As part of its effort to create a pay-for-performance pilot, Minnesota recently released a request for information that asks the public to submit information in response to multiple questions about the potential design of a pilot program. The state has expressed willingness to issue bonds up to $10 million to finance the pay-for-performance pilot. The RFI asks for feedback on programs in workforce development and supportive housing. There are several similarities to, and differences from, the pay-for-success model that is currently being designed by Massachusetts.

- Minnesota has issued two RFIs, one for service providers and another for third parties. - Massachusetts issued one RFI, but two RFPs, asking service providers and intermediaries to apply separately for the invitation to negotiate with the state. One purpose of this separation was to avoid a situation where the intermediary entered into an exclusive relationship with a suboptimal service provider, or vice-versa. A downside of this separation was that it was much harder for the intermediary to create, plan, and describe a potential program delivery model without knowing for sure which service provider's model it would ultimately use. Minnesota seems further removed from this decision. It currently seeks responses that would inform its program design, rather than RFP responses from which it would select its preferred service providers and third parties.

- Minnesota's RFI mentions that the state might play the role of an evaluator. The Massachusetts RFP did not discuss that option. If the state commissions the social outcome, agrees to pay for it, and evaluates the service providers' success in achieving that outcome, then it will have to manage a perceived - and perhaps a real - conflict of interest.

 - The bond. Minnesota is interested in issuing a bond to pay service providers for successful achievement of social outcomes. Here is the logic of issuing a bond, as I understand it. The service providers' program would reduce costs or increase revenues to the state. These financial benefits would appear in the state's budget during the service providers' program and after the program; service provision will create other benefits, as well, but they may not appear on the budget at all. Massachusetts and Minnesota have chose two different options for paying for all these benefits. Massachusetts has requested budgetary authorization (for $50 million) to pay service providers if they achieve predetermined outcomes. Minnesota has chosen to issue a bond (for $10 million) to pay service providers if they achieve their outcomes. Minnesota will presumably repay the bond at least in part from the financial benefits that the service providers' programs created.

 - Service providers' funding gap. In the proposed designs of both states, service providers will need to self-finance or raise external capital to fund the implementation of the program. The state pays only when - and if - predetermined outcomes have been achieved. In both cases, there is an opportunity for private capital to fund social outcomes.

Sources
- Minnesota Third Party RFI
- Minnesota Service Provider RFI

I am so excited that Sarah Belal, founder of Justice Project Pakistan, won the Echoing Green fellowship this past month. As a member of the Echoing Green Social Investment Council, I had the pleasure of meeting Sarah several times during her application process.

JPP defends death row inmates in Pakistan, combating cruel and usual detention (in poor conditions and in secret prisons), interrogation by torture, and wrongful conviction. It distinguishes itself in the Pakistani context by having an investigative team, interviewing the inmates it defends, and operating as a woman-run legal shop in a male-dominated legal culture. I personally think that Sarah is doing important and impactful work.

I called Sarah to congratulate her last week. She was in the Pakistani mountains (a less dangerous feat that I imagine, I was assured), but her happiness at winning the award was apparent even through the choppy reception. Before the fellowship, she was being funded in part by two Open Society Institute grants, and hopes that the fellowship will increase her ability to secure grants from organizations that fund criminal justice activities worldwide.

There have been many political protests over the past twelve months, from the Middle East to Wall Street, from Russia during the elections to swearing in of the new Hong Kong chief executive. The reasons for these protests are several and different across the political contexts. Russians feel cheated by Prime Minister Putin’s pass-the-baton dance around the country’s constitution. Many hoped that Putin would eschew the presidency. Egyptians are upset that the country’s military leadership is tending toward dictatorship as it stripped the newly elected prime minister of much of his political authority. Yet many had hoped for a better slate of presidential candidates so that breaking up with Hosni Mubarak didn’t mean entering into a relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood. And, in a microcosm of the anti-Communist wave in China, the people of Hong Kong are lashing out against their newly elected chief executive, a “close ally of the Communist party,” much like the mainland politburo lashed out against the Bo Xilai, the Community party-affiliated governor who wire-tapped Hu Jintao.

These protests, however, have not accomplished their political goals. Putin has assumed the presidency seemingly unscathed. The Egyptian military authorities have ignored the (confused and confusing) political demands of the recent protests. And the Leung Chun-ying, the Hong Kong chief executive, will start his job protests notwithstanding. Not to mention Occupy Wall Street, which apparently fizzled out.

Perhaps this recent wave of protests are insufficiently large, insufficiently motivated and lack a coherent agenda. Russian wanted recounts, disliked the typical corruption of their electoral process, and were generally upset at Putin. But the alternate candidate was uninspiring. They did not necessarily want him; they just didn’t want Putin. The current Egyptian throng is a shade of the previous protest movement that ousted Mubarak and transformed Egypt. And Hong Kong is one of China’s pressure valves: You protest on its streets because you cannot protest on the mainland, you circumvent the mainland’s one child policy in Hong Kong hospitals, and you enjoy the city’s several distinct freedoms.

So maybe we are seeing the rise of imitator protests, ones that are sparked by the large successful movements in Egypt and elsewhere, but lack their strength, direction and perseverance.