Giving Compass' Take:

• The California Local Empowerment Fund, administered by the Joint Powers Authority (JPA), public agencies, and participation from philanthropy and impact investing, would scale up evidence-based initiatives that help people gain economic security and stability. 

• How will the fund benefit from having impact investing expertise? Which other players can get involved with this type of fund? 

• Here are three ways to engage in impact investing. 

While political disagreements rule the day, most people do agree that greater economic and social mobility is needed so that all Californians are able to contribute, and to afford the basics – a secure home, food, health care, child care and education.

With a new Governor and Legislature eager to achieve this goal, we believe the time is right for action. But government alone cannot solve these problems. Increasing economic security will require citizens, businesses, philanthropists and government to work together – and to forge changes in three areas:

  1. Define outcome goals and measure results
  2. Break down silos
  3. Align private sector resources and priorities with civic objectives

Special businesses called employment social enterprises have been proven by third-party evaluations to effectively provide the on-the-job training and support that improves the chances that these individuals will get and keep jobs.

There are dozens of other examples of local initiatives that would increase economic mobility, often developed at the grassroots level by people who are most impacted, sometimes with the backing of philanthropy and cities or counties. It is past time to figure out how to better resource those that demonstrate accountability to economic mobility goals so that they can deliver results at the scale our daunting problems require.

 

That is why we are proposing the California Local Empowerment Fund (Cal Empower). The Fund would be administered by a state Joint Powers Authority (JPA) comprised of the public agencies responsible for employment, health, human services, and corrections, and the Treasurer. In addition, the Governor and Legislature would appoint to the JPA representatives of local government, with the participation of philanthropy and impact investing.

Selecting the most promising initiatives through statewide competition, the resources would be used to scale up evidence-based initiatives, while investing in the data and systems required to really assess whether programs are achieving results against economic mobility objectives.

 

This approach would deliberately leverage the knowledge and resources of large-scale California private philanthropies and smaller funds and family offices established by thousands of generous people who have made their fortunes in technology or other areas who now want to give back.

Read the full article about the California Local Endowment Fund by Carla Javits, Jim Mayer, and Caroline Whistler at Captiol Weekly.