UPDATE: This event has been cancelled because the speaker’s flight was canceled due to weather and she was not able to rebook. It will be rescheduled for the fall semester.

Paula Lantz, associate dean for academic affairs and professor of public policy at the Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan, will present a colloquium, "Social Impact Bonds as a Strategy for Spreading Social Service and Mental Health Interventions."

Her talk will be from 3:30 to 5 p.m. Friday, April 7, in Giffels Auditorium in Old Main, and is part of the Graduate Professional Education colloquium series of the Department of Psychological Science in the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences.

With funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Policies for Action initiative, Lantz is investigating the potential of social impact bonds – also known as 'Pay for Success' financing – in spreading the implementation of evidence-based prevention programs that provide value to the public sector. 

In a Pay for Success contract, private investors put up the capital to fund an intervention; and if a third-party evaluation demonstrates that pre-determined metrics of success were achieved, the public sector will pay back the investors, sometimes including a rate of return. 

Lantz will discuss the first Pay for Success projects launched in the United States, and what she and her colleagues have learned regarding the potential and challenges of this model. She will also discuss the criteria for what makes a good Pay for Success intervention, with a focus on social service and mental health interventions.