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Our Work

With strategic plans and dedicated funding, communities maintain essential services like clean water, safety services, and roads for society’s greater benefit or the public good. It is crucial to do the same for child- and youth-serving programs so that all children—regardless of their family’s income—receive the support they need. 

Strategic public financing helps communities maintain equitable, coordinated, and sustainable funding for comprehensive programs and services so that all children thrive. Our team helps local, state, and Native leaders; agency staff; and advocates identify existing revenue sources, align current funding with their goals, and explore ways to generate new and sustained funds to support programs for children and youth.

Our Work Includes

Strategic Public Financing

We help state, community, and Native leaders assess their current spending, assign a cost to their goals and policy priorities for children and youth, and identify ways to cover those costs in strategic and sustainable ways.

Photo credit: King County Best Starts for Kids

Fiscal Mapping

We document and analyze the various sources of funding that support programs for children in a state, city, county, or Native nation, and coach local leaders on how to collect, sustain, and use fiscal map data in their communities.

Photo credit: First Steps Kent

Cost Estimation and Modeling

We work with local leaders to estimate how much money they need to achieve their goals for kids and to build the skills, knowledge, and resources they need to grow and sustain their cost modeling expertise.

Photo credit: Allison Shelley for EDUimages

Sourcing Additional Funding

We collect examples of both common and creative funding sources currently used to support children and youth and collaborate with leaders to determine which options are viable in their context.

Photo credit: Yes for NOLA Kids

Voter-Approved Children’s Funds

We support dozens of state and local teams nationwide in establishing and maintaining voter-approved children’s funds—state or local tax revenue that voters dedicate exclusively to children and youth services via a ballot measure.

Contact us to find out how we can help in your community.