Ascent Series
Accelerating Social Change with Pay For Success Financing
A Summit Ascent Series Virtual Convening
Thursday, September 28 at 4:00 p.m. ET
Pay for Success (PFS) is an outcomes-based financial model used to fund effective solutions to social challenges. The Impact Finance team at the Sorenson Impact Center helps partners fund and execute evidence-based PFS projects, driving measurable results and lasting impact for underserved communities.
Join the Center for a virtual convening on Thursday, September 28 at 4:00 p.m. ET to discover how to successfully implement the PFS financing tools that build community resilience by allocating resources to results. The Center’s Director of Impact Finance, Janis Dubno, will be joined by representatives from The Institute for Child Success (ICS) and Maycomb Capital, both leaders in outcomes-based financing.
The conversation will focus on the Hello Family PFS project, an initiative led by ICS and Maycomb in collaboration with the Center. The project targets early childhood needs in Spartanburg, South Carolina. The group will share their experience and early results of the engagement: Approximately $7.5 million in capital was raised to improve birth outcomes, boost kindergarten readiness, reduce child maltreatment, and enhance family stability.
Attendees of this convening will:
- Gain valuable insights into the strategy of organizing, modeling, and implementing a large, evidence-based, multi-partner PFS project;
- Learn about the challenges this team experienced and the solutions they developed; and
- Discover the impact that this project is making in its South Carolina community, as well as the overall benefits of improving early childhood health and education outcomes in underserved communities.
Meet the Speakers
Bryan Boroughs is the Chief Operating Officer and General Counsel at the Institute for Child Success (ICS). He has been with ICS since 2014, coming to the team from the United States Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, where he worked as an Investigative Counsel. Prior to that work, he helped start a non-profit advocacy organization, Young Invincibles, focused on expanding economic opportunity and sound public policies for young adults. Before law school, Bryan worked for several youth-serving organizations including the Mountainview Whisman Elementary School District, the Girl Scouts of Santa Clara County, and Mental Health America of Greenville County.
Janis Dubno is the Managing Director of Impact Finance at Sorenson Impact Center and one of the innovators of the emerging Pay for Success (PFS) field. In 2015, Janis took a leave of absence from the Center to join the Obama Administration as a Pay for Success Fellow and led the initiative with the Department of Education. Prior to joining the Center, Janis was Director of Early Childhood and Education Policy for the nonprofit Voices for Utah Children where she led efforts to secure state funding for early childhood programs and was the architect of the Utah Preschool Social Impact Loan, the first early childhood Pay for Success project in the country. Janis’s expertise is in structuring whole-loan and agency collateralized mortgage obligations (CMOs). She has experience in project finance, corporate and utility debt, and equity new issuance. She also spent 15 years on Wall Street structuring innovative financial transactions at The First Boston Corporation, UBS Securities, Bear Stearns & Co, and more.
Simone Gross is the Director of Investments at Maycomb Capital. Previously, Simone was a corporate attorney with the law firm of Manatt, Phelps & Phillips. During her 6 years of law practice, Simone represented and advised banks, community development financial institutions, hospital systems, nonprofits, and other clients on outcomes financing, impact investing, tax credits, nonprofit restructuring, and healthcare mergers and acquisitions.
Dr. Nzinga Broussard is the Senior Director of Impact Measurement at the Sorenson Impact Center where she oversees, plans, and implements measurement and evaluation programs for the impact strategy team. Dr. Broussard has held various positions in academia, the private sector, and the public sector and has over 15 years of research and applied experience working in the fields of development, agriculture, and labor economics. Prior to joining Sorenson, Dr. Broussard served as a Senior Director of Research and Evaluation at New Markets Support Company, a leading community impact investor and impact fund services provider. Prior to NMSC, Dr. Broussard was a Senior Director of Impact at the Global Innovation Fund, a non-profit organization that invests in the development, rigorous testing, and scaling of innovations targeted at improving the lives of the world’s poorest people.
About the Ascent Series
The Summit Ascent is a series of virtual convenings that take a deeper dive into the critical topics discussed at the Center’s premiere annual event, the Sorenson Impact Summit. The series features solutions-oriented discussions with members of the Sorenson Impact Center and its community of impact leaders.
See our past convenings below and be the first to know when a new convening has been scheduled by joining our mailing list.
Community-Engaged Impact Measurement
June 20, 2023
This conversation was hosted by Sorenson Impact Center Chief Operating Officer Katie Macc, Dr. Tiana Rogers, the Center’s Senior Director of Impact Strategy, and Paul Kuttner, Associate Director at University Neighborhood Partners (UNP). UNP builds partnerships with the University of Utah and west side Salt Lake County neighborhoods, uplifting historically underrepresented voices to advance reciprocal learning, action, and benefit.
Dr. Rogers and Kuttner shared how the Center recently helped UNP identify approaches to better demonstrate their impact and ensure community priorities remain at the core of their impact measurement efforts.
Attendees of this convening:
- Developed a clear understanding of social impact measurement: what it is, how to apply it, and how it can advance your work
- Learned how to identify existing data and apply it to impact measurement
- Learned how to engage a community in evidence-based decision making