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Policy Innovation Lab aims to help governments tackle social issues across the West


Children at the library.

For state and local governments, repairing a road or building a new park easily shows a benefit to taxpayers and can be fairly simple to fund. But addressing longer-term issues, such as homelessness or early-childhood achievement gaps can prove trickier.

A new policy lab at the University of Utah’s David Eccles School of Business, however, is hoping to make progress on difficult social issues. The Policy Innovation Lab at the Eccles School’s Sorenson Global Impact Investing Center is aiming to help three to five governments in the Western United States tackle such issues with an innovative funding source called Pay for Success (PFS).

The Lab has issued a request for proposals for governments to participate in the inaugural Innovation Fellowship Program with a deadline of March 11. Participating governments will receive high-level support services and cash sub-grants of between $75,000 and $250,000 from the Lab to evaluate the feasibility of implementing a pay for success project in their communities.

For more information, click here.