News

Looking Back to Look Ahead: Leveraging Federal Stimulus Investments & Advancing Equitable Recovery

Share

Two years ago, Congress passed the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), providing $350 billion to state, local and tribal governments for direct relief to individuals, businesses, and municipalities in hopes of stimulating the nation’s recovery from the impacts of the COVID pandemic, and to facilitate a robust and equitable recovery.

To that end, The Joyce Foundation began making a series of cross-cutting strategic investments in 2020 to build capacity, drive inclusive economic growth and help ensure that the Great Lakes region captured its fair share of the once-in-a-generation funding. The ARPA two-year anniversary gives us an opportunity to look back at the results of these early investments and provides some lessons for peer grant making organizations considering similar investments.

Since 2020, Joyce has invested nearly $8 million across 40 grants in federal economic stimulus-related efforts used for:

  • Producing new accountability tools, trainings, and research to track the flow and utilization of the funding, like Brookings Metro’s Local Government ARPA Investment Tracker and Greater MSP’s ARPA Tracker, among others.
  • Improving equitable use and access related to stimulus dollars, such as Launch, a national college and career pathways initiative.
  • Seeding innovative and policy-driven models to help them to receive public financing through ARPA like RainReady, a community-driven research and policy development effort to find solutions to urban flooding. The project subsequently attracted $6 million in ARPA funds from Cook County.
  • Providing technical assistance to states and local municipalities to better spend and compete for federal funding, such as the National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform, which administered a national community of practice among Office of Violence Prevention leaders to enhance grant writing skills.

“One of our most important reflections on this grant making is that funders can play a critical role in both supporting capacity needs of and enabling transparency and accountability over local and state spending decisions of this historic federal funding,” said Whitney Smith, the Foundation’s Executive Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer.

Other key takeaways for funders to consider include:

  • Investing with an “equity lens”—strategic investing related to securing or spending federal funds equitably requires a long-term view and sustained support to keep commitments in place.
  • Taking risks on innovation—philanthropy is in a unique position to take a chance on initiatives in the early planning stage and test new strategies or partnerships that can help position grantees’ efforts to receive greater public funding to complete projects.
  • Building public sector capacity —All municipalities, regardless of size, have administrative capacity restraints. Providing “neutral” technical assistance resources allows communities to prioritize their own needs and engage more diverse stakeholders in the effort to effectively secure federal funding.

Joyce’s early and consistent investments in this space have laid a strong foundation for the Great Lakes region to compete for and spend additional federal funding more effectively down the road. These investments are also helping researchers to better study longer-term impacts of stimulus funding and allows advocates to be in a better position to hold policymakers accountable – especially when it comes to equitable spending and sustainability of innovative models.

About The Joyce Foundation

Joyce is a nonpartisan, private foundation that invests in evidence-informed public policies and strategies to advance racial equity and economic mobility for the next generation in the Great Lakes region.

Related Content

Webinar

Emerging Research into Concealed Carry Licensing

Researchers from The Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions discussed two new research studies about the changing policy landscape regarding state concealed carry gun laws.

Policy Watch

Landmark settlement in lawsuit against Wisconsin fraudulent electors scheme

Two Joyce Foundation grantees recently reached settlement agreements in a legal case seeking to hold accountable individuals who played a key role in a scheme to submit a fraudulent slate of electors from Wisconsin in the 2020 presidential election.

Grantee Spotlight

Collective Engagement for Community Peace: Understanding the Black & Brown Researchers Collective

We caught up recently with Dr. Buggs, one of the nation’s leading experts on community violence intervention and using anti-racist methods to reduce gun violence, about the status of the Collective and what’s to come.

Grantee
Black & Brown Researchers Collective

Policy Watch

Democracy Advocates Achieve Fair Maps Victory in Wisconsin

Wisconsin achieves a huge victory with the enactment of fair maps. This victory for Wisconsin voters is the result of many years of advocacy and litigation by nonpartisan watchdog groups that took the fight for fair maps to the Supreme Court.

News

Democracy Desk: Key themes to watch this election year

the first installment of Democracy Desk, an election year series highlighting key issues throughout the Great Lakes region, and spotlighting the work of our grantee partners to ensure free, fair, accessible, safe, and trusted elections.

In The Media

Opinion: Stronger democracy is worth the investment

Op-ed by Journalism Program Director Hugh Dellios

Source
Crain's Detroit Business

In The Media

Introducing Crain's 2024 Women of Note

Crain's Chicago names Joyce's President & CEO Ellen Alberding as one of the 2024 Women of Note. Under her leadership, the Foundation has been at the forefront of tackling some of society's biggest issues.

Source
Crain's Chicago Business

Webinar

Reimagining Public Safety: Community Listening Sessions with Black Communities and Defenders

A discussion on the report "Reimagining Public Safety: Community Listening Sessions with Black Communities and Defenders" which aims to help build sustainable public safety reforms formed on a responsiveness to community needs.