Macquarie 50th Anniversary Award
Social Finance is driven by the belief that social and economic systems should enable all people to thrive, and the conviction that the most meaningful and measurable change is created in our communities when governments and markets work together.
Social Finance is seeking to redefine what’s possible in education and workforce development. Winning the Macquarie 50th Anniversary Award in 2019 was a catalyst that supercharged Social Finance’s mission to break down barriers to opportunity. With the Award’s support, the organisation set out to build bold, innovative financing solutions that open doors for people who have been left out of traditional education and career pathways.
Since then, Social Finance has turned a promising idea into a business line: its workforce and education portfolio now represents the majority of its deployed assets, fueling a diverse range of projects that help people upskill, meet urgent labor market needs, and land meaningful jobs at higher wages. In just five years, Social Finance launched its first financing model, established the US’s first Pay It Forward Fund, and became a registered investment advisor. The organisation’s portfolio now consists of nine Pay It Forward Funds and a range of other high-impact projects, including the UP Fund, a pool of catalytic capital, all designed to meet critical labour market needs and drive meaningful job placement.
In 2024, Social Finance also launched the Social Finance Institute, a hub for field-building, policy innovation, and applied research. The Institute stands at the forefront of organisation’s work, bringing together practitioners, academics, and industry leaders to spark new ideas, share best practice, and advance outcomes-based, impact-first funding models.
Social Finance has also evolved its approach to meet the moment—moving to place- and sector-based models that deliver tailored solutions for communities and industries across the country. The organisation’s projects go beyond tuition, offering supports like emergency aid funds and loans to cover living expenses, ensuring learners can focus on what matters most: their education.
The Macquarie Anniversary Award helped Social Finance jumpstart our workforce and economic mobility portfolio, which aims to finance high-quality education and training for more than 36,000 people over the next five years.”
Tracy Palandjan
CEO & Co-Founder
Social Finance
A highlight for me was organising a fireside event in our New York office featuring leaders from Macquarie and Social Finance to raise awareness of the non-profit’s important work.
Social Finance pioneers outcomes-based financing solutions that link investment performance to impact. It was a great event.”
Rosa Villalobos
Head of Luxembourg office
Macquarie Asset Management, Luxembourg
Workforce and economic mobility portfolio goals: through its over $A500 million workforce portfolio, Social Finance aims to assist over 36,000 people in financing job training and securing quality employment in the next five years.
Commitment to talent finance projects: Social Finance remains committed to developing, launching, and managing innovative workforce finance projects. In addition, it will cultivate original thought leadership and amplify insights to further enhance economic mobility.
Addressing climate change: recognising the urgency of the climate crisis, Social Finance plans to continue its work at the intersection of workforce and climate. It currently has a fund geared towards cultivating a diverse climate workforce and believes the fund plays a crucial role in promoting a just, green transition nationally through inclusive workforce development.
Thought leadership and knowledge dissemination: Social Finance will continue to produce thought leadership and disseminate learnings through the Social Finance Institute. The Institute promotes research and thought leadership on outcomes-based employment and training models that support economic mobility in the United States.
In this video Stephanie shares how participating in a diesel technician training program supported by Social Finance helped her launch a promising career that provides for her and her son.3
In FY2024, Social Finance US continued to scale its talent finance portfolio, expanding high quality career training to help unemployed and underemployed people participate in the modern economy.
Social Finance launched a Pay It Forward Fund in Colorado to prepare residents for in-demand, well-paying jobs in industries including IT, cybersecurity, and health care. Seeded with over $A12 million from multiple philanthropic sources, the Colorado Pay It Forward Fund provides different kinds of financing for learners, training providers, and employers. For each kind of financing, all loan repayments are recycled back into the Fund to support future learners.
In 2023, Social Finance launched the Social Finance Institute, a unique field-building platform. The platform leverages insights from practitioners and experts to develop networks, tools, and actionable resources to advance outcomes-based, impact-first funding models to measurably improve people’s lives.
In FY2023, the UP Fund launched its sixth investment; the first healthcare Career Impact Bond with Clinical Research Fastrack.
In partnership with the State of New Jersey and CEOs from leading companies, Social Finance launched the first Pay It Forward program in the US, initially focused on education and training for nursing, cybersecurity and HVAC/welding careers.
In FY2022, Social Finance’s UP Fund launched a follow on Career Impact Bond2 with American Diesel Training Centres (ADTC) to serve an additional 600 learners and to meet employer demand during an acute labour shortage.
With support from the $US100 million Google Career Certificates Fund, Social Finance designed an investment program which aims to help 20,000 learners from underserved communities land good jobs.1
In FY2021, Social Finance’s UP Fund supported four Career Impact Bonds to prepare learners for jobs in information technology, software development, user experience design and diesel technician training.1
