Policy Goal 3: Expand access to funding opportunities
1. Are state funding opportunities sufficiently accessible to all communities, including community-based organizations?
RATIONALE: Community-based organizations (CBOs), including Black-, Indigenous-, and People of Color (BIPOC)-led organizations, are often uniquely qualified to deliver services to people who are justice system-involved. However, tribal governments, smaller CBOs, and local governments in rural and frontier communities often miss out on opportunities to advance their justice- and health-related goals because they are not aware of or equipped to access, manage, and report on federal, state, and local funding opportunities.
State and federal application and reporting requirements are in place for good reason: states have a responsibility to ensure accountable use of state and federal resources, that programs are evidence based, and to leverage data from grant programs to understand statewide and systems-level trends. However, these well-intentioned requirements can produce the unintended consequence of overly burdensome barriers to access. This can mean that the most established organizations and largest counties receive repeat funding and contracts, while those closest to the populations that funding is intended to reach are shut out from the resources they need. As states recognize the efficacy of and need for culturally relevant and responsive interventions, many state agencies are examining their own grants and contracts processes through the lens of equity and accessibility. For example, the common government practice of reimbursing for services on a delayed schedule can put smaller CBOs in precarious cash flow predicaments, which is cited as a key source of vulnerability for BIPOC-led nonprofits.
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Ways to do it
- Expand the scope and eligibility requirements to ensure funding can meet the needs of diverse communities. Consider funding CBOs directly rather than exclusively through county or municipal pass-through funding or encourage traditionally funded organizations to develop new partnerships with smaller CBOs, especially those connected to BIPOC communities.
- Set aside funding for services provided by CBOs by and for historically marginalized and underserved populations with a unique RFP. Consider pairing this opportunity with an intentional outreach strategy, capacity building support, and dedicated staffing for the slow work of building relationships where they haven’t existed before.
- Simplify and shorten the grant application process. Consider alternative submission strategies such as video or pitch meetings.
- Transition to multiyear funding, when possible, to reduce uncertainty and the administrative burden of annual reapplication.
- Offer tiered funding so applicants are competing with similarly situated organizations.
- Streamline or outsource procurement and contracting processes to make it easier for CBOs to access state contracts.
- Include community voices in funding decisions by implementing inclusive grant review processes such as inviting and paying people with lived experience to evaluate proposals.
- Issue guidance to localities on how to make their own funding opportunities more accessible, including via pass-through grant reporting requirements.
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Things to consider
- State agencies may consult with public and private funders, as well as other recipients of funding, such as the arts and philanthropy, on strategies to improve access, inclusion, and trust in their grantmaking processes.
- States should consider partnerships with local and statewide organizations that have relationships with peer-led organizations, community organizing groups, and others who have built longstanding trust with community members to facilitate meaningful feedback.
- Funding opportunities should provide the most amount of guidance and the most amount of flexibility to both promote the use of best practices, including evidence-based and traditional healing practices, and meet locally defined needs. Programmatic parameters that are too rigid and specific can hamstring grantees’ ability to be nimble and may result in programs that do not reflect local needs and assets. States should support communities working to implement evidence-based practices without implementing rigid requirements that grantees may struggle to meet.
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State Examples
2. Does the state help communities access and apply for funding?
RATIONALE: While state funding is a critical—even necessary—mechanism to bridge persistent gaps, limited awareness and experience with state funding regularly prevents small and rural jurisdictions and community-based organizations (CBOs) from accessing opportunities. States can help bridge this access gap by providing training and workshops, fostering use of evidence-based interventions, and identifying and promoting state and federal funding opportunities. As states work to increase access, many are identifying the need for new strategies to disseminate information on grant opportunities to new audiences and equip them with the information needed to submit competitive proposals.
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Ways to do it
- Provide guidance (i.e., FAQs), training, and technical assistance to localities and community-based organizations on state funding opportunities and application processes, paying particular attention to those in rural and under-resourced areas.
- Market state and federal funding opportunities beyond the standard distribution channels.
- Develop a mechanism for state and local partners to collaboratively identify what CBOs and local governments need in terms of being ready for public funding and think together about innovative and coordinated solutions.
- Hire a specific person to lead engagement and build relationships with CBOs serving priority populations.
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Things to consider
- Meet communities where they are. This could mean partnering with philanthropy, trusted associations, or affiliate groups and attending meetings outside the realm of government to share information about upcoming funding opportunities and informational webinars.
- Grant monitoring teams should educate prospective applicants on the evidence-based practices that reviewers will be looking for in applications during informational presentations and be explicit about preference for said practices in funding solicitations. States may go further by providing free capacity-building training on evidence-based strategies and incentivizing their use.
- Consider strategies for increasing transparency about past funding decisions, including sharing reviewer feedback, posting examples of successful applications, and meeting with applicants who did not receive funding to discuss their proposals’ strengths and weaknesses.
- Some capacity-building supports will fall outside the purview of a state agency. Consider partnerships with county or nonprofit associations, the statewide grants and budget office, philanthropy, or a university to disseminate grant writing resources and/or deliver grant writing training.
- Be patient. It may take several funding cycles to build an applicant pool, particularly among nontraditional grantees such as historically marginalized providers and CBOs. Word of mouth and positive experiences can be a funding opportunity’s most effective outreach strategy.
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State Examples
3. Have state agencies reviewed and streamlined their data collection and reporting requirements across state funding sources?
RATIONALE: State grants require regular reporting on key performance indicators and outcomes. These metrics often differ across funding streams (e.g., different definitions of recidivism for each grant, different lengths of time between measures), which inadvertently double the reporting workload for funding recipients tracking similar measures within a given program or intervention. A state can reduce some of this administrative burden by developing universal definitions of common terms, creating a core set of metrics across certain programs, and standardizing the reporting requirements for funding with overlapping goals and deliverables.
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Ways to do it
- Convene a cross-agency working group tasked with streamlining the state funding reporting requirements to alleviate the administrative burden on communities.
- Identify state-funded programs serving shared populations and develop strategies (e.g., a standard reporting template or platform) to align the metrics across programs to reduce the administrative burden.
- Develop statewide shared definitions of common terms, such as recidivism, homelessness, and serious mental illness, to simplify and standardize the impact evaluation and reporting requirements. See Policy Goal 2, Common Definitions.
- Co-design program objectives and metrics with funding recipients to ensure they are effectively measuring program impact.
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Things to consider
- Consider convening cross-agency grant-planning meetings at a regular cadence based on state budget and funding cycles. A quarterly or semi-annual planning meeting may help identify different agencies planning related funding opportunities that could be coordinated, including joint advertising and developing similar reporting requirements.
- Think about qualitative, as well as quantitative, ways to document the impact of investments. Testimonies from program participants, videos, and other strategies may be used to demonstrate the impact without adding to the data collection requirement.
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State Examples
4. Does the state offer or support local capacity building to help communities manage grants and implement and sustain effective programs?
RATIONALE: As state funders take steps to widen the net to make grants and contracts accessible, they are increasingly recognizing the related need to invest in capacity-building supports in the post-award phase. One goal of funding community-based organizations with established community trust, as well as agencies and providers in rural and under-resourced areas, is to help them become viable organizations that can sustain programs in the long term. States thus have an interest in supporting grants management, organizational health, and sustainability planning among their grantees to not only get them in the door with state funding but to help them thrive with this added investment.
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Ways to do it
- Provide informal guidance and support on issues of organizational health through regular grant monitoring. Help grantees address issues that may be barriers to future funding.
- Offer workshops, peer learning opportunities, and one-on-one technical assistance to grantees in the post-award phase.
- Partner with an intermediary, such as a philanthropy or a trusted, established CBO, to provide capacity-building support (i.e., training, consultation) to enhance CBOs’ readiness for public funding, organizational health, and sustainability planning.
- Help CBOs expand their capacity by raising the allowable administrative overhead rate or offering targeted capacity-building funds.
- Consider including capacity-building goals in annual agency budgetary requests and development of strategic plans for block funding.
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Things to consider
- Capacity building will likely take time. Be realistic in expectations as funded programs get established and/or scale up.
- With the current workforce shortages in many government agencies and CBOs, consider how funding can support recruitment and retention to achieve program goals. Also consider that timelines may need to be flexible if it is not possible for grantees to staff up as anticipated.
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