Greetings,

Thank you for your interest in the FY2014 Social Innovation Fund Pay for Success Grant Competition. As we get closer to the application deadline of July 31, we are writing to ensure you have taken the opportunity to review our Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) on our website before you submit your application. 

Below, please find a selection of critical points we want to clarify based on the most commonly submitted questions.  These answers, as well as the responses to the FAQs, are stated in the Notice of Funding Availability and are summaries of information included in the Notice. We want to be sure you fully understand our intent, and shape your applications accordingly. 

If you have additional questions, please do not hesitate to email innovation@cns.gov or call Anna Fogel, our Pay for Success Program Associate, at 202-606-6726. 

Regards, 

Michael D. Smith
Director, Social Innovation Fund
Corporation for National & Community Service 

Important Clarifications

1) The Pay for Success (PFS) Competition is for organizations that will serve as “intermediaries,” conducting open competitions to identify, validate, and support sub-recipients. This is not a competition for non-profits or governments seeking dollars to support their individual, pre-identified needs.  Applicants planning to Provide Technical Assistance and Assess Feasibility must host open and transparent processes, such as a competition, to identify Sub-Recipients (local governments/potential payors or non-profit service providers) who will receive technical assistance (in the form of expert consulting and capacity building grants) from the Applicant/Grantee to undergo feasibility studies to determine PFS readiness. Applicants planning to Structure PFS Transactions must host open and transparent processes, such as a competition, to identify Sub-Recipients (local governments/potential payors, or non-profit service providers).  These Sub-Recipients will propose PFS transactions and the Grantee will validate the Sub-Recipients’ PFS proposals and provide Sub-Recipients with a Transaction Coordinator (and the opportunity to receive capacity building grants) to support structuring and closing a PFS deal. Grantees must also have an open, transparent process to select Transaction Coordinators. 

Applicants applying to Provide Technical Assistance and Assess Feasibility will be scored on their plan to design and host an open competition to identify Sub-Recipients. 

Applicants applying to Structure PFS Transactions will be scored on their plan to both select Transaction Coordinators through an open, transparent process AND to identify Sub-Recipients through an open, transparent process, validating the Sub-Recipients’ proposed PFS transaction. 

2) Grantees cannot apply with pre-selected Sub-Recipients or pre-identified PFS transactions. Instead, PFS deals must be proposed by a Sub-Recipient in response to an open and transparent selection process. Therefore, if you are a city which has already been working on a PFS deal and are in need of additional dollars to support a feasibility study or a Transaction Coordinator to structure that deal, you may not apply as a grantee.  However, you would be eligible to apply as a Sub-Recipient of feasibility or transaction structuring services from winners of this grant competition. 

3) Required minimum and maximum grant ranges are based on an annual budget for up to three years. The minimum grant amount is $200,000 per year if applying to Provide Technical Assistance and Assess Feasibility or $350,000 per year if applying to Structure PFS Deals. Organizations can apply for an annual grant at either minimum ($200,000 or $350,000), but that minimum amount must be spent in one year, and not divided over three years. We expect most applicants will apply for three years of funding, given the typical amount of time it takes to complete this kind of work. As such, minimum total budgets for three years will be $600,000 or $1,050,000. 

4) The SIF PFS competition is not affiliated with other Federal efforts in Pay for Success, such as Department of Labor and Department of Justice programs. Unlike these other federal PFS programs, we are not providing grants or direct investments in PFS deals or nonprofit service provision at this time. If you are a nonprofit with a proven service or intervention model, you are eligible to apply as a Grantee to provide technical assistance to Sub-Recipients. However, nonprofits cannot apply to fund their service provision programs directly.

5) Potential applicants have asked questions about a range of project structures and scenarios and we are interested in diversifying the field and providing room for innovation. Therefore, we look forward to creative proposals which propose structures which we did not imagine when drafting the Notice. However, all proposals should conclude with the deliverables listed in the Notice. For applicants to provide Technical Assistance and Assess Feasibility, deliverables should include completed feasibility studies on PFS potential and could also include the provision of technical assistance and requests for proposal, or other methods of procurement. For applicants to Structure PFS Deals, deliverables should include fully structured PFS transactions or analyses of alternate social finance strategies.