Social Finance (consultancy)
Social Finance is a nonprofit consultancy that partners with governments, service providers, charities, and the financial sector to tackle social problems in the UK and worldwide. Founded in 2007 and headquartered in Boston, it aims to improve outcomes for people with complex needs.
Led by CEO Tracy Palandjian, the organization has helped develop social impact bonds (SIBs), a funding model that lets private investors back public services and get paid only when agreed social outcomes are met. SIBs have mobilized more than £500 million globally in areas such as offender rehabilitation, housing and homelessness, families, youth at risk of NEET, mental health, employment, loneliness, and domestic violence.
Social Finance’s early work included supporting the Commission on Unclaimed Assets, which proposed creating a Social Investment Bank and helped shape what became Big Society Capital. Initial funding came from philanthropists, with later support from foundations including Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Big Lottery Fund.
The first SIB project in the UK launched in 2010: a six-year pilot at Peterborough Prison to help around 3,000 short-term prisoners through intensive in-prison and community support. Investors would be repaid only if reoffending fell by at least 7.5%. In August 2014, results showed an 8.4% reduction in reoffending, keeping the project on track for future payments.
Social Finance expanded to the US in 2011, and now operates as a global network including the UK, US, Israel, India, and the Netherlands. In simple terms, a social impact bond is a bond-like funding arrangement where repayments depend on achieving specified social outcomes rather than a fixed return.
Social Finance UK describes SIBs as a public-private partnership that funds effective social services through performance-based contracts.
Revenue: about $32 million. Websites: socialfinance.org.uk and socialfinance.org.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 20:22 (CET).