Voters care about funding kids. Our new poll on voters’ views of children’s services shows that a majority of voters not only prioritize these issues but are willing to raise their taxes to support them. Now, we’re releasing new materials and results from the poll to help your community make its case for supporting kids. To make sharing the results with your community as easy as possible, we have created new slides like the one above to show the popularity and importance of funding children and youth services. View the new slides here. For an insider look at how communities are using these new poll results to build momentum for local campaigns for kids, be sure to check out our webinar recording with panelists from King County, WA, and Louisiana. View the webinar here.

This Month's Kids Funding Win

On election day, we celebrated the passage of Santa Cruz, CA’s Measure A. Nearly 83% of voters approved the measure to allocate 20% of the city’s marijuana tax revenue to youth and early childhood services. It is one of the country’s first voter-led funds that dedicates cannabis tax revenue toward services for children and youth. We have a feeling that it will be far from the last! Read more about the measure here.

Upcoming Events

American Rescue Plan: Part of a Balanced Children’s Funding Strategy (Save the Date!) While we anxiously await updates on the Build Back Better Act, it’s important for us advocates to focus on the $510 billion in American Rescue Plan funding that states can use to support kids. Join us on January 18, 2022, at 3 pm ET / Noon PT as we examine how local communities are making the most of their American Rescue Plan dollars and showcase how advocates and leaders can use our American Rescue Plan resources to support their planning.  Register for the webinar here.

In Case You Missed It

New Case Studies on Voter-Led Pre-K Programs Local elections matter for children and youth. We recently released case studies on Multnomah County, OR, and San Antonio, TX, two communities that are home to some of the largest, voter-led pre-K programs in the country. Together, they will generate $200 million in annual revenue and serve 9,000 pre-K students per year. Read the Multnomah County, OR, case study. Read the San Antonio, TX, case study. These two case studies join our previously released reports on Leon County, FL, and Escambia County, FL. Read all four case studies here. If your community is interested in pursuing a children’s funding ballot measure in 2021 or beyond, reach out to us here.

How One City Institutionalized Its Children's Budget Last year, we helped the City of New Orleans release its first ever fiscal map, a comprehensive analysis of a city’s public investments in youth and children. Now, the city has released the second annual edition of the fiscal map and will continue to produce it on a yearly basis. New Orleans is one of only three cities in the country to produce a children’s fiscal map as detailed and comprehensive as this one.  See New Orleans’ 2021 fiscal map here.   To see more fiscal maps from around the country and learn more about creating one for your own community, view our resources here.

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