others. Some state directors express frustration that they have only a marginal influence on the community college curricula and would like the system to shift away from classroom instruction to more hands-on practical skill acquisition and certification.
- Although some states attempt to track post-college outcomes, this is hampered by insufficiently detailed wage match and other data. Now comes ten campus Texas State Technical College which is the only known example of a state college which obtains 100% of its state budget from meeting performance contracts related to jobs and wage growth. VP Michael Bettersworth will explain how this works, how TSTC is flourishing financially, and how to mobilize state policymakers to shift the community college system to better reflect demands from employers and the state workforce system.
Federal Funds for Pay for Success - December 2019
* Leveraging Government Funds to Pay for Success
Oscar Benitez, Director, Third Sector Capital Partners
Maria Posey, Director of Federal Business Development, Third Sector Capital Partners
- In February 2018, SIPPRA was established by the federal government to provide up to $100 million for state and local governments to use as outcome payments in Pay for Success (PFS) projects. The legislation is an important step in the transformation of the ongoing management of public dollars for outcomes and will accelerate local government’s capacity to use data-driven decision-making across multiple agencies and programs. By the time we meet, the Treasury Department will have announced the first round Pay for Success grants. Our discussion will focus on the states that were funded and what we can learn from the winning proposals to help SIG states apply for next round. Federal funds will also be available for planning grants.
Impact Investing - December 2019
* Sagamore Institute
Jay Hein, President, Sagamore Institute
- The Boston Federal Reserve reports that the average net worth of white households in Boston
is $247,000, while the net for black households is under $1000. This is a shocking statistic, and only market solutions can close this gap. The Sagamore Institute is custodian of an Impact Fund for investors who want to achieve social goals while obtaining a return to their
investments. States can set up their own Impact Funds to help guide social investments within their states to promote economic growth in specific projects including minority and faith-based businesses without public contributions. Jay Hein will describe how states can
encourage this using Sagamore’s own Impact Fund as an example.
Performance and Impact - June 2018
* Maximizing Impact Through Outcomes Contracting
Caroline Whistler, CEO, Third Sector Capital
- An underappreciated provision of the recent budget is the Social Impact Partnerships to Pay for Results Act (SIPPRA). For the first time the law establishes a federal funding stream and structure to support and advance the implementation of pay for success contracting, including $100 million for outcome payments, feasibility studies, and project evaluations. This session will describe how states can “get in on the Act”.
State Job Performance Measurement - December 2017
* Using Outliers as Teachers Comparative Performance Monitoring under WIOA
Doug Besharov, University of Maryland
* WIA Value-Added Charts
Randy Eberts, Upjohn Institute
- The presenters will argue that modest adjustments to TANF and WIOA metrics could better measure relative efficiency and effectiveness of programs state to state by taking into account differences in program components, client characteristics, and social and economic conditions. In that way, the best and worst performers could better be identified, and their characteristics and operations analyzed for emulation or correction.
The Future of Government Programs is to Pay for Outcomes, Not Process: From Concept to Action - July 2017
* Maximizing Impact Through Outcomes Contracting
Caroline Whistler, CEO, Third Sector Capital Partners
John Grossman, Managing Director & General Counsel, Third Sector Capital Partners
* Public Impact Initiative / Options for Outcomes-Based Funding
Jeff Shumway, Vice President of Advisory Services, Social Finance
Navjeet Bal, Vice President & General Counsel, Social Finance
- After Mayor Giuliani changed the way NYC paid for WIA and TANF work programs so that vendors received payment only for job placement and retention, in the first year after the change, job placements doubled and total program expenditures dropped by one third. This session will explore what we know about pay for outcomes, and how it can be implemented across a range of programs, while acknowledging the challenges in doing so.
Performance Management - June 2016
* America Works
Carlyle Van Outten, Director, America Works of Wisconsin
- Milwaukee TANF eligibility and work programs are run by four contracted agencies, both profit and non-profit. Revenue is generated from outcome payments, mainly job placement and retention. What happens if a state miscalculates payment milestones and over-spends what it needs to? Or conversely, what happens to contract agencies when caseloads go down and new referrals dry up? Or recipients exempt themselves from the work program with doctors’ notes? How one of the Milwaukee agencies, America Works, reacts to these stresses and strains, and how states can maximize the value of their state program dollar.
November 2014
* Pay for Success
Gary Glickman, Health and Public Service Operating Group, Accenture
* Thinking About SIBs and Pay-for-Results Financing
Douglas Besharov, Director, Welfare Reform Institute, & Professor, School of Public Policy, University of Maryland
- Implementing Pay for Success and its related initiative - Social Impact Bonds
* Effective Execution, Outstanding Outcomes
Lillian Koller, former State Director, South Carolina Department of Social Services & former Director, Hawaii Department of Human Services
- The Four Disciplines of Execution
WIA and Social Impact Bonds - June 2014
* Pay-for-Success Success Contracts, and Social Impact Bonds
Douglas Besharov, Professor, University of Maryland School of Public Policy, Director, Welfare Reform Academy and Senior Fellow, Atlantic Council
* Pay for Success: A Federal Perspective
Gary Glickman, Senior Policy Advisor, Office of Domestic Finance, U.S. Department of Treasury
Conference Materials: Performance Contracting Impact and Outcomes
**To view power point presentations and supporting materials, click on * bold, underlined title.