Harvard Government Performance Lab

The Government Performance Lab grew out of our Social Impact Bond Technical Assistance Lab (SIB Lab). The SIB Lab was established in 2011 with support from the Rockefeller Foundation and helped Massachusetts and New York State become the first two states to use the Pay for Success model. In 2013, we held a national competition to select additional government partners and awarded technical assistance to eight additional governments: Chicago, Colorado, Connecticut, Denver, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, and South Carolina. In 2014 we again held a national competition and awarded technical assistance to twelve governments including a cohort of three governments receiving behavioral health-related technical assistance: Arkansas, Baltimore, California, DC Water, Louisville, Nevada, Olmstead Cohort (New Mexico, New York, Washington), Pennsylvania, San Francisco, and Vermont. As of June 2017, eleven of the GPL’s TA-recipient jurisdictions have launched PFS projects, accounting for nearly two-thirds of the seventeen launched projects in the nation. Project policy areas include reducing recidivism, providing supportive housing to homeless individuals, increasing kindergarten readiness through high quality pre-K provision, reducing substance use-driven removals to the child welfare system, expanding home visitation programs to improve child and maternal health, and providing adult basic education services to improve employment outcomes.