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Pay For Success

A new way of doing business for government

The America Forward Pay for Success Task Force is dedicated to driving more efficient use of government resources toward programs achieving evaluated outcomes that measurably improve people’s lives. Currently, most public programs provide funding regardless of whether the service delivered is effective, as long as the provider follows the rules or inputs directed by the government. As a result, the same ineffective programs continue receiving funding for decades, costing taxpayers billions of dollars and wasting the potential of the people programs are intended to help.

Pay for Success flips the status quo, linking government payments to positive outcomes that have been measured and evaluated. This flip requires a new way of doing business for government and the private sector. It requires a greater focus on data and data access, evaluation, and the .

consideration of new ways of contracting for and measuring compliance of services funded by government dollars. It is the rare government program that focuses on data and outcomes, allows for the measurement of results,
The federal government may fund the same  ineffective programs  for  decades  without combatting the root  cause  of the targeted problem and allocates resources to providers based on value yielded versus historic activities.
The federal government may fund the same ineffective programs for decades without combatting the root cause of the targeted problem, costing taxpayers billions of dollars and undermining the potential of the people who the programs are intended to help

Pay For Success Platform Policy

America Forward’s Policy Priorities for Expanding the Pay for Success Approach

America Forward is advocating for the support and expansion of the use of a Pay for Success to more efficiently and effectively allocate government resources through several approaches, including:

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1Pay for Success and Evidence Legislation

America Forward is supportive of legislation that both authorizes the general use of federal dollars in developing and scaling Pay for Success arrangements as well as helps to advance the overall focus on outcomes and evidence in how federal policy and budget decisions are made.

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2Use of Federal Waivers to Pilot Pay for Success

America Forward is promoting a federal initiative using existing waiver authorities to enable federal agencies to demonstrate, replicate, and scale successful Pay for Success approaches in the areas of youth workforce development programs, Job Corps, foster care, senior community service employment, and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF).

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3Access to and Use of Data

America Forward supports allowing access to current federal administrative sets, subject to appropriate privacy protections, identifying opportunities for the federal government to support funding of rigorous evaluations in discretionary and mandatory programs, and establishing a Commission to study how best to expand the use of data to evaluate the effectiveness of federal programs and tax expenditures.

4Training and Technical Assistance

Due to the complexity of developing and participating in Pay for Success approaches, America Forward believes training and technical assistance should be made available to assist state and local government, as well as potential providers, to participate.

5Learning from Demonstrations

America Forward supports concepts such as the Performance Partnership Pilot (P3) demonstrations and believes that much could be learned from it not only about what works for opportunity youth, as P3 focuses on, but about how Pay for Success can best fund these innovative interventions. P3 and other such demonstrations should continue and expand to other federal programs serving populations in need, both for the knowledge they generate and to inform permanent policy approaches to the issues and populations addressed.

Pay for Success Resources

Pay for Success Task Force Members