Impact Canada is a whole-of-government effort that deploys outcomes-based policy and program approaches. It features a novel set of rules, processes, and supports to allow the Government of Canada to support innovative methods like challenges, pay-for-success funding, and behavioural insights, which previously faced significant barriers to adoption. Through these systems-level changes, the Government can now apply these approaches to produce better outcomes for citizens and create greater public
Innovation Tag: Financing Mechanisms and Innovation Funds
The Innovation Barometer is the world’s first official statistics on Public Sector Innovation (PSI), now implemented in 5 countries, providing innovators and decision makers with systematic knowledge of what thousands of innovators 'actually do’. The barometer advances PSI as a tool for solving societal problems and is used in practice for: inspiring innovation work, policymaking, strategising, executive leadership development, teaching, research and consultancy services.
The initiative aims at overcoming poor-quality broadband in specific city neighbourhoods in the Reggio Emilia area by allowing access to the Metropolitan Area Network (the broadband network owned by the public administrations of Emilia-Romagna). The system was put in place through the instalment and operation of broadband wireless infrastructures by Neighbourhood Social Centres acting as broadband providers for citizens and businesses of their respective areas.
Japan has been confronting many social issues such as child poverty, isolation, or deterioration of local communities. Non-profit organizations and the private sector are working to address social issues, but most of them are facing chronic shortage of money and staff. A new initiative was started in 2019, utilising dormant bank deposits for providing support to address social issues to which the national and local governments cannot respond one by one.
Tens of thousands of low-to-moderate-income families in Fort Collins live in energy inefficient housing that perpetuate health and economic disparities. The solution, “Epic Homes”, is an integrated, scalable public-private partnership model to “find, finance, and fix” energy inefficient rental properties and document health and well-being impacts. Epic Homes leverages private capital to offer simple and attractive financing for energy upgrades to achieve social and environmental…
The programme My First Salary addresses youth unemployment by providing a salary subsidy grant for the first employment of high school or university graduates bellow 30. It is implemented through a state-of-the-art tech platform that automates the application process, approval and match-making. It is a “zero paper” alternative to what used to be a “complex bureaucratic state support procedure”, combined with a transparent “recruitment procedure” – all in a streamlined and fully…
The program transitions chronically homeless patients from the Emergency Room into permanent supportive housing. Their partner, the Center For Housing & Health, has developed a network of 27 supportive housing providers representing ~4,000 scattered site one bedroom apartments dispersed throughout Chicago. The project has housed 59 patients to date, and has found very high mortality (34%) and high rates of uncontrolled chronic disease. Housing is health - it is as a dangerous health condition.
The Public Service Innovation Fund provides public service bodies in Ireland with a means to fund innovative projects that may not otherwise get financed by their organisations. It was developed to help promote a greater culture of innovation and experimentation in the Irish Public Service, and to showcase the benefits of innovation to other public servants considering embarking on their own innovative project. This is Ireland's first public service-only innovation funding mechanism.
10x is a stage-gated internal investment program for the United States government, modeled on modern venture capital practices, that funds the exploration and development of new product ideas, sourced from civil servants, to significantly improve how the government uses technology to serve the public good.
Canada has an obligation to protect and inform migrant workers of their rights while in Canada and to support employer compliance with the conditions of its Temporary Foreign Worker Program. To this end, it launched the Migrant Worker Support Network pilot initiative. The Network is a collaborative and migrant worker-informed platform for migrant workers, employers, governments, and civil society to develop and implement solutions to better protection and support of migrant workers in Canada.