August 14, 2014Op-ed

The Hill: Paying For What Works, When it Works

by Michele Jolin and Michael Smith

Federal/ 2014/

Five years ago, in a bipartisan moment, Congress passed the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act, introduced by Sens. Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), to expand the mandate of the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) to address our communities’ toughest challenges.

This expansion included the creation of the CNCS-administered Social Innovation Fund (SIF), an idea championed by President Obama, to find and grow innovative community solutions that had substantive, data-backed proof of their impact. Now, a new funding model called Pay for Success (PFS) is poised to build on the success of the SIF.

The SIF is based on the premise that the best solutions to our nation’s toughest challenges are being developed in communities across the country, and often go unseen or unfunded on a national level. The SIF also recognizes that more often than not we make funding decisions based on isolated stories of success or how many clients have been served, rather than tangible impact on those clients’ lives. Five years later, SIF grantees and their private-sector partners have invested more than a half a billion dollars in compelling community solutions. These ground-breaking partnerships are helping to demonstrate, improve and scale their work across the nation. The demand for these for these services is at an all-time high, yet many nonprofit organizations implementing solutions that work are struggling to access the dollars they need to implement and grow these crucial programs.