At Social Finance, we believe that markets and governments can work better together. For over 14 years we have worked to combine the rigor of markets with the intentions and sensibilities of the public sector. Simply put, we develop and invest in business models to address social challenges and deliver measurable results at scale. Across our entire portfolio, we aim to get the most impact per dollar.
As you’ll see in this Year in Review, we carry this idea through each of our business lines:
Our partnerships with individuals, family offices, and foundations to make it easier to put philanthropic capital to work as impact-first investments;
Workforce & Education Investments to more sustainably finance upskilling, address labor market needs, and prepare learners for jobs that lead to economic mobility;
And our Public Sector Practice, to optimize government spending across issue areas from health to housing to workforce.
We are also building the field through the Social Finance Institute, a new platform to reach broader audiences by creating new networks, applied research, and practitioner-led insights.
Ultimately, we aim to reconfigure systems so that they are more accountable and effective, and to create enduring change for more people.
We are grateful for your partnership and support.
Tracy Palandjian
CEO & Co-Founder
Kirstin Hill
President & COO
We build new partnerships and innovative funding models that measurably improve lives
50Since our founding, our partnerships and investments have served people in every state.
36,000+Our workforce portfolio aims to help more than 36,000 people finance training and land good jobs in the next 5 years.
120Team members across 5 offices
Our Reach
FEATURED WORK
In New Castle County, Delaware, we are expanding access to high-quality prenatal and postnatal health care to 120 first-time, Medicaid-eligible mothers.
Delaware
FEATURED WORK
The Massachusetts Climate Careers Fund is designed to fill workforce gaps and to increase access to economic mobility for workers.
Massachusetts
The New Jersey Pay It Forward Program and Colorado Pay It Forward Fund include program tracks in skilled trades that prepare workers for clean energy jobs.
Colorado, New Jersey
FEATURED WORK
With support from the Google Career Certificates Fund, Social Finance is managing an innovative investment program aiming to empower more than 20,000 learners to realize over $1 billion in wage gains.
We design Pay it Forward Funds across the country to more sustainably finance education and training, fill workforce gaps, and to bolster local economic development agendas.
California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Texas
FEATURED WORK
Through our Impact Investing Advisory Services, we work with foundations and donor-advised funds across the country to leverage philanthropic capital as impact investments.
California, Colorado, Massachusetts, New York, Washington
FEATURED WORK
We are partnering with the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) on an ambitious $100M outcomes-based funding initiative to improve population-level health with hundreds of new cross-sector partners.
In partnership with Western Governors University, we developed the ReNEW Fund to finance nursing education funding gaps and address critical talent shortages across the country.
Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin
FEATURED WORK
In Anchorage, Alaska, we’re helping 150 residents experiencing persistent homelessness access permanent housing and supportive services.
Alaska
The Impact First Fund’s first investment, Blackstar, preserves single-family home ownership and wealth building in low- and moderate-income communities.
In Ventura County, California, we developed an outcomes-based project to provide supportive housing for people with a criminal history.
California
Our Impact
Our Offices
Austin, TX
Boston, MA
New York City, NY
San Francisco, CA
Washington, D.C.
Our Impact
Our Offices
Austin, TX
Boston, MA
New York City, NY
San Francisco, CA
Washington, D.C.
Impact Investments
Context
Private foundations and donor-advised funds in the United States hold more than $1.8T in philanthropic assets, most of which is invested with a primary focus on financial returns. Impact-first investments complement traditional investing and philanthropy, providing catalytic capital needed to scale promising market-based solutions to our toughest social and environmental challenges.
Opportunity
Our Impact Investments team helps philanthropic individuals and organizations put money to work on these solutions by removing barriers to impact-first investing. The Social Finance Impact First Fund offers a cost-effective, one-stop solution to invest in a diversified portfolio of impact-first private investments, including affordable housing and homeownership, clean energy and environment, rural business development, and economic mobility. We also build and manage customized impact-first investment solutions – place-based or issue area-focused – that enable individuals, family offices, and foundations to channel capital toward measurable impact for people and communities.
I was excited by the Impact First Fund because it provided an opportunity to put money to work with a professional team in ways that I could not do on my own. It’s a sustainable model, since you can have a return on your capital, and you can redeploy that money over time.
We are a Community Development Finance Institution, putting capital into small businesses, including residential programs that provide solar loans. The relationship between the Boston Foundation and Social Finance, and what it’s done for our balance sheet, is remarkable.
Glynn Lloyd
Executive Director of Mill Cities Community Investments
This year we offered impact investing advisory services to a range of clients including The Boston Foundation, Aspen Community Foundation, Whatcom Community Foundation, the Jewish Community Federation and Endowment Fund, and Jim Joseph Foundation.
Impact First Fund Investment: Candide Group’s Afterglow Climate Justice Fund
Candide Group’s Afterglow Climate Justice Fund provides loans to project developers addressing and mitigating the effects of climate change in low-income communities.
Blackstar Stability: Average Impact for Participating Homeowners
$42kin home equity transfer
24%decrease in monthly principal and interest payments
22.1xgrowth in net worth
Afterglow Climate Justice Fund: Impact to Date
21%
average energy bill reduction for nonprofits and families with low incomes
5,700
metric ton reduction in carbon emissions, equivalent to taking 1,300 cars off the road
132
jobs created in impacted communities
The statistics in the graphics above were compiled based on data provided by Blackstar and Afterglow.
Workforce & Education Investments
Context
Realigning our workforce system is key to advancing America’s economic health and competitiveness. Since our inception, Social Finance has been an innovator in financing education and training. In recent years, we have developed and evolved new tools to sustainably finance upskilling to address critical shortages in fields like nursing and to enable new industries. This work aims both to meet labor market needs and to prepare learners for jobs that lead to economic mobility.
Opportunity
This year, we launched three new Pay It Forward Funds and expanded our financing solutions to directly support training providers and employers using new approaches to train, hire, and retain workers. We measure our impact through positive, often life-changing, wage gains for our learners, but this impact extends beyond learners to their families, employers, and communities.
The heroes of the clean energy revolution are the train operators, farmers, electricians, heat pump installers, wind turbine technicians – the workers who make all of this possible. We need people who are skilled and ready to fill these jobs. That’s why we’re proud to announce the Climate Careers Fund, a first-of-its-kind social impact fund to support workforce training in this critical sector.” Read More
Maura Healey
Massachusetts Governor
The loan helped with my finances, so I was able to focus on learning. I don’t know where I would be without it. Read More
Dometrius
The Master’s Apprentice graduate and apprentice at Murphy Mechanical
Highlights
ReNEW Fund
We announced a new partnership with Western Governors University (WGU) and prospective employer partners to finance nursing education and to fill critical job openings through the ReNEW Fund, with a target size of $100M. Hear more from WGU’s President Scott Pulsipher.
The New Jersey Pay It Forward Program has expanded to include training programs in nursing and radiography, and an increase in state funding each year based on early successes.
With Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey, Social Finance announced the $10M Climate Careers Fund to train the workforce the state needs to achieve its climate goals.
Also in Massachusetts, the $6M Career Ladder Program helps current Certified Nursing Assistants and other healthcare providers become Licensed Practical Nurses.
Since 2021, we have helped more than 300 Dreamers access graduate education to become doctors and lawyers, and enter other professions, by providing financing for graduate school loans.
36,000+targeted learners who will find new pathways to economic mobility in the next 5 years
2.5xwage increase from average pre-program wages. $76k average salary for New Jersey Pay It Forward nursing program graduates that reported their salaries in 2023
$25Min Investments from the UP Fund have supported $51M in cumulative wage gains to date
4,500+learners completed training supported by the Google Career Certificates Fund to date
Public Sector Practice
Context
Each year, federal, state, and local governments invest trillions of dollars in social services, making them the most powerful lever for creating change in our communities. Our Public Sector Practice works with governments to get better results for the services they fund.
Opportunity
In 2024, we partnered with a new federal agency to launch the world’s most ambitious outcomes funding effort; began a statewide early childhood workforce strategy in Texas; and partnered with the Families & Workers Fund to strengthen the nation’s climate workforce.
Our work has always been to create measurable impact with evidence-informed solutions to specific challenges. But more and more, the ethos that drives our work—that we need more interconnected, adaptive partnerships that link payment with results—is being used to inform larger systems.
This year, we also improved our methods for listening to and learning from the communities we serve, and we set up new structures that put community partners in the driver’s seat.
When you help people get back to work, you help them with their self-esteem and this can benefit their relationships with friends, family, spouses, and children. And they’re less anxious about finances, so they can pay for household expenses or get their car repaired, for example.
Kelly Durkee-Erwin
Rapid Community Employment Specialist, VA Boston Healthcare System
I’m truly blessed. The HOPE Program helped me with everything. I went from being in a shelter to having my own apartment and vehicle. I have a pension. I have unlimited benefits. I'm in the union. I'm going to be making $45 an hour in a few years.
Helping a Federal Agency Create Better Health Outcomes
We are partnering with the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) on a $100M initiative to unlock better care for hundreds of thousands of Americans. The agency has brought a central concept of our work—paying for outcomes—to population health.
With the California Department of Social Services, we are managing one of the nation’s largest state-funded guaranteed income pilots, a $35M initiative with a focus on helping pregnant people and former foster youth overcome economic hardships.
In partnership with Ascendium Education Group and the Families & Workers Fund, we are designing new funding models to help expand access to effective pre-apprenticeship programs, with plans to launch new pilots in the coming year.
To date, Veterans CARE has helped over 300 veterans transition to civilian life, receive appropriate care, and secure meaningful employment, with over half finding jobs tailored to their specific needs.
1,360+Community members participated in 75 feedback sessions to align projects with their needs.
$100MInitiative engaging 500+ leaders from health systems, governments, and philanthropies to build a new preventative health market with the HEROES Program
Guaranteed Income in California
1,900Former foster youth and pregnant people receiving monthly cash payments
Social Finance Institute
Context
For more than a decade, Social Finance has worked with cross-sector partners to design and implement programs and investments focused on results. But we know there’s far greater potential for these approaches when they’re in the hands of more changemakers. Through the Social Finance Institute, we are producing new research and insights about the potential for innovative funding models and impact-first investing to improve economic mobility and strengthen our society.
Opportunity
Launched this year, the Social Finance Institute is an independent platform within Social Finance that’s working to reach broad audiences of decision-makers to promote implementation and policy change at scale. The Institute is building the field through collaborations and partnerships with world-renowned scholars, practitioners, and other experts to develop networks, tools, and actionable research around outcomes-based models designed to improve lives.
The goals of the Social Finance Institute mirror our own goals as a funder pursuing scaled approaches to economic mobility for learners from low-income backgrounds. By building evidence and strategically engaging decision-makers in understanding what works and under what conditions, the Institute is poised to catalyze systemic change at a larger scale.
Carolynn Lee
Deputy Director - Education Grantmaking, Ascendium Education Group
The Social Finance Institute has unique positioning in the field, combining practitioner knowledge with expertise from thought leaders from around the country to produce accessible, actionable findings and insights that will resonate with changemakers.
In April, we officially launched the Institute at an event that gathered leaders from across the public, private, and nonprofit sectors for a day of thought-provoking conversations on innovative approaches to improving the lives of all Americans.
Looking ahead, we are collaborating with the Federal Reserve Banks of Atlanta, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Richmond to release a second volume of Workforce Realigned, which will include 21 case studies on innovative, outcomes-based approaches to workforce development.
New Research Collaborations
We are excited to collaborate with a range of practitioners and scholars on applied research projects to fill critical knowledge gaps, including Prof. Raj Chetty’s Opportunity Insights team at Harvard University to expand the evidence base about the economic mobility impact of workforce training programs, and Prof. Robert Gertner and the Rustandy Center for Social Sector Innovation at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business to develop an online, interactive tool to promote an understanding of impact-first investing.
This year, Karen Anderson, our founding Managing Director, brought on David Socolow as Head of Policy and Dr. Jason Wingard as Senior Advisor, and formed an inaugural Advisory Council, bringing decades of expertise to our work.
Cover, clockwise from top left: Courtesy of SUNY Maritime, Jonathan Borba via Unsplash, Courtesy of University of Hawaii Manoa, courtesy of TheDream.US.
Impact Investments: Credit Osarugue Igbinoba via Unsplash, courtesy of Candide Group, courtesy of American Unagi, courtesy of Blackstar,
Workforce & Education Investments credits: Brady Pacheco, Jersey Pictures, Cristian Rojas, Laura James, Lazaro Rodriguez. Courtesy of University of Hawaii Manoa.
Public Sector Practice: Courtesy of California Department of Social Services, credit Brady Pacheco.
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