How can we braid, blend, and leverage these funding streams to achieve universal milestones for residents of Oakland neighborhoods?
“We are aiming to de-silo.” Kylie Wheeler, Applied Research and Policy Manager Children’s Funding Project
Note: This post has been edited from an earlier version to reflect updated information.
Oakland is unique among cities across the country in that we already have in place several dedicated public sector funding streams for children and youth, yet we continue to experience significant challenges and stark disparities in outcomes. While our public sector institutions and non-profit community aim to change that, often much of this work is siloed and under coordinated - potentially resulting in under-levered opportunities, a maze of hard-to-navigate funding streams, and challenges ensuring accountability and transparency.
“Oakland is relatively resource abundant; And when I say that I mean, you all have in place what we at CFP are trying to….we’re trying to take other communities where you are.” - Alicia Wilson-Ahlstrom, Co-Director of Research Capacity, Children’s Funding Project
In an effort to paint a fuller picture of Oakland’s funding landscape, Oakland Thrives collaborated with the Children’s Funding Project - a non-profit national leader in public and private sector financing - over the last 8 months to produce a fiscal map of funding streams spent on youth and families in Oakland. To guide the project, we convened a Design Team of partners from local government and nonprofits and worked with budget staff at the city, county, and school district to analyze data and fill in the gaps.
The resulting analysis yielded some key findings as well as areas for ongoing research.
Summary of Fiscal Map Findings
Estimated FY 22 funding for reported programs and services for children and youth ages 0-24 totals $1.05 billion. This includes short-term COVID emergency funds of approximately $122 million, representing more than 11% of all reported funding.
Approximately two-thirds of funds originate from federal and state sources. In contrast, reported funds from locally determined measures (totaling $88.8 million) comprise 8.5% of all funds included in this survey.
School-based funding for core K-12 educational services comprises about 54% of reported funds. Of the remaining 46% of non-school based funds, educational services, family and community services and physical, mental, and behavioral health services combined comprise about 50% of investments for children under 18.
Federal supplemental relief accounted for approximately 12% of reported investments. This funding will be spent down over the course of the next few fiscal years and is not slated for replacement by new or continuing funds. The majority of reported supplemental funding contributes to investments in educational services.
Recommendations from Children’s Funding Project
Over the next 18-months, expand the fiscal map to capture a greater portion and specificity of FY19, 20, and 21 funds and to update mapping at regular intervals to capture new funding opportunities and shifts in the funding landscape once short-term and one-time funds sunset.
Oakland Thrives should use the fiscal map and the 10-Year Plan to inform the best starting point for determining short term, medium term, and long term priorities for collective impact activities going forward.
Rather than seeking to generate new funding from the outset, CFP recommends that Oakland Thrives and the Joint Powers Authority devote the next 18 months to exploring ways to align current local public funding streams and the bodies that administer them. There may be realistic shorter-term opportunities to amplify Oakland’s resources by fine tuning alignment, infrastructure, coordination, and evaluation.
You can view the full interactive fiscal map data visualization here
Last month we hosted a public webinar to share the results and intend to continue building out this important work in the future. Skip to the timestamps below to see key sections of the presentation from Children’s Funding Project. Additionally, here you’ll find links to the presentation deck, the strategic financing recommendations, and a spreadsheet of streams of public dollars that can be leveraged in current and emerging investments for cradle to career supports for Oakland children and youth.
@34:00 Short-term Action Recommendations
@34:40 Expand comprehensive fiscal mapping and continue to build local capacity to update mapping at regular intervals, maintain Power Bi tool
@40:00 Prioritize and estimate the cost of implementing around 3 activities, projects, or expansion goals for January - April 2023
@46:10 Explore ways to amplify Oakland’s resource abundance by fine tuning alignment, infrastructure, coordination, and evaluations.
@51:45 Building local expertise and by hiring local strategic public financing coordinator to drive current and future resource generation and allocation strategies for Oakland’s children, youth, and families. (called finance analysis and special project manager at Austin United Way)
@28:10 Acute challenges investment landscape we should keep on the front burner
@28:27 “NOT insignificant” expiration of one-time, short term setup funds
@28:59 Funding for infrastructure and coordination being “thinner than ideal”
@29:30 Money not “making the last mile”
What are some ideas you have for braiding funding across agencies and organizations?
Thank you to the local government partners who helped pull data and information and thank you to the members of the Fiscal Mapping Design Team for their time and thought partnership.
Fiscal Mapping Design Team
Alex Boskovich, Alameda County Community Food Bank (formerly)
Vanessa Cedeno, Office of Supervisor Dave Brown (formerly)
Bradley Johnson, City of Oakland
Jackie Perl, Office of Assemblymember Mia Bonta (formerly)
Kristin Spanos, First 5 Alameda County
Renia Webb, Office of City Council President Pro Tem Sheng Thao (formerly)
Brooklyn Williams, Office of State Superintendent Tony Thurmond (formerly)
We've identified 400 funding streams for Oakland youth and families.