Using What Works Series: New Strategic Financing Webinar Recording and Tools

Shift­ing to test­ed, effec­tive pro­grams for chil­dren and fam­i­lies in a com­mu­ni­ty not only requires agree­ing on joint pri­or­i­ties. It also often takes iden­ti­fy­ing and shift­ing fund­ing mech­a­nisms to finance a new way of pro­vid­ing services.

In the lat­est webi­nar in the Using What Works series high­light­ing tools of the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Evidence2Success frame­work, experts described the com­po­nents of a strate­gic financ­ing plan for pro­grams proven to work for chil­dren and fam­i­lies and new financ­ing approach­es being adopt­ed around the country.

Lis­ten to a record­ing of the Strate­gic Financ­ing for Test­ed, Effec­tive Pro­grams webinar

The webi­nar also intro­duced a new Strate­gic Financ­ing Toolk­it based on the Evidence2Success approach to help com­mu­ni­ties through each stage of cre­at­ing a strate­gic financ­ing plan, with work­sheets for devel­op­ing financ­ing goals and instruc­tions for deter­min­ing the resources need­ed; under­stand­ing what resources are avail­able and being spent on chil­dren and fam­i­lies; devis­ing financ­ing strate­gies and cre­at­ing a work plan to assign roles and respon­si­bil­i­ties. The work­sheets are avail­able through the Toolkit.

“The goal of the work is to help lead­ers who make deci­sions about how dol­lars are invest­ed in com­mu­ni­ties to use good data, both on the needs of the chil­dren and fam­i­lies in the com­mu­ni­ties and on what works,” said Mar­garet Fly­nn-Khan, a part­ner at Main­spring Con­sult­ing who devel­oped the financ­ing tools for the Foun­da­tion. ​“Get­ting togeth­er to devel­op a com­pre­hen­sive financ­ing plan is real­ly the start­ing point to being able to work togeth­er in a dynam­ic fund­ing environment.”

Eliz­a­beth Gaines, a senior fel­low at the Forum for Youth Invest­ment, which co-host­ed the webi­nar series, said children’s cab­i­nets that bring togeth­er the lead­ers of child-serv­ing orga­ni­za­tions in cities and states have been lead­ing the way in devel­op­ing col­lab­o­ra­tive financ­ing strate­gies to improve child out­comes. ​“If we are not real­ly inten­tion­al about what we are doing, we are miss­ing an oppor­tu­ni­ty to effec­tive­ly and effi­cient­ly serve chil­dren and fam­i­lies,” she said.

Watch a video about financ­ing Evidence2Success.

Down­load the Strate­gic Financ­ing Toolk­it for Test­ed, Effec­tive Pro­grams.

Watch oth­er webi­na­rs from the Using What Works series:

• Pre­vent­ing Prob­lems Before They Start