America has a set of creation myths. One of these is that we are a melting pot. Immigrants come to America and blend their unique contributions into an homogeneous broth that is an ever evolving American culture. In this metaphor, children and grandchildren of first gene ration immigrants gradually lose their cultural identity and become more or less indistinguishably “American.” …
A Simple Financing Self Assessment
Questions to Answer about Financing an Agenda to Improve Results for Children and Families How to use this self assessment questionnaire: List each element of your action plan down the left side of a sheet. For each element that needs to be funded, ask all of the following questions. Make notes on the right side of the sheet about any financing approaches that look …
Using Results and Performance Accountability to Improve the Well-being of Children and Families
This paper is about a disciplined thinking process that helps people get from talk to action, specifically actions that will measurably improve the lives of children, families and communities. It is now being used, in whole or in part, in 40 states and at least 6 countries. It breaks with past planning methods in several important ways. First it begins …
Results-Based Grantmaking
Some Truths about Grantmaking: It is sometimes hard to speak the truth about grantmaking. As one foundation executive put it: “Since I joined the foundation world, I haven’t had a bad idea or a bad lunch.” Foundations have power and prestige. People are sometimes afraid to be candid. There is a real risk that foundation initiatives suffer the “emperor has …
Why Should I Care?
Reasons to Invest in the Well-being of Children and Families People support investments in the well-being of children and families for many different reasons. The following Afirst person@ profiles explore some of the most important reasons from the perspective of different county, city and community partners. 1. County Supervisor or Commissioner: AElected office is no picnic today, if it ever was. …
Reforming Finance-Financing Reform: What Works Policy Brief
Why bother with Financing Reform? There are a few simple reasons why we need to pay attention to service and finance reform. First, the cost of bad results is killing us. We are spending more and more money on family and children’s services at a time when evidence suggests things are actually getting worse (rising costs of foster care, juvenile …
Reforming Finance: Financing Reform for Family and Children’s Services
A. Introduction: Financing reform has two meanings. How do we come up with the money to pay for the reform of family and children’s services? And how do we reform the financing systems which themselves drive and shape these services? Both questions start with the idea that reform is somehow necessary. What is reform? And why bother with this when so …
11 Things a Legislature could consider doing to promote Results Based-Accountability
Here are 11 things a legislature could consider to change the way people work together, and to improve the measurable well-being of children, families and communities. 1. Create a special committee to assess the overall well-being of children and families: There is no need to start by changing the existing committee structure. It may make sense, however to create a new …
The Matter of Evidence
A Short Treatise on the Rules of Evidence in Budget Court In order to show that there are benefits of investing in prevention, and in particular, that there are cost savings, we need evidence. What kind of evidence do we need? What will pass muster? What will help us make a convincing case? What will allow us to close a …
We’re here to partner with you as long as you want to work on our agenda
The Mismatch Between State, County and Neighborhood Agendas for Children and Families It used to be that “We’re from the government and here to help you.” was one of the three great lies. Now we risk furthering cynicism about state local cooperation by repeating past mistakes under the rubric of partnership. Much progress has been made in advancing the notions …
