The Outcome Fund: An Initiative to Build a Public-Private Impact Finance Mechanism to Address Social Challenges in the Community.

The mechanism involves the aggregation of a series of “outcome-based” contracts, a form of financing in which payments are tied to the achievement of predefined and measurable impact outcomes.

Throughout 2024, numerous meetings were held with stakeholders, including within the framework of Communities of Practice. Similar existing tools and examples of best practices were also mapped. Work was undertaken to define the impact measurement methodology and the technical structuring of the mechanism.

Thanks to the approval of the European project TOUCH (Tackling Outcome-Based Finance Challenges: A Replication Model for Social Economy) under the Employment and Social Innovation (EaSI) component of the European Social Fund Plus (ESF+), a pilot program will be launched in Piedmont to address the issue of NEETs (young people not in employment, education, or training). As part of the project activities, the details of the mechanism will be defined, enabling third-sector organizations and social enterprises to participate in calls for proposals to secure resources aligned with achieving their impact outcomes. Starting with the initial experimentation in the Piedmont region, involving public and private actors as investors and outcome payers, the model will then be shared at the national and European levels.