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The impact investing nonprofit is helping to finance diesel technician training amidst shortage ...

By Steve Lohr...

This article originally appeared on Inside Philanthropy....

In California, about 50% of individuals released from custody are convicted of a subsequent crime within three years of release—a statistic that has remained stubbornly high since the early 2000s. Organizations like Interface Children & Family Services (Interface), often in partnership with local government agencies like the Ventura County Probation Agency (VCPA), are working to reduce recidivism by providing individualized services to formerly incarcerated individuals, promoting family stability, and improving public safety. Social Finance partnered with Interface and Ventura County to establish Ventura County Project to Support Reentry, a program that has already enrolled over 340 individuals into reentry services at Interface. These service recipients are part of a study conducted by UCLA to understand the effectiveness of Interface reentry services compared to probation as usual. The project uses a Pay for Success mechanism through which impact investors provide upfront capital for services and are repaid by Ventura County to the extent that measurable reductions in recidivism are achieved....

Patrick and Smith will bring unique public policy, impact investing, and public health expertise to the organization. ...

Social Finance was founded 10 years ago. We saw an opportunity to harness the nascent impact investing movement and build new tools at the intersection of finance and policy to deliver meaningful change and measurable outcomes for our communities. From the beginning, we wanted to create a special firm, underpinned by our core values: putting people first; focusing on results; demonstrating the highest standards of integrity and accountability; and building strong, enduring cross-sector partnerships....

February is National Career and Technical Education (CTE) Month®, an opportunity to celebrate and strengthen CTE programs that currently serve 12.8 million American students at the secondary and post-secondary levels. ...

In December in Anchorage, Alaska, there are only five hours of daylight, the average nighttime temperature is below 15 degrees, and over a thousand people experience homelessness on any given night. Like other cities throughout the country, homelessness is a persistent, devastating challenge. But local leaders are determined to meet the moment by launching the largest scale-up of permanent supportive housing ever in Alaska, through a project called Home for Good Anchorage....

There has been an urgent need to reimagine and rebuild our current systems of education and training. For years, Americans have been taking big risks to pursue postsecondary education and accumulating massive debt with no guarantees of employment prospects. We believe that reforming our system of postsecondary education and training—including the way we finance such education—is one of the keys to our nation’s economic recovery and resilience....

As I reflect on 2020, our team, our partners, and our work have kept me hopeful. And impatient. There’s never been a more urgent time to reshape the future we want to see for our country. Together, we must quicken the pace, rebuilding our systems and mobilizing capital so that everyone can have the opportunity to thrive....