The Obama administration is “doubling down” on its study of the “pay for success” approach to funding social services programs after they demonstrate results, rather than in advance.

In a blog post last week, Budget Director Shaun Donovan and Domestic Policy Council Director Cecelia Munoz wrote that “with the addition of 25 new Pay for Success feasibility studies across the country, the federal government is significantly increasing its investment in PFS.”

Through the Social Innovation Fund housed at the Corporation for National and Community Service, the administration will raise the number of such studies from 33 to 58.  Under Pay for Success, “instead of paying upfront for a social service that may or may not achieve the desired results, the government only pays once an intervention produces specific, measurable, and positive outcomes,” they wrote. Investors provide the up-front money for programs such as a community-re-entry program for released prisoners, and then are repaid with a return if the desired outcome—the ex-prisoners do not end up re-incarcerated—are achieved.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.govexec.com/contracting/2016/04/what-happens-if-you-pay-contractors-only-when-their-programs-work/127660

See previous article on this topic at: http://contractingacademy.gatech.edu/tag/pay-for-success/