Giving Compass' Take:

• Navjeet Bal describes how Social Finance provides services to immigrants and refugees in Massachusetts through the state's pay-for-success program. 

• Is pay-for-success an effective model for social impact? How can philanthropy support impactful programs for refugees? 

• Learn why community foundations are in a unique position to support refugees. 

Social Finance mobilizes investor capital to tackle seeming intractable social issues through Pay for Success and outcomes-based financing mechanisms. Through the Massachusetts Pathways to Economic Advancement Pay for Success Project, Jewish Vocational Service, or JVS, is expanding career horizons for immigrants and refugees by offering a variety of programs that combine English learning classes with workforce readiness, skills training and job development. Through this project, JVS is scaling their program to reach 2,000 more immigrants and refugees in the Greater Boston area, allowing these adult learners to make successful transitions to employment, higher wage jobs, and higher education.

Social Finance raised $12.4 million from over 40 impact investors to support this expansion of JVS’s services. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts will make up to $15 million in outcomes payments if certain outcomes, focused on higher wages and participation in higher education programs, are achieved.

The Massachusetts project is the first Pay for Success project in the U.S. to focus exclusively on workforce development — and it is a model that we hope to expand to other communities.

Read the full article about a public-private partnership for refugees and immigrants by Navjeet Bal at Medium.