Pipeline Acceleration Opportunities

The Outcomes Accelerator welcomes innovative proposals that apply OBF to achieve clear, measurable mental health outcomes. Projects may be focused primarily on mental health, or mental health may be integrated within the design of broader social and economic programs. In either case, priority will be given to projects that advance the use of mental health outcomes as payment metrics, and all projects must include mental health or psychosocial outcomes in their theory of change and measure them. Proposals that support young people (ages ~10-25) will be prioritized for this cohort, as adolescence and early adulthood are the critical window to help prevent crisis, self-harm and suicide amongst youth.  

This call seeks proposals that use OBF to: 

• Address barriers to investment in evidence-based, integrated community-based mental health interventions; 

• Strengthen preventive and community-level models, and embed support within systems people (particularly youth) already use, such as primary care, schools, and workplaces; 

• Increase access to trusted, trained support, particularly where services are scarce or hard to reach;  

• Engage participants, including youth, in the design, delivery, and governance of programs to ensure relevance, trust, and cultural alignment;  

• Crowd in public and/or private capital to ensure sustainable financing and scale beyond donor support; 

• Demonstrate a clear pathway to government integration and/or uptake, including policy alignment and financing mechanisms; and  

• Include robust, cost-effective measurement frameworks to contribute to a more coherent evidence base. 

This call is open to all mental health topics and conditions; the thematic areas listed below are illustrative examples intended to signal the breadth of what is in scope. Proposals may span more than one area.  

• Systems integration in primary and community health: Approaches that integrate mental health into primary healthcare, schools, workplaces, and community settings. 

• Suicide prevention and crisis response: Approaches that identify, support, and respond to young people at risk of self-harm or suicide, including early identification, crisis response, referral pathways, and post-crisis support. 

• Community-based support and prevention: Programs that build social connection and belonging, strengthen protective relationships, expand access to trusted and trained support, and foster resilience and wellbeing through community-based approaches, particularly among young people. 

• Gender-informed care: Approaches that respond to the distinct mental health needs, risks, and barriers faced by women and girls (for example, integration with sexual and reproductive health services, perinatal mental health, and responses to gender-based violence) and by men and boys (for example, elevated suicide risk and low rates of help-seeking). 

• Fragile and conflict-affected settings: Psychosocial support in fragile and conflict-affected settings, particularly where people experience acute and/or ongoing trauma. 

• Education: Interventions that embed mental health and psychosocial support within education systems to improve learning, attendance, retention, and transitions, including school-based support services and social-emotional learning with measurable outcomes. 

• Employment: Programs that integrate mental health support into employment, skills, and livelihoods initiatives, recognizing that psychosocial wellbeing shapes whether people can secure, retain, and progress in work, particularly for young people navigating the transition from education to employment. 

• Technology: Programs that utilize accessible, tech-enabled care and safe digital spaces, including approaches that promote healthy use of technology and extend trusted support to populations that are hard to reach through in-person services. 

Proposals will not be considered if they: 

• Lack a clear OBF component; 

• Do not define clear, measurable mental health outcomes; proposals where mental health or wellbeing is referenced only incidentally, without a defined role in the theory of change or corresponding outcome, are not in scope; 

• Focus primarily on specialized or institutional care without prevention or system integration; and 

• Rely primarily on medicalized or pharmaceutical approaches. 

The Outcomes Accelerator is instrument-agnostic as long as projects support the design, implementation or capacity building for an Outcomes-Based Finance approach. All projects should involve the participation of non-state actors. Private investment is not required but may be considered a bonus when it adds knowledge and rigor, and/or financial viability to the project.

Project should adhere to OECD guidance and definitions of outcomes-based finance.  Instruments may include, but are not limited to, impact bonds, outcomes bonds, impact-linked loans and bonds, outcome funds, biodiversity units, nature credits and environmental market mechanisms, carbon-linked payments, innovative PES and compensation schemes, pull finance mechanisms, outcomes contracts, corporate insetting, among other tools, strategies, and approaches.

The Outcomes Accelerator welcomes initiatives across a range of maturities, from early-stage concepts and feasibility work through to projects approaching launch or scale. This approach reflects and recognizes that the mental health OBF market is still developing, and a healthy pipeline depends on supporting promising concepts at earlier stages as well as those that are further advanced. The level of evidence expected is proportionate to maturity: earlier-stage applicants should show a credible path to building traction with government partners or system actors, while later-stage applicants should be able to evidence it. Relevant signals of traction include engagement with key partners, particularly government partners or system actors, and progress toward securing outcome funding. Where it exists, evidence of support, commitment, and leadership from outcome funders, domestic government partners, and other key partners (for example, letters of support, MOUs, or official announcements) will strengthen a proposal. 

Preference will be given to initiatives that: 

• Show early government buy-in or co-design; 
• Are aligned with national or sub-national policy priorities; and 
• Demonstrate potential for institutionalization within public systems.