Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Pay for Success (PFS) financing is gaining in popularity in the U.S. and abroad as an innovative model for catalyzing philanthropic and private sector investments to deliver better outcomes and to enable government to pay only for outcomes achieved – that is, to pay for success.  In 2014, the federal Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) launched a PFS grant program as part of the Social Innovation Fund.  The purpose of this grant program is to fund nonprofit organizations to provide feasibility assessment, capacity building, and transaction structuring assistance to local and state government agencies and other community organizations to enable them to explore and develop PFS projects, and to advance the broader field.  The evaluation will provide a rigorous assessment of grantees’ and subgrantees’ progress in achieving their intended goals and will develop resources for practitioners, administrators and other stakeholders based on evaluation findings.  This presentation will be based on interim findings from the process evaluation of the PFS grant program conducted for the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) by Abt Associates.