Outcomes-based commissioning
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We partner with service providers, investors, and outcome payers to improve and scale social responses across various thematic areas and geographies through outcomes-based contracts.
Outcome-based commissioning (OBC) is a tool whereby service providers are contracted based on achieving defined positive outcomes (i.e., a positive change that occurs for an individual when a service is provided). This tool entails tying outcomes into the contract and linking payments to achieving these outcomes. It has the potential to attract new funding sources to tackle social problems while fostering innovative responses.
Maze has been involved in promoting OBC in Portugal since its creation. Maze structured and monitored the implementation of the first social outcomes-based contracts in Portugal, helped create the necessary structures to develop the ecosystem, and delivered capacity-building training on this topic, ensuring this agenda moved forward.
In our everyday work, we collaborate with several public, private, and social stakeholders, structuring outcomes-based contracts and robust evaluation models for social interventions. We aim to create reliable evidence on social responses capable of informing public policy.
Taking the most of OBC
Maze’s work on OBC has been mostly on impact bonds, one of the most mediatic OBC tools. Impact bonds incorporate private funding from investors to cover the upfront capital required for providers to set up and deliver services that are set out to achieve measurable outcomes. The outcome payers repay investors if the outcomes defined are achieved.
Impact bonds encompass social impact bonds (SIBs) and development impact bonds (DIBs), which differ in who pays for the outcomes. In SIBs, the outcome payer is generally a domestic government, while in a DIB, the outcome payer may be a donor, such as a government, a multilateral aid agency, or a philanthropic organization.
Social impact bonds (SIBs)
Maze has structured and managed five SIBs in Portugal, covering different areas, including education, employment, child and family welfare, and the mental health of informal caregivers.
Development impact bonds
Maze has conducted feasibility work on deploying a DIB in Angola to improve maternal health literacy and address preventable maternal mortality.
It is often difficult for social organisations like us to manage and communicate the impact our work, especially when deploying an innovative solution in an area where change can be hard to accept. The rigorous performance management process developed by maze with our collaboration has made us more capable of robustly discussing issues such as impact evidence and cost-benefit comparisons, especially with the public sector.Carmelita Dinis, Executive Director in Movimento de Defesa da Vida