May 27, 2021
Conversations about governmental and social services can get pretty wonky ... and yet ... they are often vital for making real change, particularly at the local level.
Social Impact Bonds (SIBs) allow governments to take risk without footing the bill unless & until there are results. Gary Painter from the Price Center for Social Innovation joins research partners Chris Fox and Susan Baines from Manchester Metropolitan University to share findings from recent evaluations of SIBs in the wild.
Some of the recommendations for making the tool better include increasing co-creation in the design and evaluation phases. Including affected communities is vital to making policy work, to making these programs do what they can & should do.
Our goal here is to take this wonky idea of how to have more innovation in the creation, funding, and production of social services ... and make it more clear. Are SIBs a way to move us from a "winner take all" society to a more egalitarian/democratic one?