News and Insights

The primary goals of the Final Report of the Commission on Evidence-Based Policymaking are laudable: to “[improve] both the privacy protections afforded to the American public and the availability of rigorous evidence to inform policymaking.” Government has wrestled with these issue areas for decades, and while significant challenges remain, the recommendations of the Commission provide a unique bipartisan opportunity for government to dramatically improve the way it delivers services to focus on data and program impact.

One of the important questions following the submission of the Commission’s final report is how

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

Program will Leverage Data to Evaluate Impact and Promote Services that Measurably Improve Lives

Boston, MA – Local and state governments collect vast amounts of information in the course of delivering social services to children and their families. Unfortunately, many government agencies are unable to use that valuable data to assess program impact and improve quality. This is because data are rarely connected across agencies and almost never used to allocate government spending. In the absence of integrated data and outcomes-oriented contracting, governments struggle to make good decisions about how to

OAKLAND, CA – Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O’Malley today announced that the District Attorney’s Office, leading a partnership of county agencies, community partners and non-government resource providers, has launched the Alameda County Justice Restoration Project.

The Justice Restoration Project is a unique project in that it is a Pay For Success Project, with seed funding awarded by the Bureau of State and Community Corrections through a competitive grant program. Pay For Success is a fiscal partnership between a government agency, in this case Alameda County, under the leadership of the District Attorney’s

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