Addressing children's funding during COVID-19 and beyond

How our new Emergency Funding Guide can help your community

We love that so many of you have seen and used our Emergency Funding Guide, titled Navigating New and Flexible Funding Streams for Kids During COVID-19 . If you haven't, now's your chance to make sense of all the newly-available emergency funding and funding flexibilities being created at the federal level. We are continuing to update it with examples of communities that are doing this especially well.

But even for those who have seen the guide, you may be wondering about the best way to use it. We've put together the below list of recommendations to help you dive into the content. If you have any additional questions, let us know and we'll direct you to any more resources you may need.

Read our newly-updated Emergency Funding Guide here.

What We're Working On

Question: What will children's funding look like after COVID-19?

Answer: That depends on what steps we take now to set ourselves up for the future. Policymakers, funders, and advocates are rightfully pivoting to address the pressing needs of the pandemic. At the same time, we should be setting the stage for equitable recovery after the pandemic by planning for the continuation of kids' programs and services.

CFP Executive Director Elizabeth Gaines breaks down her suggested steps that leaders and communities can take to achieve sustained recovery through the lens of our Find, Align, Generate, and Activate framework.

Read her blog series on how we can set our communities up for future funding success here .

Why an economic recession doesn't mean the end of children's funding

Our most recent report looks at how communities can overcome economic recessions to create,

reauthorize, and maintain a local dedicated children's fund (LDF). LDFs are one of the most sustainable and flexible ways of funding children's services. We found that many communities successfully campaigned for and reauthorized LDFs during the Great Recession by using new messaging and creative ways of gaining public support.

We observed that communities with established funds were able to respond to the 2008 economic downturn in especially constructive ways, something we've also found to be true during COVID-19. LDFs give communities flexibility in addressing disaster situations like pandemics by providing response support and acting as a point of connection and collaboration for public and private stakeholders.

Read the full report on LDFs and recessions here.

This Month's Kids Funding Win

In the midst of one of the most unprecedented economic crises of our time, Anchorage, Alaska achieved a great children's funding win with voters passing a 5% tax on alcoholic beverages. This new measure is expected to raise between $11 - $15 million dollars dedicated to health and safety services, including early education programs for children.

This success follows a similar, failed initiative that advocates attempted to pass last year. Following that setback, organizers worked hard to build more support for this year's tax by reaching out to business and local political leaders. Their efforts paid off, showing that it is possible to raise taxes for kids and families even when the economic system is in limbo (something we also highlighted in our recession paper above).

Read more about Anchorage's new dedicated tax here.