July 14, 2013

White House Meeting


Had fun week this week - I was invited to a meeting convened by the White House.  It was a terrific opportunity to be asked and to be able to contribute to the discussions.  Here is the story posted on the WH blog:

Pay for Success - An Innovative Approach to Improve Results and Save Money

This week, the President met with his Cabinet and other senior officials to lay out his vision for building a smarter, more effective government. The President challenged his Administration to build on the progress made over the first term and improve government even further.

To help meet that challenge, the White House gathered a diverse array of leaders from the private sector, nonprofits, philanthropy, academia, and federal, state and local government to advance one of the ways that this Administration is thinking outside the box – “Pay for Success.”

Pay for Success offers innovative ways for the government to partner with philanthropic and private investors to fund proven and promising practices, significantly enhancing the return on taxpayer investments. Under this model, these organizations provide the up-front capital for social services with a strong evidence base that, when successful, achieve measurable outcomes that improve the lives of families and individuals and reduce their need for future services. Government pays when these measurable results are achieved.

For example, the Department of Labor has launched a Pay for Success competition through the Workforce Innovation Fund designed to model new and more effective strategies for delivering workforce development and preventive social services that cut across existing program siloes, increase job placement and improve job retention.

In the Fiscal Year 2014 Budget, President Obama proposed a nearly $500 million investment in Pay for Success, including the creation of a new $300 million Incentive Fund at the Treasury Department. The Fund is designed to empower cities, states and nonprofits to support more public-private partnerships that produce measurable results in their communities.

In addition to the Incentive Fund, another $195 million is proposed to support Pay for Success programming in nine programs across three different Federal agencies: the Departments of Labor, Justice and Education.

The White House Pay for Success convening highlighted examples of innovative work underway at state and local levels across a wide array of sectors including workforce development, reducing recidivism, homelessness, aging, asthma management, disability and early childhood education. Currently, Pay for Success efforts are in some form of development in at least 14 states across the nation and that number continues to grow.

Pay for Success is a promising strategy for scaling programs that work and enhancing the return on taxpayer dollars in new, measurable ways. It is certainly one way this Administration is working to build a smarter, more innovative government for the American people.

Steven VanRoekel is the Acting Deputy Director for Management in the Office of Management and Budget and Federal Chief Information Officer and Jonathan Greenblatt is Special Assistant to the President and Director of the White House Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation


16 comments:

Bob Whaley said...

I've been following this....seems a great idea, though concerned about Federal scalability and ability to do anything these days with continuity. Great that you are involved - must have been a big contributor :)

Margaret Hudgings said...

Always good to hear from you via email and phone. We are hoping you can come to see us in Florida or here in PA if that works better for you. Congratulations on going to the White House!

Michael Kirschner said...

Very cool! That must have been a great experience.

Cary Greene said...

Impressive. So what specific advice did you offer?

Vivek Pandit said...

Kudos. Sounds amazing, both broad based and stretch thinking - thanks for sharing - would be interested to hear more about the level of discourse and the kinds of ideas that were generated and discussed.

Tom Dente said...

Congrats! Very nice event and great topic for you to offer your thoughts.

Skip Shuda said...

Thanks for sharing this...

Did you get to meet any high ranking WH officials? Do you see any good ideas/progress coming out of the initiative?

Raef Lee said...

Very cool.

You for the administration I say.

RVK said...

I think that it is an excellent idea

Subba said...

congrats ....!

What was your presentation/contribution to the discussion.

Ram said...

I must say it was inevitable and natural course of events that you are at the WH. Congratulations and best wishes.

Srinivas said...

Congrats! Sounds pretty impressive and an innovative solution instead of just complaining about the issue.

Joe Hage said...

Congrats . . . tell us more!

Surya Kolluri said...

Sure - Thanks for asking.

HUD sec Sean Donavan was there, as were several Dep sec.s to Prez.

I was in a working session with treasury officials to structure an incentive funds for state Govs to apply for grants....

Great fun...!

Prashant said...

Wow!!

Were you there in the meeting with the Prez??

Paul Willen said...

Having a great summer. No invitations to the WH, though! Sounds cool. Look forward to hearing more.

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