SIPPRA Update: Appointments to U.S. Commission on Social Impact Partnerships

In February 2018, Congress enacted the Social Impact Partnerships to Pay for Results Act (SIPPRA), creating a $100 million standing fund within the U.S. Department of the Treasury that allows the federal government to serve as the end payor for pay for success (PFS) projects in state and local governments. The SIPPRA legislation also creates a nine-member Commission on Social Impact Partnership to assist the Treasury in reviewing and selecting applications for funding, as well as provide general assistance in the implementation of the law. The following group will each appoint one member of the Commission:

1. the President (who will appoint the Chair of the Commission);
2. Majority Leader of the Senate;
3. Minority Leader of the Senate;
4. Speaker of the House of Representatives;
5. Minority Leader of the House of Representatives;
6. Chairman of the Committee on Finance of the Senate;
7. ranking member of the Committee on Finance of the Senate;
8. Chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means of the House of Representatives; and
9. ranking member of the Committee on Ways and Means of the House of Representatives.

In June, Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT), the Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, appointed Jeremy Keele, the former president and CEO of the Sorenson Impact Center, to the Commission. Prior to joining Sorenson, Keele was senior adviser to Salt Lake County Mayor Ben McAdams from 2013 to 2015, where he oversaw the County’s work on social impact bonds (SIB) and implemented the first SIB on early childhood education in 2013. Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR), the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, also announced his appointment in June. Wyden’s selection, Dr. Harlan Yu, is the Founder and Executive Director of Upturn, a non-profit that works to ensure new technology serves all margins of society.

Last week, Representative Paul Ryan (R-UT) appointed James Sullivan, University of Notre Dame professor of economics and co-founder of the University’s Wilson Sheehan Lab for Economic Opportunities (LEO), to the Commission. LEO is a research center that works with service providers and government agencies to identify research-driven, effective solutions to reduce poverty in the U.S.

Keele, Yu and Sullivan join Commission Chair Paul Bradford Edgerley, appointed by the President. The Treasury is expected to release its first request for proposals for social impact partnerships in early 2019 and will appropriate the funds to support outcome payments, feasibility studies, or project evaluations.

Urban’s Pay for Success Initiative will posting regular updates on the SIPPRA fund here on the blog.

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