Howard Hayes is the assistant director of youth and community development at Goodman Community Center in Madison, WI, and Arthur Morgan is the family advocacy manager. Together, they are helping Madison's youth succeed through the thriving Lussier LOFT Teen Center, which offers after-school and summer programs for middle school and high school aged youth. Children’s Funding Project CEO Elizabeth Gaines recently spoke with the two leaders about their ongoing work at the community center, the needs and challenges youth face, and creative ways communities can support young people.
Read MoreDow Constantine has served as executive of King County, WA, since 2009. During his tenure, Executive Constantine championed Best Starts for Kids, a voter-approved initiative to ensure every baby born or child raised in King County reaches adulthood happy, healthy, safe, and thriving. We spoke with Executive Constantine about his work to support King County’s children, youth, and families and the most recent funding renewal for Best Starts for Kids.
Read MoreUrgency is mounting as states and localities must designate the final round of American Rescue Plan funding for specific pandemic recovery initiatives within the next year. Once these funds reach their designated end dates, state and local leaders expect budget shortfalls and setbacks to recovery initiatives due to the sudden and severe drop in funding. To mitigate these effects, state and community leaders must invest in equitable, sustainable funding solutions to ensure a comprehensive recovery for children and youth after federal relief expires.
Read MoreThe November 2023 elections provided several wins for kids at both state and local levels. Learn more about the measures we were watching and what they mean for children and families in the recap below.
Read MoreIn 2018, community leaders, activists, and funders in Whatcom County, WA, were examining the most pressing issues in the community. Lack of child care, mental health programs, and stable housing supports persisted as the most critical issues preventing the county’s children from having a safe and healthy start in life. However, at the time, almost all county spending focused on crisis management created by the lack of these services, which made it challenging for local leaders to make significant investments in programs to support children and families and prevent these inequitable outcomes.
Read MoreElection Day is just one week away and there are several measures on this year’s ballot that could impact both current and future public investments in children and youth. (And we expect a significant uptick in measures to establish new voter-approved children’s funds on next year’s November ballots!) Read more to learn about the state and local measures we’ll be tracking on November 7.
Read MoreIn 2019, the San Antonio team reached out to us at Children’s Funding Project for help understanding and coordinating the funding necessary to improve youth outcomes. With our help and support, UP Partnership’s advocates ultimately led a successful effort to secure $24 million in pandemic-relief funding to support youth in Bexar County and City of San Antonio.
Read MoreDuring the first week of October, teams from 23 communities from 10 states convened in San Antonio, TX, for the fourth national Children’s Funding Institute. The Children’s Funding Institute, presented by Children’s Funding Project and Funding the Next Generation, is a training event for communities interested in establishing voter-approved children’s funds.
Read MoreEach year, Children’s Funding Project presents the Children’s Funding Champion award to an individual or campaign that has played a significant role in the movement to support the establishment and successful implementation of local voter-approved children’s funds. This year, we are pleased to name the members of the Yes for NOLA Kids Campaign the 2023 Children’s Funding Champions for their persistence, resilience, local impact, and commitment to giving back to the national movement.
Read MoreLike many cities, New Orleans, LA, has hundreds of organizations working to improve the lives of children and youth. Building on past collaborations and input from the city’s youth, city leaders united in 2019 to coordinate the efforts of those organizations, maximize the resources available to support children, and create a unified vision for positive youth development. The resulting Youth Master Plan—developed by the New Orleans Mayor’s Office of Youth and Families, New Orleans Children and Youth Planning Board, and New Orleans Youth Alliance—outlines a 10-year approach for improving the lives of the city’s children and youth from birth to age 24.
Read MoreIn 2022, then Sacramento, CA, City Council Member Jay Schenirer championed a campaign called “Yes on Measure L,” which created a voter-approved children’s fund to support essential programs for kids in the city. We spoke with Mr. Schenirer and his colleague Claudia Jasin, who served as his youth policy specialist for nine years, about their efforts to help Sacramento become a more youth friendly city. You can watch the full video interview and read an edited version of our conversation below.
Read MoreIn 2018, we started Children’s Funding Project based on a simple idea—kids can’t thrive without sustained financial investments in the programs and services that support them. Throughout our years in direct service, we experienced firsthand the constant challenge of securing the funds needed to support the programs our children and youth deserve. We also saw how easy it is to believe that resources for our work were, and always would be, scarce—a mindset that still affects far too many advocates and leaders for children and youth services.
Read MoreKaren Pittman is an award-winning leader in youth development and has made a career of starting initiatives and organizations that promote positive youth development—including the Forum for Youth Investment. Children’s Funding Project CEO Elizabeth Gaines recently spoke with Pittman about her career and leadership in the field of positive youth development.
Read MoreState legislative sessions are wrapping up around the country and many legislatures made significant investments in children and youth services this year. Thanks to unexpectedly large budget surpluses in many states over the past several years, state legislatures had a unique opportunity to invest in child care, preschool, home visiting, after-school, and summer learning programs and services that have been chronically underfunded.
Read MoreErica Crawley has served as a county commissioner in Franklin County, OH, since 2021, and is a former member of the Ohio House of Representatives. During her tenure, Commissioner Crawley championed the creation of a child care support team that recommended ways Franklin County could invest its federal COVID-relief funds to support kids. This work led Franklin County to allocate $22.5 million of its American Rescue Plan funding to initiatives to support early childhood providers and families with young children. That represents nearly 9% of the county’s State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds. Specifically, the federal relief funds pay for early learning scholarships for families, incentive payments for licensed child care centers and home-based providers, and rental support for child care workers.
Read MoreThe spring 2023 early primary and special election season brought several wins that will provide dedicated funding to support children. Learn about how these three communities said “yes” to supporting children below.
Read MoreDuring the 2021-2022 school year, Children’s Funding Project partnered with Boston Public Schools Department of Early Childhood to develop a cost model to inform the district’s and city’s funding of universal preschool classrooms in community-based child care centers. The act of developing the cost model and engaging with community members and universal preschool providers in Boston allowed us to develop a new funding formula for universal preschool that supports high-quality learning and stabilizes classrooms.
Read MoreOver the past decade, New York City rapidly expanded its publicly funded early care and education system, moving from a small, targeted program to one that serves nearly 100,000 children from birth to age five. New York City utilized multiple different funding streams to successfully grow its services. As detailed in this Children’s Funding Project fact sheet, blending and braiding are common strategies that states and localities, like New York City, use when building their early care and education programs.
Read MoreThe American Rescue Plan created an incredible opportunity to change this status quo, pumping more than $500 billion into states and communities that, if used strategically, can serve as a down payment for sustained and robust investment in kids and other needs going forward. To ensure that these funds are truly transformative rather than one-off investments, states and localities must think now about how to sustain them long term with strategic public financing.
Read MoreAs we enter the 2023 state legislative sessions, state finances are in a historically healthy position. A thriving economy allowed many states to realize tax revenue that exceeded their initial annual budget projections, while robust relief from the American Rescue Plan continued to help states recover from losses they experienced early in the pandemic. Each of the last two years, state general fund revenue has grown at a healthy pace of about 15% on average across all states.
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