This first issue will fund social organisations working to reduce the re-offending rates of short sentence male prisoners leaving Peterborough Prison. The Ministry of Justice has agreed to make payments to investors in the event that re-offending is reduced below an agreed threshold. [...] During the Peterborough Prison pilot, experienced social sector organisations, such as St Giles Trust, will provide intensive support to 3,000 short-term prisoners over a six year period, both inside prison and after release, to help them resettle into the community. If this initiative reduces re-offending by 7.5%, or more, investors will receive from Government a share of the long term savings. If the SiB delivers a drop in re-offending beyond the threshold, investors will receive an increasing return the greater the success at achieving the social outcome, up to a maximum of 13%.

This offers a new way of financing early intervention; we hope that this first project, working with male offenders, will lead in future to the availability of new sources of finance for working with women offenders in the community.

The conference programme says:

The session will look at the development of the Corston Independent Funders Coalition (CIFC), a unique partnership between 19 independent grant-makers and philanthropists who have come together to support the implementation of the Corston Report: the Government review into vulnerable women in the Criminal Justice System.

Funders, such as grantmaking trusts, foundations and individual philanthropists, know that this collaboration is unusual, to say the least. Although many funders share information and may even co-fund individual projects, there has never been a coalition focussed on achieving sustainable policy change before. At least, not in the UK – this way of working has been tried in the United States, with some success. The Philanthropic Initiative have written an excellent paper on some of the models tried out by funders in US, Donor Collaboration: Power in Numbers, which is available here (registration required). Definitely worth a read – and if that whets your appetite to find out more, do join us at the workshop at the ACF conference!