Elevating Community Voice

In October 2017, the Children’s Services Council of Broward County, Florida (CSC Broward) was selected to participate in Empowering Families, Third Sector’s national cohort of communities working to improve outcomes for children and families. This cohort is supported by a 2016 Social Innovation Fund (SIF) grant*. Through this cohort, Third Sector, along with Actionable Intelligence for Social Policy (AISP), will provide sites with two years of technical assistance (TA) to develop both Integrated Data Systems (IDS) and an outcomes-oriented contracting approach.

At Third Sector, we primarily work with state and local

The data in front of us was sobering: 45% of adults, who received economic assistance under the Massachusetts Transitional Aid to Families with Dependent Children (TAFDC) program in January 2018, had grown up in families that also depended on TAFDC. “We have to do something different to break the cycle of intergenerational poverty,” Commissioner Jeff [...]

In late January, in the mountains of the Wasatch Valley, over 600 city, state, and local government leaders, social impact investors, service providers, academics, and thought leaders came together at the University of Utah to discuss solutions to some of the most intractable challenges facing the social service sector in the United States and internationally. This unique event is the annual Winter Innovation Summit, hosted by the Sorenson Impact Center in Salt Lake City, Utah, which offers a diverse array of panels and workshops featuring leaders who are moving the needle

The ability of disadvantaged students to navigate a path to and through college has never been more critical in an era with a broad wage gap based on post-secondary educational attainment. While Pay for Success (PFS) has been deployed effectively in a variety of social policy domains, the movement has largely bypassed the field of higher education. This comes despite the fact that the achievement of longer-term metrics such as a persistence, graduation, and labor market outcomes, rather than student enrollment or other interim measures, are now driving the conversation

In the recent discussion concerning evidence-based practices, many practitioners believe that the current approach to collecting evidence, validating findings, and replicating evidence-based programs (EBPs) has distorted the funding system for social services. Others argue that relaxing the focus on evidence-based practices will welcome a world where once again anecdotes and heuristics guide funding decisions. At Third Sector, we believe there is another way forward: continuous impact measurement using administrative data. If government made low-cost impact management an element of their program oversight, it could better hold providers accountable for quantifiable

The social services sector is transitioning from a focus on ‘outputs’ measuring activity levels towards ‘outcomes’ measuring life impacts. Third Sector advises public agencies seeking to use the tools at their disposal, such as procurement, policy, and data, to better align with long-term success for their communities. While we want success to be defined in terms of outcomes and encourage this evolution of the field, we still see value in assessing outputs for several reasons.