Social impact bonds: The early years
In 2010, Social Finance UK launched the first social impact bond in the United Kingdom, targeting reducing reoffending.
By linking a social target to financial success, the Peterborough pilot generated worldwide interest in whether innovative finance can make an impact on the world’s most difficult challenges. Social Finance US was established in 2011, to support bringing social impact bonds to the US market. Social Finance Israel followed in 2013.
As the fifth year since Peterborough’s launch approached, we convened as a global network to discuss the opportunities and challenges we faced, intrigued by places where our experiences overlapped and where they diverged.
This report shares our collective lessons from the first six years of the field.