Towards a new social economy: Blended value creation through social impact bonds
We started developing Social Impact Bonds in 2007 when thinking through how to increase the availability of finance for improving social outcomes and how to reduce the uncertainty of funding for social services in the UK.
Social Impact Bonds have since made up a significant proportion of our work. This paper is an attempt to capture and share some of what we have learnt while developing the initial Social Impact Bond pilots.
The first section of this paper explores why a new social economy is needed and the role that social impact bonds could play in stimulating its creation. The second section draws on Social Finance’s work developing social impact bond pilots to explore practical considerations around their use and application.
In both we temper our enthusiasm by being clear about what we still don’t know and what is under development