Skip to main content

Social Impact Bonds

A social impact bond, also called a social benefit bond or pay-for-success bond, is a type of social financing that enables a government agency to pay for programs that hold promise for delivering public sector savings. In a typical scenario, a government agency identifies a problem they want to address and enters into a contractual agreement with an intermediary. The intermediary raises the initial capital and is repaid with savings that result as part of a program’s success.

Social Impact Bonds
This website contains links to many resources related to social impact bonds. [url; Center for American Progress]

Health Impact Bonds: Will Investors Pay for Intervention?
This article describes a health impact bond project in Fresno, CA, designed to reduce emergency room visits and hospital stays related to asthma. [url; Environmental Health Perspectives]

Using Social Impact Financing to Improve Asthma Outcomes
Now available online, this educational webinar discussed efforts underway to use a social impact bond (SIB) financing model to address the range of complex issues that children with asthma face to get their chronic condition under control. [url; Childhood Asthma Leadership Coalition]

Using Social Impact Financing to Improve Asthma Outcomes 
Building upon the success of the webinar, the Childhood Asthma Leadership Coalition published an issue brief discussing how social impact financing models—including social impact bonds (SIBs) and pay-for-success (PFS) contracts—can offer low-income families the nonmedical interventions needed to improve the health of children with asthma. [url; Childhood Asthma Leadership Coalition]

What Is a Social Impact Bond, and Why Does Asthma Present a Good Fit for This Innovative Financing Mechanism? 
This episode from the Asthma Community Network discusses the Green & Healthy Homes Initiative’s experience with social impact financing for asthma and provides suggestions to help other organizations prepare for this type of financing. [podcast; Asthma Community Network]

 

Latest page update: December 14, 2023.