  Reinventing homelessness preventionIn an effort to deliver better outcomes and prevent homelessness in South Australia, the South Australian government has run a competitive tender of homelessness services in the state under a new structure. It sought responses from alliances of social service organisations to work together to address problems in the homelessness system under a single funding contract for an entire region covering all homeless cohorts. The previous system for the Adelaide City and South region was a series of separate funding agreements across 15 different agencies without a common outcomes framework or formal methods to interconnect between services.
Latitude Network supported the Toward Home Alliance to develop a ground up homelessness strategy and program logic based on prevention. With the team, we identified the wide range of cohorts with differing needs across the homelessness system. We zeroed in on those at risk of entering the homelessness system and identified a way to capture data and shift resources towards preventing entry into the crisis accommodation system. The alliance partners developed a professional and mature way of collaborating which provided a strong platform for development of a more ambitious program design. This represents one of the most significant changes to the homelessness system in some years, and provides a pathway for better collaboration, use of data, and continuous improvement with transparent sharing of outcomes between the social sector partners and government. The new outcomes–oriented approach helps to align government and social service organisation interests more directly with client interests. The achievement of client outcomes and prevention of entry into high cost homelessness services provides benefits for all parties. Congratulations to the alliance partners that will now deliver integrated, outcomes-based homelessness services for the Adelaide City and South region -
Also see - The Living Learning program was launched on Wednesday, 28 April 2021, at the Hester Hornbrook Academy (HHA) in Sunshine in Melbourne’s west. HHA is an independent school run by Melbourne City Mission for young people disengaged from the traditional school system. The program is funded as an impact investment under the Victorian Government’s $30m ‘Partnerships Addressing Disadvantage’ (or PAD) program (also known as Social Impact Bonds, or SIBs). The program is important not just because of the social impact on young people, but also because of the way this impact investment is structured. We co-developed a new finance structure that makes it easier for philanthropic trusts to invest in social impact investments. This structure provides opportunities for social service organisations to develop investable projects in collaboration with their philanthropic partners. The Living Learning social impact investment was fully funded by these five philanthropic Investors:
You can also sign up to attend a Webinar we are running with our capital advisory partners Social Enterprise Finance Australia (SEFA) and Gandel Philanthropy through Pro Bono Education on 27 May 2021. Sign up to our newsletter to receive the registration link for the webinar.  Students and staff at Hester Hornbrook Academy campus in Sunshine, Melbourne
Latitude Network congratulates Melbourne City Mission (MCM) on the announcement of its Partnership Addressing Disadvantage (PAD) contract with the Victorian State Government known as the ‘Living Learning’ program. Latitude Network supported MCM in its initial PAD application and throughout the negotiation with Government, providing advice and technical assistance across service design, financial model, negotiation and data use. We are now working with MCM to develop a live data and performance system set up to help them achieve their outcomes targets. ‘Living Learning’ is a new, targeted program which addresses barriers for young people who are disengaged from school and living with mental illness. MCM developed the program using its expertise in re-engaging with, and supporting, young people through their independent school, the Hester Hornbrook Academy. As lead advisors to MCM throughout the journey, we are excited to see the program announced and young people able to start entering the program from today. Latitude Network was also pleased to work with leading Australian social finance experts, Sefa, who provided advice on blended capital structuring options, targeting foundation investors using their corpus and granting arm. Innovative financing structure: Watch this spaceWe can’t yet share the details of the innovative financial structure behind Living Learning. Sign up to our newsletter so we can let you know those details as soon as they are available. At a future date we will also be running a Webinar with Sefa in collaboration with Pro Bono News to talk through the details of the investment structure. Keep an eye out for the invitation. Key elements of the programKey program elements include -
See the Victorian Government's Press Release here.  Dale Renner, Latitude Network with Kath Brackett, Brimbank City Council; Wayne Merritt, Melbourne City Mission; Simone Gianelli, Save the Children Australia; and John Barrett, YSAS and friends from Centre for Employment Opportunities in New York. (Russ took the photo) This article was originally published in Pro Bono News.
Latitude Network recently took some clients with us on an ‘outcomes tour’ of the US to learn from organisations, funders and governments that are shifting to outcomes-based funding. This includes what the US calls “Pay For Success” projects, and we call Social Impact Bonds, as well as newer forms of outcomes contracting where a range of financial and non-financial incentives are provided for performance. Outcomes-based contracting is when a commissioner of services (usually a government but can include large philanthropy) agrees to fund a social service program where at least some of the funding is contingent upon the organisation achieving a target performance on clear, agreed outcomes metrics for service users. Key lessons learned - 1) A shift to outcomes funding, while difficult, is a must Our observation in Australia and in the US is that most people who work in the social sector (including government) want the work they do to lead to improvements in people’s lives. There is generally a strong desire in organisations - from the frontline to the Board - to work towards outcomes. The difficulty is that merely measuring outcomes or drawing up an outcomes framework, while necessary, is often far from sufficient to change behaviours and performance. Funding on the basis of inputs or outputs is a very blunt instrument with very low levels of data or feedback on what is working for long term, relevant outcomes. Funding on the basis of outcomes, however, can provide the joint incentive to properly define, measure, track and deliver outcomes that matter to the service user. A range of different outcomes have been contracted, from reduction in recidivism, to early childhood development milestones to family reunification. Despite their challenges, everyone we met - from local and state governments such as Ventura County or LA County Department of Mental Health, to impact funders such as Maycomb Capital and First5 LA and service providers such as the Center for Employment Opportunities and Interface - everyone was focused on making the shift to outcomes-based funding. 2) Social Impact Bonds have been a useful tool to kick start the outcomes revolution, but will be only one of many tools for the next era in outcomes funding. Our discussions with Emily Gustafsson-Wright and Izzy Bogild-Jones at the Brookings Institution highlighted how Social Impact Bonds have had powerful impacts on social sector performance, innovation and flexibility in service delivery, but there is little evidence that they bring a net additional amount of private sector funding into the social sector. This aligns with Latitude Network’s view that outcomes funding is best used to drive alignment of interests and flexibility for innovation between government, social sector and philanthropy, and should not be seen primarily as a tool for increasing private funding of social services. 3) Organisations that build outcomes-funded projects are transformed for the better - especially in managerial focus and performance capability. All the organisations we spoke to had used the experience of an outcomes contract to drive important changes in capability and process within their organisations. One organisation, Center for Employment Opportunities (or CEO) in New York City, has built a sophisticated outcomes and performance management system that gives visibility to everyone, from the frontline to the Board, on how the organisation is tracking in delivering its mission. The organisation has a strong, singular focus on a cohort of high risk offenders leaving prison. It’s focus allows for a robust program logic and service methodology and it uses detailed performance reporting to achieve employment goals and reduce recidivism. Their data has helped them identify the most effective early responses (e.g. ensuring a client starts a job on the day they turn up), and helps frontline workers adjust their activities by getting regular, timely feedback and learning from high performers. CEO’s outcomes contracts with governments have helped provide the incentives to focus on outcomes. 4) A new ‘Outcomes Partnership’ approach between Government and providers can lead to better achievement of outcomes Forward-thinking governments are entering into what we are calling ‘Outcomes Partnerships’ with social organisations to work together over time on defining and aligning around key outcomes that matter to services users. These partnerships allow for better targeted procurement procedures from government, adding additional incentives into contracts for achieving short and longer term outcomes, and ensuring transparency of data sharing that can shed light on areas of highest and lowest performance. They also provide a much higher degree of flexibility to both Government and service providers through ‘active contract management’ methods that allow for adjustment of performance goals as theory hits reality. These partnerships are a part of the journey of various governments in the US to shift large parts of their funding base to be procured on the basis of outcomes rather than inputs or outputs. Our visit to the Massachusetts Department of Transitional Assistance in Boston revealed a forward-thinking government department that is leading the internal systems and behaviour change required to procure on the basis of outcomes, increase quality and sharing of data and establish trust between government employees and leaders and the social organisations they fund. Latitude Network and our clients see Outcomes Partnerships as the next important step for the social sector in Australia.  This week's announcement by the Victorian Government of the $100 million Community Infrastructure Loans Scheme, will provide councils with access to low interest rate loans of between $500,000 and $10 million. The loans will apply to community centres and hubs, cultural facilities, public libraries, kindergartens and early learning facilities, heritage building restorations for community use and public spaces like parks, reserves and trails.
The funding will be very competitive and so it will be important to demonstrate how your proposal will not only provide functional benefit to the community but will also deliver real, long-term community outcomes as well. We call it Outcomes-Based Infrastructure and it is a process that sets up social infrastructure projects so they can make a measurable difference to people's lives, particularly where pockets of disadvantage exist. Brimbank City Council is leading the way with their 'Brimbank Hub' development, which will bring together a world-class leisure centre with a rigorous approach to addressing real social and health inequalities. Let us know if you would like to talk about how your application for infrastructure funding could become an outcomes-based community infrastructure proposal. _________ Link to the Premier's announcement Guidelines for a previous, similar, program  Dale Renner & Russ Wood are excited to announce that Gemma Tovey will be joining Latitude Network from September 2019.
Most recently, Gemma was Strategy & Growth Manager at Melbourne City Mission’s Hester Hornbrook Academy. Prior to this role Gemma managed Melbourne City Mission’s Social Enterprise portfolio where she founded and subsequently managed MCM’s ‘CQ Cultural Consulting’ business, among other achievements. Gemma has qualifications in Law and and is a graduate of Leadership Victoria’s Williamson Community Leadership Program and of the Australian Institute of Management’s Project Management program. Gemma brings an incredible commitment and passion along with a unique set of skills and experience to Latitude Network as we work with like-minded organisations to understand and interpret the future world of outcomes-driven social and community services delivery. Like Latitude Network’s two founders, Gemma is passionate about redesigning systems to improve the delivery of services that support disadvantaged communities. From day one, Gemma will be involved with:
Gemma can be reached on: e: gemma@latitude.network Welcome Gemma! |
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