Updated New Release: The Cradle to Career Guide to Federal Relief Funding for Kids During and Beyond COVID-19
Last April we released the first edition of Navigating New and Flexible Funding Streams for Kids During COVID-19 in response to questions many of you had about leveraging emergency funding to support children, youth, and families.

Over the last year, we’ve released several updates to this guide as new federal relief packages passed with a game-changing $50 billion investment in child care, unprecedented temporary expansions of the Child Tax Credit and Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit, and billions of dollars in funding set-aside for out-of-school time and learning recovery.

Now, as our inboxes have filled up with questions about the American Rescue Plan, we’re pleased to share an updated guide that incorporates new funding from all six federal relief acts and guidance for the child and youth fields on navigating these new dollars. This release also highlights states and communities that have creatively leveraged federal relief funding for kids in the past year.

Thank you to the tireless providers, advocates, and leaders who have persevered through the pandemic and who lent their voices to help pass this new act. We dedicate this guide to you all!
What we're reading

  • Amelia Vaughn, Senior Project Manager: With my work on fiscal mapping, I spend a lot of time looking at how local budgets can best serve kids. I found this article from Route Fifty, “Equity Budgeting in Cities: Directing Dollars Where They’re Needed Most,” extremely informative in highlighting strategies for cities to make up for past injustices by redirecting resources to communities of color. 

  • Olivia Allen, Strategy Director: “Policy change is hard—and even harder is winning campaigns that put local leaders front and center, and that enact policies that support communities that have traditionally held less power. But it’s the only way to address the systemic problems that funders and advocates want to solve.” -Building the Advocacy Infrastructure to Win Equity Victories for Children and Families. There is so much good advice here as we dive head first into the world of advocacy campaigns with the creation of the Children’s Funding Accelerator - CFP’s companion 501c4 political fund. I am looking forward to using the principles outlined by Sara and Kim to improve our support of equitable advocacy infrastructure in 2021 and beyond!

  • Elizabeth Gaines, Executive Director: This new book by my current friend and former colleague Stephanie Malia Krauss, titled Making It: What Today's Kids Need for Tomorrow's World, provides research, stories, and strategies for anyone raising, educating, or supporting young people today. The book should be required reading for anyone shaping public policy this year and beyond.
In Case You Missed It
A step-by-step webinar on how your state can support infants and toddlers

What steps can your state take to maximize strategic investment in infants and toddlers? In this webinar with the Wisconsin Early Childhood Association, we discuss how Wisconsin used fiscal mapping, cost modeling, revenue yield research, and more to create one of the most comprehensive pictures of state funding for I&Ts in the country - plus how you can do the same.

Join us at the Ready by 21 National Meeting

The Forum for Youth Investment will be hosting their 9th annual Ready by 21 National Meeting on May 19-20, 2021 which brings together local, state, and national leaders who like you are committed to improving partnerships, policies, and practices for children and youth. CFP will be there and we hope to see you there!
This Month's Kids Funding Win
The New Mexico state legislature voted to place a measure on the November 2022 ballot that would tap into its Land Grant Permanent Fund, raising over $120 million/year for early childhood programs. If passed, this would be one of the largest state sources of dedicated income for kids in the country, providing a much needed investment in pre-K child care, home visiting, and more. In the words of the Santa Fe New Mexican: "Adopting the amendment would make New Mexico the first state in the nation to guarantee a right to education to children younger than 5."

On the federal level, we saw one of the most sweeping acts in modern US history to affect the lives of millions of children; by some estimates it will reduce child poverty in half! It will also increase the amount of youth receiving stimulus checks by 15 million, as compared to the previous CARES Act stimulus payments. This support from the national level is important, and coupled with recent state (e.g., Colorado’s Measure EE) and local (e.g., Multnomah County’s Preschool for All) actions, begins to fill the funding gap that today’s children and youth need.

A bright future awaits kids in the country if the federal, state, and local governments continue to step up to the funding plate!