Category Archive for : ‘Blog’

Almost three years ago, Cuyahoga County embarked on an innovative approach to improve outcomes for homeless families with children in foster care. Utilizing an integrated data system developed by Case Western Reserve University, the County was able to identify a significant overlap between children’s length of time in foster care and their families’ lack of housing homeless families and extended stays in foster care. Their solution? Partner with Third Sector to develop a new $5M outcomes-oriented contract with Frontline Services with the goal of keeping families together and reducing days in

The current public workforce system has left out some of our country’s most vulnerable people. With federal funding spread across 11 agencies and 47 programs, much of the system relies on cost-reimbursement contracts that stifle innovation by 1) prescribing services that prohibit providers from adapting programs to needs and 2) not rewarding providers for improving [...]

The following is authored by Nicole Truhe, Government Affairs Director at America Forward and originally appeared on the America Forward blog. Third Sector Capital Partners is a proud member of the America Forward coalition.

Since its authorization as a federal program, the Social Innovation Fund (SIF) has been aimed at finding and growing the most promising solutions to our nation’s most pressing challenges. The original model of the SIF, known as SIF Classic, is focused on directing federal resources (matched 1:1 by non-federal and private dollars) to support community-based organizations and solutions that

Third Sector announces partnership with Actionable Intelligence for Social Policy (AISP) at the University of Pennsylvania to offer complementary training on the development of Integrated Data Systems (IDS) infrastructure and outcomes-contracting services, which will jointly increase government’s ability to use data-driven decision-making to improve results for vulnerable populations.

Data and evaluation play a critical role in our work at Third Sector, enabling rigorous outcomes-oriented contracting. More broadly throughout the social sector, well-designed approaches can inform the implementation of policy and programs. The National Association of Welfare Research Statistics (NAWRS) 2017 Workshop highlighted communities across the country where innovative data sharing practices and evaluation methodologies are directly shaping human services and workforce programming.

Integrated data systems to understand cross-system risk factors: Allegheny County is a leader in the development and use of integrated data systems. The Allegheny County Department of

The following post originally appeared on America Forward’s Blog as a guest post. 

Less than 10 years ago, the phrase Pay for Success was virtually unknown in most circles—particularly government circles. Though a seemingly simple concept, an approach to contracting for services where payments from governments (or other end-payers interested in supporting the achievement of measurable outcomes related to public programs) are linked to positive outcomes that have been measured and evaluated—Pay for Success is being tested, applied, and replicated at a rapid pace.

Contributing to the interest and uptake of Pay