Policy Goal 4: Foster creative funding partnerships
Has the state brokered partnerships to help secure financial participation from the private sector and philanthropy?
RATIONALE: Communities are struggling to address public health and safety problems that no one system or sector has the resources, ability, or responsibility to solve alone. Private sector stakeholders—including health plans, hospitals, and the business community—and philanthropic organizations have a clear stake in these complex challenges but are often untapped in standing up the creative solutions required. States can spearhead public–private partnerships and improve coordination across sectors by convening public and private sector leaders to understand the most pressing needs, establish shared goals, and identify opportunities to support and fund local collaborative responses to improve public health and safety.
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Ways to do it
- Invite philanthropy and health leaders to participate in or present to state commissions and join the conversation about state strategies for behavioral health–criminal justice investments.
- Directly broker or help communities form partnerships with the private sector.
- Engage the private sector, including foundations, to support demonstration programs of cutting-edge models. This is a space where the private sector can provide leadership and help build support for future public investment.
- Incentivize managed care organizations (MCOs) to target a shared population, such as “familiar faces,” with comprehensive, proactive supports and services using a collaborative, multiagency approach.
- Explore different reinvestment-oriented or performance- or outcomes-based contracting models.
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Things to consider
- State leaders can initiate or provide technical assistance to communities on forming partnerships with private sector entities that have a stake in cross-systems work (e.g., private hospitals, health plans, housing developers). States can convene groups of private sector leaders in health and housing to explore public–private collaboration and push private partners to make socially responsible investments.
- States can engage philanthropic organizations—particularly those whose missions align with seeding innovation—to help communities secure an initial investment to create new programs. The state can demonstrate its stake in the issue by providing funding to sustain and even scale up these services and programs if certain outcomes are met.
- States can also seed flexible subsidy pools or performance-based models (i.e., pay-for-success) where philanthropy makes the first investment. Consider tying funding to specific incentives and benchmarks.
- Some states are using MCO contracts to encourage health plans to support more creative strategies to reduce enrollees’ cycling through crisis and health systems, including requirements that address members’ housing-related needs. Requirements may include screening and assessment, employing housing navigators or coordinators, and coordinating with housing providers and continuums of care.
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