Working with a City Department to develop a 5-year funding strategy
CLIENT: an Francisco Department of Children, Youth, and Their Families | PROJECT LENGTH: 9 months
In 1991, the Children’s Amendment to the City Charter was passed by voters, making San Francisco the first city in the country to guarantee a dedicated funding stream to children each year in the city budget. This legislation set aside a portion of annual property taxes for a Children and Youth Fund to be used exclusively for services that benefit children and youth, establishing a five-year planning cycle for spending from the Fund. To fulfill the planning requirements of the Fund, DCYF engages young people, parents, and service providers across the city in a Community Needs Assessment (CNA) every five years to identify service priorities for children, youth, and families. The CNA informs the Services Allocation Plan (SAP) which allocates funding for citywide services for children, youth, and families to address the greatest needs that were identified by the CNA. The SAP is the plan that guides strategic funding of priorities for the 5-year cycle.
Clarity worked closely with the DCYF Leadership to convene a series of all-staff meetings to review CNA data, identify gaps in services, and prioritize them. Next, we facilitated a series of meetings with City Departments to understand overlapping and complementary city-wide efforts in each of DCYF’s funding areas. These structured meetings leveraged DCYF’s strategic planning process to clarify and coordinate efforts across City Departments to better serve the city’s children, youth, and families.
At the end of these meetings, the final SAP articulated DCYF’s priorities and determined funding allocations for the next 5-years.
