The Partnership For Proven Programs (PFPP) is a model of collaboration between state or local
governments and philanthropic foundations – facilitated by the Coalition – to expand social programs
rigorously shown to produce important, lasting improvements in people’s lives. Specifically, PFPP uses an
advance commitment of philanthropic matching funds to catalyze (i) state/local government investment
– with matched public funds – in expanding proven programs, and (ii) government adoption of
policy changes to institutionalize and sustain priority funding for proven programs, along with rigorous
testing to grow the number of such programs.

Why Now?: Recent years have seen real growth in the body of social programs shown conclusively – in large randomized controlled trials (RCTs) – to deliver major improvements in people’s lives. These proven programs, if scaled widely, offer states and localities an opportunity that hasn’t existed in the past: To make substantial, evidence-driven progress in education, economic mobility, and other important life outcomes – particularly for individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds. Illustrative examples include:

 

• Year Up (original model) and Per Scholas – these are job training programs for low-income adults that focus on fast-growing industries with well-paying jobs, and provide paid internships with local employers. Increase long-term earnings by 20-40%.

• ASAP and ACE – a program model providing comprehensive academic, personal, and financial supports for low-income students at community colleges (ASAP) and four-year colleges (ACE). Increases college graduation rates by 11-15 percentage points.

• Saga Tutoring – high-dosage, schoolwide math tutoring for 9th and 10th graders in high-poverty high schools. Produces a sustained increase in math achievement, equating to more than 70% of a grade-level of learning at the end of 11th grade.

The Challenge Ahead: Such programs currently serve only a small fraction of people who could benefit, because government social spending generally doesn’t prioritize or reward proven programs. Instead, social spending is typically allocated through funding formulas or other processes that give no weight to rigorous evidence about what works. Thus, for example, Year Up and Per Scholas – the two U.S. job training programs with the strongest evidence of large earnings gains – receive almost no government funding, and rely largely on philanthropic support, even though government is by far the largest funder of job training for low-income workers in the U.S.

At the same time, the many unproven programs that government does fund too often do not deliver the hoped-for results, as we learn when their impacts are ultimately measured.[1,2]

What’s Needed: PFPP aims to be a scalable model of philanthropic-government collaboration to expand proven programs and institutionalize evidence-based criteria in state/local government spending. The reason PFPP focuses on government social spending is the same reason bank robber Willie Sutton gave for robbing banks: That’s where the money is. State/local government funds (including those received from the federal government) dwarf those that philanthropy alone can provide. They offer the potential to fund every proven program at scale, and to rigorously test other, promising programs in order to grow the body of proven programs over time.

How PFPP works:

1. The nonprofit, nonpartisan Coalition coordinates PFPP initiatives. The Coalition operated successfully from 2001-2015 and had a major impact on federal policy. It was relaunched in 2024 with a focus on state and local policy. The Coalition is an impartial, expert resource on evidence-based reform that receives no funding from any social programs or program models.

2. A philanthropy choosing to participate identifies, in consultation with the Coalition, one or more proven or highly-promising programs they’d like government to help scale. Proven programs are those with strong RCT evidence of important impacts, replicated across multiple studies or study sites. Highly-promising programs are those whose RCT evidence suggests important impacts but is not yet definitive (e.g., has only one study site or lacks long-term follow-up). The philanthropy might, for example, select proven or highly-promising programs it is currently funding without a government partner. The philanthropy can also specify geographic regions where they seek program expansion (e.g., states in which the philanthropy operates).

3. The philanthropy dedicates up to a certain funding amount (e.g., $5M-$20M) to fund expansion of the above programs if government partners can be found that meet both criteria below. If partners can’t be found, the philanthropy is not expected to provide funding.                                                                                      Criteria: A state or local partner agrees to:                                                                                                              (i) Match the philanthropic funds for the program(s)’ expansion, in equal or greater amount;                          (ii) Work with the Coalition to incorporate evidence-based criteria into future government                              funding announcements/processes in the relevant program area (e.g., job training, education),                    so that the that the government partner’s use of evidence is sustained and institutionalized as                      philanthropic funds for the project eventually wind down.

4. Once a partnership is formed, the philanthropy and government partner award funds directly to the program provider(s), to support the program’s expansion. Each program expansion would include careful monitoring of implementation to ensure faithful delivery of the program model.For programs that are highly promising but not yet proven, the Coalition would coordinate with the government partner, the program provider, and a qualified researcher to seek philanthropic funding for an RCT evaluation of the program as expanded under the project. The study’s goal would be to hopefully confirm the prior research findings and build the body of proven programs.

5. The Coalition plays a facilitating role throughout the process. In addition to functions noted above, the Coalition: (i) conducts outreach to identify state/local government partners that meet the above criteria; (ii) follows each partnership’s progress and assist in troubleshooting any issues that arise over time; and (iii) secures funding for the independent evaluations.

Conclusion: There’s a growing body of programs shown in gold-standard RCTs to produce important, lasting improvements in people’s lives. Let’s now use that evidence to make progress at scale on education and economic mobility and other key issues.