The Hutt Street Aspire Impact Bond is a social impact bond (SIB) designed to address homelessness and support individuals in finding and maintaining stable housing in Adelaide, Australia.

Social impact bonds are innovative financing mechanisms that enable private investors to fund social interventions, with the government paying a return on the investment if predetermined social outcomes are achieved.

Context

The Aspire Bond presented a unique opportunity for the WC Rigby Trust, a perpetual charitable trust established in 1913 to provide “low-cost housing for the poor”.

Giving Connect founder, Ben Clark, worked with the Foundation’s trustee and investment committee to conduct additional due diligence on the investment opportunity, ensuring investment considerations were balanced with a mission-aligned outcome.

Outcome

The investment committee determined that critical to calculating the investment risk, was an understanding of the ‘social’ or program risk.

In order to provide a qualified opinion, Ben Clark conducted additional due diligence on the SIB structure, the desired social outcomes and the capacity and capability of the charity partner (Hutt Street) central to delivering the Aspire program.

In late 2022, Social Ventures Australia, Aspire SIB’s manager released its 5-year evaluation of the program, revealing the following outstanding outcomes:

• The Aspire program has generated total SA Government savings of $25.1 million over the five years to 30 June 2022, which is 200% of the initial plan.
• An internal rate of return of 14% per annum for Aspire SIB coupon holders.
• Health service reduction rates outperformed target rates in the initial information memorandum.