Merging finance and social impact to make a better world
The United Way of Salt Lake is funding early childhood education through a pay-for-success program. The program promises significant cost savings to the State of Utah and demonstrates a strong business case to scale the program. But is that enough to make it a good social impact bond?
It is very easy to look at pay for success as the next great innovation in public service. It’s also easy to look at it as the next great weapon of Wall Street greed. That’s the problem. There are still far too many unknowns about the real potential of these projects, and it is far …