On a recent trip to the US, I noticed that the discussions around ‘Pay for Success’ were a little different to those I’d been having on ‘Social Impact Bonds (SIBs)’ with other countries. Particularly in the measurement community, there was an idea that Pay for Success took measurement of social programs to a new level: that ‘Pay for Success’ meant paying for an effect size (by comparison to a control group), rather than ‘Pay for Performance’ which paid for the number of times something occurred. Continue reading
pay for success
Using SROI for a Social Impact Bond
Social Return on Investment (SROI) and Social Impact Bonds (SIBs) are two ideas that are increasingly mentioned in the same breath. SROI is a measurement and accounting framework and SIBs are a way to contract and finance a service. Both require three common ingredients:
- the quantification of one or more social outcomes for beneficiaries,
- a valuation of these outcomes, and
- an estimation of the cost of delivering these outcomes.
While not a necessary ingredient, SROI can contribute to the design, operation and evaluation of SIBs.
*NB the word ‘outcome’ is used here to represent a change in someone’s life – some readers (particularly from the US) may use the word ‘impact’ to mean the same
Emma Tomkinson 