Pay for Success (PFS) is an innovative contracting model that ties funding for an intervention to the achievement of outcomes or impacts in the community. PFS offers a way to deliver better outcomes, enabling government or other payors (for example, school districts or hospitals) to pay only for outcomes achieved – that is, to pay only for what works. The Social Innovation Fund (SIF), a program of the Corporation for National & Community Service, launched an initiative to support the expansion of PFS in 2014. The SIF commissioned Abt Global to develop a number of reports and special topic briefs to provide insights into the PFS program. 

This issue brief focuses on how current Pay for Success projects across the country store, manage, and distribute capital using financial instruments and general accounting strategies.