Social Finance partnered with General Assembly on the first-ever Career Impact Bond. This impact investment was designed to train unemployed or underemployed people across 10 U.S. cities for tech careers, with a focus on individuals who qualified for public benefit programs or had contact with the criminal justice system.
Goals
Expand access to training: Minimize risks for learners by covering their upfront tuition costs and providing supportive services to help them succeed.
Support career advancement: Empower learners to develop the skills needed to land careers in software development and user experience design.
Catalyze wider economic mobility: Take a strong step toward catalyzing wider economic mobility at scale by putting learners on pathways to higher-wage careers.
Participant Stories
After Graduating from General Assembly, Branden Doubled His Income
Branden had cultivated self-taught engineering skills but needed more formal training to move into a full-time software engineering role. He had applied to enter General Assembly’s Software Engineering Immersive but was declined due to poor credit. But Branden reapplied and was accepted through the Career Impact Bond. After the program, he nearly doubled his income.
I was like, 'I don't know where I'm going to get money from. This feels impossible.' The ability to not have to pay tuition back until I made a certain amount from a full-time job was a huge relief.
Angil
Product Designer, WillowTree; General Assembly Career Impact Bond graduate
![Three male workers share a laugh over work on computers.](https://socialfinance.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/ga-cropped-scaled-1-e1669834854837-1000x1000.jpg")
![Branden speaking in front of a room of people](https://socialfinance.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/IMG_7301-e1609944276288.jpeg")
