n August 2013, key stakeholders in a collective impact partnership in Utah entered into one of America’s first pay-for-success (PFS) contracts, otherwise known as a social impact bond (SIB). The plan called for United Way of Salt Lake to work with area partners, including StriveTogether (a national network of cross-sector community partnerships focused on improving public education), to expand high quality preschool opportunities in high-need communities, and for Goldman Sachs and J.B. Pritzker to provide $7 million in up-front funding to pay for the program. If the children who had been identified as potentially eligible for government-funded special education (beginning in kindergarten and often lasting through high school) were able to avoid tapping those services, then, ultimately, the state of Utah would pay investors their principal plus a financial return. (Because state legislation had not been passed in 2013, for the first cohort of children the investors are paid by United Way of Salt Lake and Salt Lake County).

Read Now