ClassInfo

Identifying opportunities to use Social Impact Financing through a Pay for Success contract to expand prenatal or early childhood cost-effective interventions in Minnesota (Judy Temple)

State Representative Dave Pinto (from Saint Paul district 64B) and Rob Grunewald, economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, are interested in investigating the feasibility of a Pay for Success (PFS) social impact financing arrangement to expand proven or promising interventions for disadvantaged children or families in Minnesota. Under a PFS financing plan, private investors would pay $5 to $20 million to expand health, educational, or human services that benefit children and yield cost savings to the state or local governments. With enough cost savings, the government partner would be able to pay back the private investors, including interest. PFS contracts specify specific performance targets that must be reached for the private investor to be paid. If a formal evaluation shows that cost savings have not occurred, the private investor does not get reimbursed.

Capstone students would identify several health or human services that could save governments more money than they cost within a fairly short time horizon of several years or less. Some candidates for PFS financing include the provision of doulas for low-income pregnant women, dental care for very young children, or proper management of childhood asthma. Capstone students will interview key informants in the medical and health insurance fields to learn about costly health outcomes or human service involvement for children that could be prevented by effective interventions. Capstone students will also seek out providers of promising interventions in Minnesota that could be scaled up and formally evaluated for their potential to generate state or local government cost savings.

The main deliverable will be a report describing promising interventions in Minnesota that benefit children and are likely to generate cost savings to governments. The report will also discuss the possibility of PFS financing to scale up these interventions.

indicates the appropriate indicators of intervention success that will trigger the PFS payments, and (6) estimates the magnitude of the monetary payments that would be made if targets for success are reached. Students will work in smaller groups to analyze the feasibility of using PFS for various promising prenatal or early childhood interventions.

There will be at least 4 meetings of team or all team (all class) during the Spring semester for:

1. Team presentations of projects and project updates

2. Team practice client presentation

3. Team discussion across projects to share ideas, questions

The topic for the spring 2018 capstone workshop is "Thinking Differently: Integrating Land Use, Technology, and Equity into Transit Planning." Teams of Humphrey School graduate students will work with Metro Transit on three projects to investigate a variety of issues dealing with transit planning and how the region could include equity, land use decisions, and changing technology to drive decision making and/or policy direction. The three client-based projects are:

• Shared Mobility Policy and Planning Issues

• Bus Stops as a Community Asset

• Measuring TOD Districts and Corridors

This workshop is designed to provide a learning opportunity for students to think critically about how transportation projects impact community and economic development and vice versa. It is a structured process for meeting client-based capstone workshop requirements for Humphrey School MURP, MPP and MPA students.

Teamwork (15%)

• Class participation and presentations
• Weekly team meetings outside of class
• Team contracts
• Team member evaluations (10%)

Strategy report (70%)

• Diagnosis draft (10%)
• Vision draft (10%)
• Action plan draft (10%)
• Final draft (10%)
• Final report (15%)
• Team presentations (15%)

Reflective paper (15%)

Each class period will be a combination of lectures (including multiple guests) and work time.