Social investment – Helping 500 young offenders reduce re-offending and have better education, employment and health outcomes.

Synergia is the only consultancy group in New Zealand to have hands-on experience with a major social impact bond delivered in New Zealand.

We were the lead consultants in the establishment and support of the Genesis Youth Trust Youth Re-offending Social Bond.

The bond ran over six years from 2017-23 and delivered (based on IDI data and comparison cohort).

Significantly:

• fewer police offences and criminal charges
• more enrolled in tertiary education.
• higher income from wages and salary.
• fewer hospital visits
• fewer prescriptions
• reduced mental health costs

Plus more favourable:

• enrolment in secondary education
• driver’s licence rates
• registered vehicle rates

The bond delivered estimated social value of  more than double its cost over six years and close to 10 times over 50 years. The bond was also financially successful for the provider and for the investors.

Synergia helped with arranging the bond deal, guiding the intervention design, supporting the organisational performance and monitoring the results, impact and payments. Synergia learned a lot from this experience and now have a clear view about how to efficiently establish and scale future social investment opportunities.

“Social bonds bring together need, evidence, creativity and precision,” say Paul Stephenson, Synergia Partner and lead for the social investment work. “Social investment is ideal when there is a clear inflection point in a life-course, and when an investment can help people move to a pathway that is better for them and for society (for example stopping lifetime recidivism).  It also works well for people who have very high and complex needs that sit across multiple agencies and current siloed solutions are not working.

“Social bonds can focus the best solution to deliver outcomes – outside of agency constraints.  And being paid only for outcomes drives creativity and a success focus.”

Synergia is now leading out thinking about how to move forward with social investment under the National-led Coalition Government.

We look forward to opportunities to work with providers, investors, financial intermediaries and Government to bring this next phase of social investment to life.