City Council Work Session - Vibrant Community Fund and CAT Title VI   6/22/2021

1. WORK SESSION

2. CALL TO ORDER

• • SPEAKER_11
  • 00:00:02
    So I called this meeting to order.
  • 00:00:04
    We are having a special session on work session on the Vibrant Community Fund.

3. ROLL CALL

• • SPEAKER_11
  • 00:00:10
    Ms.
  • 00:00:10
    Thomas, would you do roll call, please?
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 00:00:15
    Mayor Walker?
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 00:00:17
    Present.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 00:00:18
    Vice Mayor McGill?
  • 00:00:20
    Here.
  • 00:00:21
    Councillor Hill?
  • 00:00:22
    Here.
  • 00:00:22
    Councillor Payne?
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 00:00:24
    Here.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 00:00:25
    Councillor Snoke?
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 00:00:26
    Here.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 00:00:28
    Thank you.

4. REPORTS

• • SPEAKER_05
  • 00:00:30
    And Mr. Bowles, I'll turn it over to you.
• • SPEAKER_00
  • 00:00:39
    You're muted.
  • 00:00:43
    It says there's a note that comes on when I start talking says you big dummy.
  • 00:00:50
    We originally had scheduled on the agenda for today, both the vibrant communities fund as well as a Charlottesville area transit
  • 00:01:01
    Title VI report.
  • 00:01:03
    The consultants are still working on completing the transit report, so we'll bring that back to you at a later date, but we will make a presentation on the Vibrant Communities Funds and then engage in discussion with council on how you'd like for us to progress from here.
  • 00:01:22
    And with that, I will turn it over to Ms.
  • 00:01:24
    Taki Demick.

5. Vibrant Community Fund (3:00pm - 5:00pm)

VCF Worksession AGENDA 6-22-21Vibrant Community Fund 6-22-21 FINAL SLIDEDECK
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 00:01:27
    Good afternoon, everybody.
  • 00:01:32
    that we recognize, let me start by saying that there's lots to talk about, and we probably aren't going to be able to talk about all the things related to Vibrant Community Fund today.
  • 00:01:42
    And so in our prioritization about what we felt like we needed to cover today is all the content that would give us guidance for how to create the fiscal year 23
  • 00:01:57
    funding process for nonprofits, which we need to provide guidance and structure for the nonprofits who would apply to us for funding this summer and then be able to launch the process this fall.
  • 00:02:10
    But there are a number of things that can be concurrent or could be immediately following this.
  • 00:02:15
    And so I just want to acknowledge that.
  • 00:02:16
    So the prioritization that we used was stuff that information and guidance that we needed from you more immediately.
  • 00:02:24
    So
  • 00:02:24
    I have a very exciting, absolutely image-free PowerPoint.
  • 00:02:29
    It's just words, but they're words that are structured in a way that hopefully will get us into a good conversation and structured to answer some of the specific questions.
  • 00:02:40
    Mr. Wheeler, thank you so much.
  • 00:02:42
    As usual, reading my mind.
  • 00:02:46
    Next slide, please.
  • 00:02:47
    So that's what we're here to talk about, continuous improvement.
  • 00:02:50
    So the vibrant community fund in other using other names has been involved and
  • 00:02:59
    the city granting money to outside agencies since 1984.
  • 00:03:02
    So we've had a long history of providing funding to local nonprofits.
  • 00:03:06
    We've learned a lot over that time to do it efficiently and well.
  • 00:03:10
    We have adapted over the years, sometimes just a little bit and sometimes significant amounts.
  • 00:03:15
    I mean this to mention to identify that this process of continuous improvement is perpetual
  • 00:03:22
    and historical.
  • 00:03:23
    So we anticipate that every year we're going to tweak and sometimes tweak in a big way and sometimes tweak in a small way to try to make it better.
  • 00:03:31
    Many community members have helped us over these years to review applications so that we have additional layers of objectivity and varied perspectives in our review.
  • 00:03:40
    This is pretty critical for us to do our work, and we remain grateful for this service to the city.
  • 00:03:46
    We have recently started paying people for their time to do this, but for many, many, many years we did not.
  • 00:03:51
    And so just want to acknowledge that many people have participated in our process.
  • 00:03:58
    So we start tonight with a list of, or this afternoon, with a list of concerns or points of tension.
  • 00:04:04
    And so
  • 00:04:05
    I mentioned the tension sometimes between the city and nonprofits, sometimes between council and staff, between council and nonprofits, staff and nonprofits.
  • 00:04:15
    And it's our intention to identify these points of tension and then provide what we think is a suggested opportunity for improvement or a solution.
  • 00:04:24
    So the points of tension that we're going to cover tonight, some of them overlap.
  • 00:04:30
    are that the process right now does not allow for investments in startups beyond the $10,000 capacity grants.
  • 00:04:38
    The process does not allow for investments and solutions to emerging needs.
  • 00:04:43
    So it's not very responsive or adept or quick.
  • 00:04:48
    Council has limited trust and faith in the review process.
  • 00:04:51
    Council has limited confidence in staff expertise.
  • 00:04:55
    The process does not prioritize equity needs sufficiently.
  • 00:04:59
    does not include or prioritize consumer feedback.
  • 00:05:02
    The priority categories are very broad, and so they allow for a pathway for the vast majority of local agencies, which in some ways is reflective of one value.
  • 00:05:12
    Another value would be to specify the intentional narrow categories to limit the number of applications.
  • 00:05:21
    And this is, of course, that value is yours to help us figure out.
  • 00:05:27
    The process does not establish a mechanism for understanding agency need for local support or prioritize that need.
  • 00:05:35
    Requests for funding are made throughout the year, so despite the fact that we have this process, there are out of cycle requests, and so there's some need for some guidance around that.
  • 00:05:44
    The process does not allow for multiple year commitments for great ideas that we would like to commit to supporting over many years.
  • 00:05:52
    The
  • 00:05:52
    Most recent funding of the Food Equity Initiative comes to mind as an organization that was seeking multiple year commitments, and we were unable to do that through this process.
  • 00:06:02
    And that essential services are subject to competition for funding, and so we'll talk a little bit about that.
  • 00:06:06
    We have historically referred to some of those agencies that are not subject to competition, it's contractual, and I'm going to make a proposal that we have a different name for some of them.
  • 00:06:17
    Next slide, please.
  • 00:06:20
    The point of tension first is that this does not allow for the process to date does not allow for investments in startups.
  • 00:06:27
    So our proposed solution is to create a limited startup funding pool that would set aside $200,000 of the existing pool for Vibrant Community Fund, specifically for startups, fund two projects with grants up to $100,000 each, anticipate a second year of funding up to $50,000 each if outcomes are met,
  • 00:06:48
    There's a mechanism for that second year funding later on in this presentation.
  • 00:06:53
    Staff would evaluate and support progress through quarterly site visits in advance of quarterly payments.
  • 00:06:59
    Staff would provide technical assistance for organizational development.
  • 00:07:03
    And we recommend prioritizing new programs or initiatives that are responding to emerging needs or responding to entrenched unmet needs in our community.
  • 00:07:11
    projects that use an equity lens through implementation and resource distribution and those projects that improve a system of care through enhanced collaboration coordination and strategic alignment of resources.
  • 00:07:24
    Next slide.
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 00:07:25
    Quick question.
  • 00:07:28
    Would that mean that for the second year that we would only cover one startup potentially?
  • 00:07:37
    Or does that mean that there would be an additional $100,000 added?
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 00:07:43
    Well, that's a great question.
  • 00:07:44
    I hadn't thought about that, the impact of that second year funding.
  • 00:07:48
    I was anticipating that that $200,000 would be fresh every year.
  • 00:07:52
    and so the $50,000, the support of that $50,000 would come from the larger vibrant community pool and they would have priority access to that.
  • 00:08:00
    They wouldn't have to compete for those funds and based on an approval that they've met their obligations for the first year, they would be first in line for whatever was available.
• • SPEAKER_09
  • 00:08:12
    And also the anticipation with these funding was should there not be applicants that meet the criteria for the startup funding pool that this carve out of the $200,000 would be available to go to the larger overall pool or one of the other things we talk about later with the specific emerging needs and those types of things.
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 00:08:40
    Yeah.
  • 00:08:43
    Next slide, please, Mr. Wheeler.
  • 00:08:47
    So you're already there, probably.
  • 00:08:48
    I just missed it.
  • 00:08:49
    Point of attention, this current system does not allow for investments and solutions to emerging needs.
  • 00:08:55
    From my perspective over the last several years, this is a source of great frustration for council that because this process is long and necessarily sort of process heavy for us to sort of make good use and responsible use of the
  • 00:09:13
    taxpayer dollars.
  • 00:09:15
    We are not in a position to sort of pivot quickly to respond to emerging needs.
  • 00:09:19
    And so I'm recommending, we're recommending that we set aside $100,000 from the vibrant community pool to use throughout the fiscal year.
  • 00:09:27
    So knowing that at some point in the next 12 months, there will become an emerging need and maybe an emerging solution that you want to match to that and that you should be able to have some flexibility about responding to that.
  • 00:09:40
    Anticipate funding up to two non-profit
  • 00:09:42
    Services with grants up to $50,000 each.
  • 00:09:45
    Again, staff support and evaluate progress through quarterly site visits in advance of the quarterly payments.
  • 00:09:51
    This would also allow newer nonprofits without long-established track records to apply.
  • 00:09:56
    And we're recommending that you prioritize projects and initiatives that respond to an emerging need that has been identified by council staff and community, and that the organization is poised to respond and make a difference quickly.
  • 00:10:08
    And so you may recall around the stimulus dollars
  • 00:10:13
    In the Obama administration, there was this idea of shovel ready, like a project that was ready to implement pretty quickly.
  • 00:10:22
    Next slide, please.
  • 00:10:25
    The third point of tension is, maybe we're actually beyond three, but a council has limited faith, trust, and confidence in staff or the process.
  • 00:10:35
    Our proposed solution is that we establish a formal orientation to the vibrant community process for council.
  • 00:10:41
    We actually carve out the necessary time to be able to do that.
  • 00:10:45
    Introduce council to the staff involved in the vibrant community process so that they're aware of their skills, experience, relationships, and knowledge.
  • 00:10:53
    Clarify the staff role in the process and the review panel role in the process and introduce council to the application tools and processes
  • 00:11:01
    so that you're aware of all the baked-in assumptions, priorities, et cetera.
  • 00:11:07
    Next slide, please.
  • 00:11:10
    Next point of tension is that the process does not prioritize equity needs sufficiently.
  • 00:11:14
    You may recall last year we added equity as one of the formal priorities, but that allowed for organizations to apply that we're not prioritizing equity in any specific or intentional way.
  • 00:11:27
    And that became a conversation during your deliberations about whether equity should be weighted differently.
  • 00:11:33
    And so our recommendation is that you prioritize equity as a requirement for all applications and then apply the previously identified funding priorities.
  • 00:11:45
    Next slide, please.
  • 00:11:47
    The point of tension here is that the process does not include or prioritize consumer feedback.
  • 00:11:52
    And our proposed solution is to create a mechanism for consumer feedback.
  • 00:11:56
    And so there's multiple mechanisms included here because I do think it's going to be difficult and labor intensive for us to get this feedback and yet very critical for our deliberations.
  • 00:12:09
    First recommendation under this group is to conduct focus groups with community members during council's strategic planning process to understand gaps, needs, and underfunded resources.
  • 00:12:20
    Research existing best practice models for including consumer feedback as part of grant making.
  • 00:12:24
    Some of that has already begun with staff.
  • 00:12:27
    Review community risk reduction assessment, stepping stones report, the American Community Survey, and MAP consumer work results.
  • 00:12:35
    There's a lot of information that reflects consumer interest already out there, and so we recommend including that as part of this process.
  • 00:12:43
    and require that all vibrant community fund applications include specific information about the way consumer feedback is included in the strategic planning, programmatic planning, and individual case planning.
  • 00:12:55
    Include also percentage of consumers whose feedback is solicited and percentage of consumers whose feedback is provided.
  • 00:13:01
    One of the things that we've noticed over time is that while a survey may go out to all consumers of a particular nonprofit, their feedback is only about 7%.
  • 00:13:11
    It's hard to say that that's reflective of consumers, of all consumers in their opinion.
  • 00:13:17
    Provide specific feedback provided by consumers and then how it was used within the agency.
  • 00:13:23
    And I should note that this last piece is already embedded in our application.
  • 00:13:29
    And what we would do is emphasize that and add the additional requirements.
  • 00:13:34
    Next slide, please.
  • 00:13:36
    Next point of attention is the priority categories are broad.
  • 00:13:40
    So our solution is to identify broad and specific funding priorities.
  • 00:13:44
    So include the vibrant community fund and out of cycle funding priority setting in Council's comprehensive strategic planning process.
  • 00:13:51
    Part of the details that you get to in your strategic planning using existing community well being data, soliciting consumer community feedback and including staff recommendations.
  • 00:14:02
    A recommendation would be to identify broad programmatic priorities within each subject matter priority.
  • 00:14:08
    For example, you might have a health and mental health broad priority, but your programmatic priority would be you're particularly interested in supporting additional or expanded peer support services or alternatives to the 911.
  • 00:14:24
    Next slide, please.
  • 00:14:26
    Point of tension here is that there's no mechanism for considering agency need for funding.
  • 00:14:31
    The proposed solution is to include agency need in our application process.
  • 00:14:35
    And so while we have this question embedded in our application, which is describe what the program will do if it does not receive any or all of the funds requested, be as specific as possible, would funds be sought from other sources, would services or staffing decrease?
  • 00:14:51
    Right now that's a question we ask in the application and we report the results of that question, the answers to that question in our annual report to the city manager and city council.
  • 00:15:01
    If we were to emphasize this, then this might be a question that actually gets scored, and then we might actually score, give additional points to those agencies who would not be able to provide the services if they didn't receive all of the funds.
  • 00:15:16
    I will say that this is an area that we continue to do some research on to try to find if there's a best practice about how it is that we can assess and evaluate an agency's need
  • 00:15:26
    we are reliant on them for the reporting of the answers to this question and the other question related to them.
  • 00:15:34
    Next slide please.
  • 00:15:37
    This point of tension is that requests are made for funding throughout the year and there was some discussion about this last night, the city council meeting as we considered two out of cycle requests and you have a policy and so we're recommending that their policy might be narrowed or made slightly clearer
  • 00:15:56
    Require that proposals address the broad and specific priorities identified in the strategic plan.
  • 00:16:02
    Require that agencies meet the basic vibrant community fund eligibility criteria and file the same required paperwork.
  • 00:16:09
    Require that agencies demonstrate a meaningful and compelling reason why they were unable to submit an application during the vibrant community fund process.
  • 00:16:17
    Limit the request to under $50,000.
  • 00:16:20
    Require that at least two council members support the public consideration of the proposal.
  • 00:16:25
    and staff evaluate progress through quarterly site visits in advance of quarterly payments.
  • 00:16:30
    Future funding would be awarded only through the vibrant community fund process through the more traditional competitive.
  • 00:16:38
    Next slide, please.
  • 00:16:40
    point of attention is that this process currently does not have baked in process for evaluating outcomes and you've noticed I hope in the course of some of the proposed solutions that we've already gone through that we're recommending that staff do quarterly site visits to evaluate progress throughout the year for specific applicants based on what school that they end up in.
  • 00:17:02
    This would be a significant increase in the amount of staff involvement in both the evaluation process and during the course of the year.
  • 00:17:10
    And so at some point we may have to evaluate the capacity of existing staff to be able to meet this expectation.
  • 00:17:16
    But it does allow for us to do more specific intentional focus on evaluation.
  • 00:17:22
    In addition, we're recommending that staff provide evaluation and outcome training to all prospective applicants as a prerequisite to application so that everyone
  • 00:17:32
    is starting with the same information or knowledge around what a process outcome is versus an impact outcome and the sort of ways in which we can evaluate our program that are most meaningful in terms of getting to that kind of impact.
  • 00:17:48
    Authorize and require staff to provide information to counsel and to review team on previous year's evaluation process.
  • 00:17:53
    And so if reports from last year are relevant to the consideration for this year, that we're allowed to share that information.
  • 00:18:01
    Staff evaluate progress through quarterly site visits as I've discussed in advance of quarterly payments for organizations that are receiving startup and emerging needs funding and any agency receiving more than $50,000.
  • 00:18:12
    And you are asking that you require staff to include consumer feedback in the evaluation process, which is a reference to the previous slide.
  • 00:18:22
    Next slide, please.
  • 00:18:24
    Point of attention here is that application of the process currently doesn't allow for multiple year commitments.
  • 00:18:30
    Proposed solution is to create a mechanism for making two-year awards.
  • 00:18:34
    It's important to make the distinction that we're suggesting that you might make a two-year award, but that, in fact, you cannot appropriate for future years, so they would be subject to formal appropriation and to availability of funds, and also for successful progress towards performance goals identified in a formal grant agreement.
  • 00:18:58
    and what we're suggesting here is that they would not be required to apply for the funding that would be first in line for available funds, but that you could not make a future formal commitment until the funds were actually appropriate.
  • 00:19:12
    Sorry, I did that in a circular way, but hopefully you understand what I'm trying to say.
  • 00:19:17
    The next slide, please point attention.
  • 00:19:21
    And this is the final slide, and this reflects considerable conversation
  • 00:19:27
    in the deliberation process around what constitutes a contractual agency versus a competitive agency and whether they're agencies that fall somewhere in between.
  • 00:19:36
    There's not a formal contract, but the city has a specific or vested interest in making sure that they have some sustainability, which is different from funding a program one year at a time.
  • 00:19:48
    So we're suggesting that you identify an essential service category and include agencies that provide a service that localities are required to provide.
  • 00:19:58
    include agencies that provide emergency shelter services for people experiencing homelessness include agencies that provide critical system coordination services like that reduce duplication and improve system impact include agencies that provide a service that directly avoids jail costs review essential service applications through the vibrant community fund review team but list them separately in the council report and expand review of traditional contractual agency applications to include a team of three content
  • 00:20:30
    So those are all the wordy slides we have for you tonight.
  • 00:20:33
    And so we're happy to go through sort of one by one or go back to places where you want to sort of launch the conversation.
  • 00:20:40
    We really are hoping for some concrete feedback to steer the staff process for the fiscal year 2020.
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 00:20:51
    I think the one by one would be helpful.
• • SPEAKER_07
  • 00:20:54
    I would also like to thank you for the extraordinary amount of work that has gone into
  • 00:21:00
    figuring this out and pinpointing things.
  • 00:21:03
    That's, I think, has got an incredible handle on all the pain points going on.
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 00:21:10
    Well, thank you.
  • 00:21:11
    I will say that I cannot claim that any of that glory myself.
  • 00:21:14
    It's been a team effort, of course.
  • 00:21:17
    And so we've had many, many smarty pants people who were involved in the creation.
• • SPEAKER_07
  • 00:21:22
    I'm thanking the whole team.
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 00:21:24
    Okay, great.
  • 00:21:27
    So, Mr. Wheeler, could you bring up the slides again so we could go one by one?
  • 00:21:31
    Thank you, sir.
  • 00:21:34
    The next one.
  • 00:21:37
    So the startup pool.
• • SPEAKER_12
  • 00:21:42
    I guess I would just say more generally as I'm thinking about all these things, if we're realistic about
  • 00:21:47
    the startup amount that we're setting aside, the amount aside we're setting aside for the requests that come throughout the fiscal year when we're thinking about all these essential services and not treating them the same way for the competitive process.
  • 00:22:00
    I'm starting to wonder how much would be left for a competitive process.
  • 00:22:03
    Do you have a sense, Kathy, of just kind of where we're at in terms of buckets of money and especially when the essential services, which we can get to later, but I'm just, this slide is already getting that in my head around like, how does this all add up
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 00:22:17
    I didn't do the math on the essential services slide.
  • 00:22:21
    I wonder if Ryan might have some fast mechanism for doing that.
  • 00:22:33
    It would certainly shrink the pool of available funds for the strictly competitive process if you prioritize some of these other tools.
• • SPEAKER_09
  • 00:22:43
    Right.
  • 00:22:43
    And what I would say with the
  • 00:22:47
    Definitely with this slide and the next slide where we're talking about what's essentially a carve out for a new pool of funding that's roughly $300,000, $400,000 depending on what you look at with second year impacts and all of that.
  • 00:23:06
    That would come from the overall pool which was in the neighborhood of
  • 00:23:12
    2.4, 2.6 million, I believe.
  • 00:23:14
    I don't have that right in front of me for the last fiscal year.
  • 00:23:19
    However, when we're talking about those essential services, now many of those are already being funded through either the contractual process or the Vibrant Community Fund process.
  • 00:23:32
    So it would just be
  • 00:23:34
    In essence, it could in some cases be a shifting of existing dollars into this new pool as opposed to saying, okay, well, we're not just carving out extra money from that pool and there's less to compete from because those agencies would no longer be competing specifically for that larger pool as they'd be in this essential services category or however we phrase that or frame that.
  • 00:23:56
    So there may be some additional investment required.
  • 00:23:59
    And I think that's something that
  • 00:24:02
    As we get into the budget process and as we start looking at when we get into future budget processes, where are those?
  • 00:24:10
    What are the dollar amounts that we're going to be able to potentially provide there?
  • 00:24:14
    Then we may come back with looking for more guidance on that.
  • 00:24:18
    But I mean, traditionally, we have tried to fund at level funded or if council desires a little bit above on an annual basis.
  • 00:24:26
    So I think the starting point is at level funding for the entire pool.
  • 00:24:31
    And then moving from there, should funds be available?
  • 00:24:36
    That's always the big caveat with this is because these needs have to compete against every other city need that we have out there.
  • 00:24:43
    And so should funds be available to put towards this?
  • 00:24:46
    We may be able to increase it.
  • 00:24:49
    We've had some bad revenue years here the last couple of years due to COVID.
  • 00:24:53
    I don't expect to see that kind of a revenue increase.
  • 00:24:57
    Decrease, but there could be other things that come up where the revenue goes down and we may have to shrink that overall pool because the overall pool of funds available for all city operations strength.
  • 00:25:04
    So I think we're going to have to look at it on a year-by-year basis to be able to say here's what it is, but I would say for these next two slides, this slide and the next slide, it would be kind of a carve out from that bigger $2.4, $2.6 million pot that we've traditionally been funding at.
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 00:25:26
    So my thoughts are the I think whatever the dollar amount would be here that we would want to consider it for the two full years because 12 months just doesn't seem sufficient for a startup to become stable.
  • 00:25:47
    And if we are going to invest in that first year, I think that we should continue it.
  • 00:25:53
    I'm also thinking a little bit about the amount.
  • 00:25:59
    And in a community that we know has the number of nonprofits that we have, so the potential of expanding that number, what we want to, you know, do maybe two the first year and then, you know, funding two.
  • 00:26:18
    for the first two years and then giving by keeping that money stable and then funding two new or up to two new projects the next year.
  • 00:26:29
    Also something that wasn't clear, I think the past two years and when we were thinking about capacity building was that organizations that were already established started thinking about new, you know, add-ons to their existing organization.
  • 00:26:45
    So somewhere in there, you know, limiting to organizations that have started within, you know, the past five years or something like that versus having established organizations being able to say this is something new that we need that we want to try.
  • 00:27:05
    That was something else that came up last year doing these discussions that I saw.
• • SPEAKER_07
  • 00:27:13
    I mean, I've got, I definitely think the new startups need help with the funding.
  • 00:27:19
    I just also get worried that then what happens is an already established nonprofit wants to expand.
  • 00:27:33
    They see a need, but instead of expanding within their structure, that would be good.
  • 00:27:37
    They start up another nonprofit to get the startup funding.
  • 00:27:43
    I just like we just again as the mayor said we have so many nonprofits and we do have plenty of holes but we so also want to like start consolidating things versus having another and and sharing resources and sharing like human HR resources together or something
  • 00:28:10
    I don't know if there's a way that we could even down the road look at a nonprofit that does HR and things like that for nonprofits so that as small nonprofits start, they don't have to then invest in these additional resources that could be shared amongst a lot of them.
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 00:28:35
    I know the Center for Nonprofit Excellence has explored that idea of the sort of, you know, shared back office function.
  • 00:28:42
    And I don't know what the status of that sort of, even the conversation is around that, but that certainly becomes one of those, as an organization matures, it needs some of that sort of infrastructure development in order to support it.
• • SPEAKER_00
  • 00:29:01
    Councilor McGill, another idea that might be considered is during your strategic planning process if the goal was not necessarily or one of the priorities were not necessarily the services provided but the consolidation of services by consolidation of nonprofits
  • 00:29:23
    You could identify that as a special category, just as you could crime reduction or health care during that strategic planning process and assign category, which means particular funding to that for any agencies that may be willing to consolidate.
• • SPEAKER_09
  • 00:29:47
    Yeah.
  • 00:29:48
    And one of the things I wanted to respond to was you were talking about an established nonprofit kind of creating a spinoff nonprofit for another need.
  • 00:29:56
    But I think that that's kind of why we have the next slide, which is the emerging needs, which deals with both new needs and those entrenched needs that we haven't been able to deal with yet, I guess, through the nonprofit community.
  • 00:30:10
    And so instead of creating that startup, they could create a program within their existing nonprofit, because I feel like
  • 00:30:17
    I can't speak for all nonprofits, but the capacity on a lot of these nonprofits may not be as such where they can create, you know, you have to create a board, fill out, you know, file that IRS paperwork, all those kind of things that you have to do to be an established nonprofit and be able to accept charitable donations from the city or from anywhere else for that matter.
  • 00:30:35
    So maybe this will get to that point to kind of ease that concern that you may have had.
  • 00:30:40
    So this gets more towards that type of funding, whereas this really is a brand new, more like geared more towards the grassroots type of startup nonprofits that we've been seeing.
• • SPEAKER_07
  • 00:30:53
    Would one of the points in somebody applying for the new nonprofit grant be that they've identified why the need is to establish a brand new nonprofit?
  • 00:31:05
    and why this can't be something that would work with existing or to make sure that there really isn't a nonprofit already doing that.
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 00:31:18
    Absolutely.
  • 00:31:18
    I think identifying the need is going to be pretty critical for both the emerging needs piece and for the startups.
  • 00:31:26
    And I would also suggest that whatever staff person is doing the supporting and evaluating and their sort of organizational development piece,
  • 00:31:35
    will be pretty consistently talking about sustainability.
  • 00:31:39
    If you don't have a sustainability for year three, by the end of year one, you're in trouble.
  • 00:31:44
    And so thinking about what other sources of funds are available to support the continuation of the work, I think is going to be pretty critical, or we will have done potentially this sort of launched a number of nonprofits who are responding to something we care about, and then they don't
  • 00:32:02
    get the legs they need to within 24 months.
  • 00:32:05
    And so regardless of how much we fund them that second year.
  • 00:32:09
    So I think that sustainability and need are the sort of two big pieces around that.
• • SPEAKER_09
  • 00:32:14
    Yeah, and I just wanted to say that this, what we're talking about with these slides are kind of the framework of the process.
  • 00:32:21
    When we get into, you know, that as with everything, the devil's always in the details.
  • 00:32:25
    And as we get into the details of, okay, if you want to apply for this emerging needs funding pool, we have this kind of broad
  • 00:32:33
    framework, and then there is, okay, here's the application questions, which would get to a question of, like, why are you, you know, why are we having to create a new nonprofit for this, and some of those other things that Kaki was just talking about.
  • 00:32:46
    I think that's where we really dig into that side of it with getting that information.
• • SPEAKER_07
  • 00:32:53
    I mean, it honestly might be, too, that
  • 00:32:58
    And I think it's important to be on the lookout for if someone is bringing forward a new nonprofit and there's already a nonprofit that's doing that, who we might even be supporting.
  • 00:33:08
    And then why is there this need suddenly springing up for a new one?
  • 00:33:15
    Why isn't that one?
  • 00:33:16
    Is it capacity with the other one?
  • 00:33:20
    Is it not meeting the need like it should be meeting it?
  • 00:33:25
    I think that also then brings us forward to looking at some of our existing nonprofits if a similar need is popping up that should already be being addressed.
• • SPEAKER_12
  • 00:33:45
    And I'm going to ask an overarching question again.
  • 00:33:47
    That's all right.
  • 00:33:51
    So recognizing this is a framework and I really like there's so much here that I think is really taking us in a really great direction.
  • 00:33:58
    What does this look like for this next cycle?
  • 00:34:02
    Because, you know, I know that you all are usually pulling together kind of applications and gearing up for like the infrastructure that supports this process.
  • 00:34:11
    This is what we had the issue with when we had that whole two year step program, you know, that would have finished, I guess, last year when COVID happened.
  • 00:34:17
    I'm just kind of curious of
  • 00:34:20
    what progress we need.
  • 00:34:21
    Obviously, we need direction tonight from Council, but just what does it look like for this to progress over the next whole cycle until we get to next budget?
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 00:34:30
    This is why we selected these to start with, is that these are relatively easy to implement.
  • 00:34:39
    They're not particularly long and difficult for us to do.
  • 00:34:42
    I think the big question for us, and this is a conversation Human Services and the Budget Office have been having as we've developed these slides is sort of what the staff capacity is for the evaluative quarterly visits and reporting and how much that time that will take and the kind of need for time and expertise.
  • 00:35:03
    And so that's the big question for us.
  • 00:35:06
    The rest of this is
  • 00:35:08
    Relatively easy and structural for us to implement for the next funding cycle.
• • SPEAKER_12
  • 00:35:13
    And you mean this for every slide, everything you've presented here?
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 00:35:16
    Yes, ma'am.
• • SPEAKER_12
  • 00:35:17
    Okay, great.
• • SPEAKER_09
  • 00:35:20
    The one that may take a little more time is there was one on the feedback model, I think was one where we need to do a little more research on that.
  • 00:35:31
    Kathy, I can't remember exactly which one.
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 00:35:33
    We can do pieces of it.
  • 00:35:34
    I think that the big chunk of that is for consumer feedback around nonprofits and gaps and services to be part of the strategic planning process for council.
  • 00:35:44
    And so that obviously is probably not going to happen in time for our instructions to
  • 00:35:49
    nonprofits this late summer.
  • 00:35:52
    You're right.
  • 00:35:53
    There are parts of it that we can adopt now.
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 00:36:05
    So, Kathy, when you all are talking about the amounts and the shifting from the starting point of $100,000 to $50,000, what were the thoughts there?
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 00:36:17
    I was mostly thinking that our recent experience with titrating down the level of support that we gave to City of Promise that we sort of made some agreements that we wanted to support City of Promise and we also wanted to get out of the business of permanently supporting City of Promise and move them into the more competitive, vibrant community pool and that the way to do that was to reduce the amount that we gave them every year and so I was sort of starting with that principle
  • 00:36:45
    I am really concerned about sustainability and so while an organization that gets started this year may not be able to live entirely on its own next year or the year after, I would hope that a significant amount of its time is spent trying to diversify the funding sources and so that there would be some after, you know, some nine months of demonstrated outcomes that are approached to the Community Foundation or to another private donor or even to the state
  • 00:37:14
    for some of their grant funding cycles would be a viable option for them to diversify in year two the amount of donors or contributors that they have to their pool.
  • 00:37:29
    So, I mean, I think it's certainly defensible to do either one, to fully fund them for the full amount, the first year and the second year.
  • 00:37:41
    But that was the principle I was starting with was the way we titrated down with City of Promise.
  • 00:37:46
    That was my thinking.
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 00:37:49
    And could we write in here an up to whatever the amount is so that there's some flexibility if a nonprofit doesn't need
  • 00:38:02
    like for what they are planning to do year one, they don't need the 100,000, but it could possibly be there, then the additional amount could be just rolled into what we have to offer, you know, through the competitive process.
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 00:38:17
    Agreed.
  • 00:38:18
    And so I have in this slide anticipate funding up to two nonprofit services with grants up to $50,000 each.
  • 00:38:25
    I don't know if it's in the previous one.
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 00:38:30
    Yeah, so I was just talking about the first year.
  • 00:38:33
    Okay, I said that.
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 00:38:35
    Yeah, up to $100,000, yeah.
  • 00:38:39
    We certainly would not encourage anyone to ask us for $100,000 if they only needed, say, $65,000.
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 00:38:46
    But I think we saw some of that the past two years, right?
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 00:38:49
    There certainly were some intentional gaming of the decision-making process when people understood the shifts.
  • 00:38:56
    Yeah.
• • 00:38:57
    Yeah.
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 00:38:59
    So is there, so I guess for the other counselors, like what are, are you all supportive of this and decreasing it the second year or what do you all think about funding for two full years?
• • SPEAKER_12
  • 00:39:17
    I'm less comfortable with outright funding for two years.
  • 00:39:20
    I think that
  • 00:39:22
    I think there could be a step, but I think there's going to have to be some reflected effort that the round profit has sought other funding sources, given the sustainability points that Kaki has raised.
  • 00:39:35
    But I'm not saying it's out of the question, I'm just trying to think how could we build it in such a way that they could justify why they still need that level of funding for a second year, but it shouldn't be a given, is my thoughts.
  • 00:39:49
    Sorry, I'm making it more complicated.
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 00:39:52
    No, I mean, I don't know if this is a good example, but our supporting, I'm not even going to use it.
  • 00:40:02
    Anyway, yeah, I think that it could be, the other thing that this does is help other people say this is something that we should consider investing in because the city is investing in it.
  • 00:40:18
    And by this time, with the additional staff support, they should have enough and know enough of the landscape to be able to compete in the competitive process, right, for additional, just like any other nonprofit would be, which is still a hard thing to do even after two years.
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 00:40:43
    Absolutely.
  • 00:40:43
    I mean, I think one of the bigger complaints and concerns across the board related to philanthropy and even government funding is that most nonprofits are undercapitalized.
  • 00:40:55
    And so they're always working from a deficit position to try to scramble to both meet these dramatic outcomes that they've promised, manage and maintain the organization and develop, have enough
  • 00:41:07
    Staff that they're actually developing this long-term sustainability, cultivating donors for three or four or five years down the road.
  • 00:41:13
    It's a lot to ask of nonprofits.
  • 00:41:15
    And so particularly for a brand new organization.
• • SPEAKER_00
  • 00:41:22
    Counselor Hill, I would also make, I think one thing to be aware of is that if a, especially a startup, if they can't confirm the funding until April or May of one year, that comes in
  • 00:41:36
    after July 1st, they may not even get truly up and running until December or January.
  • 00:41:44
    And so having the second fiscal year may actually be their first full year of operations.
  • 00:41:55
    So having a pretty stable source that second year could possibly be more important than the first year.
• • SPEAKER_07
  • 00:42:13
    Having had to work to try to find funding for nonprofits that took away from my job working with people and trying to do what I was actually hired to do.
  • 00:42:29
    Giving room to breathe for a second year.
  • 00:42:32
    I really like this idea of giving another full $100,000.
  • 00:42:37
    It's a two year, up to $100,000.
  • 00:42:42
    And we could even maybe the first year we do it, we do it for one brand new nonprofit.
  • 00:42:47
    And then we kind of that way it's staggered.
  • 00:42:49
    So the next year we've got two at 100,000, but then one's coming off.
  • 00:42:56
    So we're basically adding a new one every year and having one extended a year, keeping it our 200,000 limit.
  • 00:43:03
    Um,
  • 00:43:11
    so that we're supporting two every year, but just one's new and one's extended.
  • 00:43:21
    I mean, obviously we'd probably want to have some documentation that they're putting it towards the, you know, for the second, but I don't think it should be very difficult.
  • 00:43:31
    I mean, that's just my two cents.
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 00:43:37
    I think also encouraging
  • 00:43:41
    Like if we have, I'm just thinking about the potential, like wanting this to be looked at through a very critical lens so that anyone, again, you know, who decides, hey, I have an idea and I could potentially get the support.
  • 00:43:59
    So I know that's planned into it, but
  • 00:44:04
    You know, I think that's going to be a big piece of this, is just making sure that we're not, and this was said before, recreating or, you know, because I think we do that a lot now.
  • 00:44:14
    That's one of my, I guess, points of tension.
  • 00:44:16
    I think we find a lot of the nonprofits doing the same things, and I don't know how we know what we're doing well.
• • Michael Payne
  • 00:44:28
    Yeah.
  • 00:44:30
    I'm definitely open to it.
  • 00:44:31
    As others have said, you know, the thought that comes to mind for me right now is just ensuring that there's some way to monitor and try to encourage that they're able to build self-sufficiency as a nonprofit.
  • 00:44:46
    Maybe that doesn't need to happen by year two, but I could envision
  • 00:44:53
    you know a scenario where we provide this funding for the first two years and they're doing real important work but they haven't diversified their donor base and they come back to us and we're just in a difficult position where we have to say are we gonna reduce funding for real important work that's happening which will impact your ability to do it or will we continue to fund it and that can just easily get us into a scenario where you know
  • 00:45:23
    we're not achieving what I think the intention is to help it truly help them start up and become completely self-sufficient.
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 00:45:31
    And I'm thinking as you say that about we get this every year I think with organizations like FAR even as long as they've been in existence I think maybe the past
  • 00:45:47
    year or two has been the first time that they feel like they have, you know, money coming in that they can actually do some of the things they've been planning for years.
  • 00:45:57
    And that's been an over 20 year time period.
  • 00:46:01
    So then we get back to the conversations around
  • 00:46:05
    who are philanthropists likely to fund.
  • 00:46:10
    And even the work that our staff would do over a two-year period might not necessarily change those outcomes because there are a lot of components to why those decisions are made by people who have resources.
  • 00:46:34
    I do think that two years is better than one, but I understand what you're saying, and it's very likely that that becomes, you know, becomes something that is debated by, you know, during future budget sessions because we go through that now.
  • 00:46:53
    So that's, but I think if one of the things that we have to figure out is how
  • 00:47:02
    which was one of the points of tension, staff expertise, staff recommendations is how do we get to a point where we believe in the process and the recommendations that are put forth to us that we trust the process instead of going through it line by line and changing things.
  • 00:47:32
    I do think this is good.
  • 00:47:33
    And I think either way it's good.
  • 00:47:40
    But I do think the consideration of funding, and even if we went down to one nonprofit, if that seemed better, but if we had the 200,000 and the up to 100,000 each
  • 00:48:01
    I would recommend that we do that for a two year period and then all of the other supports that's been listed here.
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 00:48:11
    One of the other things is to separate out this idea of a startup or even responding to emerging needs away from the Vibrant Community Fund in its more traditional sense and instead
  • 00:48:26
    maybe out of your strategic planning process or out of whatever sort of even a micro strategic planning that council might do that you issue an RFP and so you say we're concerned about gun violence and so you actually put a notice out saying we've got you know $200,000, $100,000 per year for the next two years to support a program that responds appropriately to gun violence and then
  • 00:48:53
    You engage in the applications that come just like any other kind of RFP outside of human services field, like in public works or something like that.
  • 00:49:05
    So instead of saying, hey, y'all, what startups are you dreaming of?
  • 00:49:10
    In fact, you say, here are the things we're interested in.
  • 00:49:13
    Here are the gaps we're specifically interested in filling.
  • 00:49:16
    And then you solicit applications.
  • 00:49:19
    and the review teams and vibrant community fund staff can go through this, I mean, can do the solicitation and go through the evaluation process the same, but it starts with a specific intention on your part based on a strategic goal of yours.
  • 00:49:33
    Anyway, something to consider.
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 00:49:34
    And I,
  • 00:49:41
    In terms of the two nonprofits that are just bringing up now around just the gun violence related issue, I think a response like doing the RFP, that would lead them to having to attach themselves to another organization and to apply for the funding.
  • 00:49:59
    I don't, the whole
  • 00:50:02
    The support and assistance piece looks good because you're talking about, again, I think people who know how to do the work possibly, but don't know how to do the paperwork process that comes with that.
  • 00:50:16
    So I wouldn't want to make it a more cumbersome process than we have to have it.
  • 00:50:22
    But I can imagine there are definitely other, because it's a learning process and that's what hopefully they'll be going through.
  • 00:50:30
    and over the year, two year period.
  • 00:50:33
    And if we're saying that we want someone to be ready to be able to compete in this kind of competitive standard process that a procurement office and staff would be seeking, I think that would be limiting for even what we did last night with conscious capitalists.
  • 00:50:51
    I would be concerned about that.
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 00:50:53
    You could do some hybrid where you say,
  • 00:50:58
    were interested in receiving out-of-cycle requests responding to the following need.
  • 00:51:04
    And much the same way, frankly, the Chief Brackney appealed to the community to help with responses to gun violence.
  • 00:51:12
    And so I think there's some way in which you all could indicate your particular interest in an out-of-cycle request, particularly around an emerging need.
  • 00:51:23
    Anyway, as opposed to just waiting.
• • SPEAKER_00
  • 00:51:27
    I've also seen in other communities something similar done where when the need is identified, the local government then partners with the community foundation to leverage each other's funds and doing an RFP that way.
  • 00:51:44
    And quite often a community foundation has the resources to put into helping with the applications, helping with the capacity building.
  • 00:51:56
    just have seen that perform successfully.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 00:52:05
    I had a couple of thoughts after listening for a while.
  • 00:52:10
    The first thought I had is, is there a way for someone in the city, maybe
  • 00:52:16
    Khaki, maybe somebody else, maybe the VCF committee, whatever, to be thinking strategically about and to be making specific recommendations to say, we need a new agency or we need an effort to do this particular function.
  • 00:52:32
    You know, there have been times in the past when the city has done so.
  • 00:52:38
    I mean, one time way, way, way back when
  • 00:52:42
    I think Mr. Hoosier went to the folks at Piedmont Housing Alliance and said, can you all come up with something that will meet this particular need?
  • 00:52:51
    And while he couldn't specifically promise them that they'd get funded right away, they did in fact get funded right away and they were off and running.
  • 00:52:59
    But that's something that actually sort of started with the city.
  • 00:53:03
    And I wonder if that would be something that we ought to be trying to inculcate among the
  • 00:53:10
    the people in the city who work on such things.
  • 00:53:14
    In the housing field, for example, when we get a housing coordinator, that might be the sort of thing that a housing coordinator could keep an eye out for and to help us think more critically about that.
  • 00:53:27
    The other related piece to that is whether
  • 00:53:31
    who the city would have the ability to or should have the ability to review the prospects of a startup of a new agency for considerations like, you know, talk to us about your structure, talk to us about
  • 00:53:50
    how you're going to be organizing this, who your board of directors is going to be, how you plan to do business, the kinds of things.
  • 00:53:58
    Maybe the only thing we do is to say, go talk to the Center for Nonprofit Excellence and do what they tell you to do.
  • 00:54:04
    But I've been involved in sort of working on some of these
  • 00:54:08
    agencies where people have a great idea, but it's really hard to convince them that maybe they are not the ones who are cut out to put this thing together without help.
  • 00:54:22
    But we can find you some help if you will listen to us.
  • 00:54:26
    So those are the couple of thoughts that I have.
  • 00:54:28
    The other general piece of it is it seems to me that the issue with nonprofits who are not a part of the regular funding stream
  • 00:54:38
    in part has to do with the length of time that it takes to get into and through the VCF process.
  • 00:54:47
    If the VCF committee is making recommendations to us in January or February, I assume that somebody has required that all of the VCF applicants have their information in by, let's say, I don't know what the deadline is, December or something like that.
  • 00:55:03
    The point is you may be months away
  • 00:55:05
    from, and it could be as many as six or eight months away from an actual appropriation just to be able to get into the game.
  • 00:55:14
    And that's an organizational problem from the city side too.
  • 00:55:17
    So I'll shut up for a second.
  • 00:55:18
    And I see Kaki has been sort of going at me.
  • 00:55:21
    So tell me, answer my questions.
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 00:55:24
    Well, first, I mean, I certainly think there exists the capacity among the current staff to be able to make those kinds of recommendations.
  • 00:55:33
    Many, many of us are involved in community level conversations, coalitions, initiatives where we're regularly assessing and understanding where the gaps are in terms of response to community needs.
  • 00:55:46
    And so I think that that would be great.
  • 00:55:49
    I do, you know, there's a slide here about council's lack of sort of trust or confidence in existing staff to make such recommendations.
  • 00:55:58
    And so I think there would need to be some intentionality around that.
  • 00:56:03
    for staff to, I think, for council to hear those recommendations from staff and for staff to be engaging in that process.
  • 00:56:12
    Certainly that lack of confidence is apparent in the last several cycles.
  • 00:56:18
    And so I think in order to move to that sort of piece where staff are making specific programmatic recommendations, I think there's work to be done there.
  • 00:56:28
    I'm not certain what that work is.
  • 00:56:30
    I will say that that
  • 00:56:32
    idea that CASA, Foothills, and City of Promise were all developed very specifically around a very similar path that you describe in that.
  • 00:56:43
    So it's certainly been done before and could be done again and may actually be being done again in just slightly different ways.
  • 00:56:52
    But the sort of reviewing the process of the prospects of an organization as we're working through the
  • 00:57:00
    helping and supporting those organizations around both responding to emerging needs and startups that we talk about staff supporting the organization in its organizational development.
  • 00:57:13
    And so we do predict that we'll be involved in that.
  • 00:57:16
    It is a role that city staffs play a significant amount of time with nonprofits is to help think through structure
  • 00:57:25
    process, strategy with lots of nonprofits as a sort of spinoff of the vibrant community process.
  • 00:57:31
    There's a tremendous amount of technical assistance that's being provided to nonprofits in this community through the city.
  • 00:57:36
    And so that's not a stretch at all for us to be able to play that role to help nonprofits think through the sort of the leanest, most effective way for them to survive.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 00:57:48
    One thing I want to say in response to the question about lack of confidence in the staff and BCF committee and so on, at least for me, those times when I may have expressed a lack of confidence, it has been in large part because all we get is an answer.
  • 00:58:03
    It's a black box.
  • 00:58:05
    We don't know what you've considered
  • 00:58:07
    We don't know whether you've thought about the kinds of things that we would have wanted to think about.
  • 00:58:12
    And so at least for me, the fact that there is no explanation really has been the obstacle.
  • 00:58:21
    As a general proposition, I've tried to be fairly respectful of the opinions of the VCF committee, except on those things that are
  • 00:58:30
    is specifically like the court related ones that I think that the city ought just not not to be part of the competitive process.
  • 00:58:36
    But the more information we can get from from the process, I think the more respect we're likely to have for the decisions.
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 00:58:45
    Well, and I think that's why we suggest that we do a more formal orientation for council around the process, the process tools so that you all can hear those embedded assumptions and processes and how we have arrived at certain things.
  • 00:58:59
    And there's certainly all of these things as you, you know, subject to change, but none of them sort of none of these are decisions that were made sort of haphazardly or by accident and
  • 00:59:11
    because it's a black box for you all, we want to make sure that we have time to be able to explain the process to you so that we're not in a position during a funding deliberation cycle in which there's conversations around process or concerns around the process that were potentially things we could have changed or talked about many months earlier.
  • 00:59:36
    Yeah.
  • 00:59:37
    Patty O' This is just, it's just a matter of getting on your schedules and making sure we do this and so that you all have some sense of comfort with with the process that we're embarking on.
• • SPEAKER_12
  • 00:59:46
    And at what point in the cycle do you see that orientation happening?
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 00:59:51
    Well, as soon as we have some feedback and I'm just going to suggest we've spent 15 minutes talking about just three slides.
  • 00:59:58
    And so that's a lot of them today.
  • 01:00:00
    So as soon as we get feedback on these particular pieces, then we'll develop our process for the next year.
  • 01:00:07
    And we do an orientation for the nonprofits to say, this is what our process looks like.
  • 01:00:11
    And so we would just hope to get an hour of your time in a work session style kind of thing to walk you through the tools and the embedded assumptions on all of those things.
  • 01:00:22
    and give you a chance to ask questions.
  • 01:00:23
    And then if there are big changes, obviously, then we would make them again to the next cycle.
  • 01:00:28
    I don't suspect that you all have time for that orientation or engagement right now in time to make some of those sort of more detail-oriented changes for the fiscal year 23 process.
  • 01:00:41
    But maybe I'm wrong.
  • 01:00:44
    Maybe you guys have lots of free time.
• • SPEAKER_12
  • 01:00:46
    Karen Hollweg, But what you're proposing in the slides is essentially with our endorsement what you'll be progressing forward with that will be getting oriented on what it actually looks like.
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 01:00:55
    Karen Hollweg, Yes, yes, although I think you know to to council members snooks point like there's still lots of other sort of process and details involved in sort of what we do and how we produce this that are worthy of some explanation for you all so that you can see.
  • 01:01:14
    Even if we're doing something that you wish we weren't, that we're doing something, we're paddling like crazy in the background, and it's worth you all knowing how and when that happens.
• • SPEAKER_12
  • 01:01:25
    This is like what's laid out here is kind of the foundation from which you'll build that on.
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 01:01:28
    Indeed.
  • 01:01:29
    Okay.
  • 01:01:31
    Actually, I had one other thing.
  • 01:01:32
    The dangling chads from the last two cycles, so things that kept coming up that are unresolved.
  • 01:01:38
    that we would like to have involved.
  • 01:01:39
    I'm sorry.
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 01:01:40
    And that process wasn't finished either.
  • 01:01:41
    I think for my part, the fact that we started revamping from ABRT to Vibrant Communities and then we had a pandemic that interrupted what was supposed to be like a review of the initial process and it was supposed to continue, understanding that we hadn't really arrived anywhere yet was, you know, what I had said a lot.
  • 01:02:07
    through the process.
  • 01:02:08
    But in terms of this as a point of tension, we get feedbacks from nonprofits from and all.
  • 01:02:15
    I mean, I know everyone gets feedback from different nonprofits on how decisions were made.
  • 01:02:21
    So they are sometimes some of them are very happy about the process.
  • 01:02:27
    Others of them are not.
  • 01:02:29
    We hear from some of the nonprofits who are not happy with the process doing the work sessions and some
  • 01:02:37
    are just sending emails.
  • 01:02:38
    That's the same for some individuals who participate in the process, in the evaluation process.
  • 01:02:45
    And of course, we hear from nonprofits who think that they, and these are nonprofits who receive funding that I'm thinking of first and maybe not at the level they wanted.
  • 01:02:59
    And then we receive the feedback from nonprofits who don't think that they have been considered.
  • 01:03:05
    And so it's a lot during the year for us to take in also, you know, as we go through our process that's supposed to kind of be finalized that, as you can see, it's 5404 and we haven't made one decision yet.
  • 01:03:25
    So it's a lot of that.
  • 01:03:27
    I think we're expressing support, you know.
• • SPEAKER_12
  • 01:03:32
    No.
  • 01:03:34
    I hope that we're making progress.
• • SPEAKER_09
  • 01:03:38
    I felt that there was a general consensus around the support behind doing the emerging needs and the
  • 01:03:47
    the new startup nonprofits.
  • 01:03:49
    It was just, as I was saying before, the devil's in those details of exactly what's it going to look like.
  • 01:03:54
    So I feel like there was support around the general framework of, hey, let's carve out a chunk of money to be able to support whether it was one or two.
  • 01:04:01
    And then maybe that's the point where we say, okay, we've got the general support for, it seemed like two years, for one to two, and figuring out the details about, okay, what makes the most sense?
  • 01:04:12
    And maybe we come back in this orientation down the road and say, okay, we have,
  • 01:04:19
    this recommendation for the startups, whether based on the feedback from the last one, and you can give it a thumbs up, thumbs down, and we're able to move along.
  • 01:04:28
    But I did, I know you said we haven't made any decisions, but I did feel like everyone seemed to express that consensus around, oh, we like to have that pool for the emerging needs.
  • 01:04:36
    We like to have the pool for the startups.
  • 01:04:38
    Just exactly what does it look like is kind of that, as I say, that those details that we have to fine tune and tweak moving forward.
• • SPEAKER_12
  • 01:04:46
    But Ryan, you're not, you and Kaki aren't expecting that council will be getting into that level of detail today.
  • 01:04:52
    I guess that's why I want to make sure I'm managing expectations for myself, I guess.
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 01:04:57
    No, I think what we're looking for is strategic direction from you all told to start to develop the structure ourselves.
• • SPEAKER_07
  • 01:05:04
    Okay.
  • 01:05:04
    Yeah.
  • 01:05:06
    One thing that would greatly help me in as a counselor vote, I mean, later on during, after
  • 01:05:14
    when I received a packet for Vibrant Community Grants after they've been through the review process of anything is even a synopsis of why they scored what they scored.
  • 01:05:28
    What were the key factors in why they're exemplary?
  • 01:05:34
    I mean, what are some of the key reasons?
  • 01:05:39
    Because what happens is then
  • 01:05:42
    Somebody from the nonprofit contacts me and I just don't know why.
  • 01:05:45
    I know you scored this, but then I'm asked, well, why did I score that?
  • 01:05:52
    And it's like, I don't know because I don't understand
  • 01:05:58
    the scoring mechanism overly well.
  • 01:06:00
    I mean, I do a little bit, but I don't have the raw stuff and I don't need the raw stuff, but I do need like the basics of Y, X and then, yeah.
• • SPEAKER_09
  • 01:06:14
    And I will say that
  • 01:06:18
    and prior years back in the AVRT process before we shifted to this five-year community fund, we did have some information behind.
  • 01:06:27
    This was scored at the fair level because of X, Y, and Z. And we got a lot of mixed feedback from the agencies of basically saying, hey, you're
  • 01:06:39
    out there saying this is why we're a bad nonprofit and why we're not worthy of funding.
  • 01:06:44
    And that was it was more of that mixed bag of this is they saw it as more of a criticism.
  • 01:06:50
    And maybe it's just all in the framing of how we present that information.
  • 01:06:54
    Maybe we can we can look at it in that way.
  • 01:06:56
    But I do recall we were getting a lot of mixed feedback on when we don't
  • 01:07:02
    We don't like the way that that's been been phrased like they have, but we have budget issues or we have we weren't meeting a community or whatever the reason may have been that they didn't quite score at the highest level.
  • 01:07:15
    And so that was the consideration that we
  • 01:07:19
    Pull that back.
  • 01:07:20
    And I will say that any agency that wants that information can be provided that information.
  • 01:07:26
    We provide that to them so that they can do the self-improvement and they can make, you know, create a better application in future years.
  • 01:07:32
    Maybe there's a way that we can package that better for council and the public moving forward.
  • 01:07:38
    But that's something we can think about when we get to the whole crew coming up with the report and writing that report to provide to council.
  • 01:07:46
    But that's good feedback that we can take moving forward.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 01:07:49
    One of the things that I found particularly difficult to explain to people, and I don't remember right now which agencies it was applicable to, but there were agencies who had, say, gotten $100,000 last year, and they're only getting $50,000 this year, and they've been downgraded from exemplary to important or whatever the categories were, and they hadn't done anything different.
  • 01:08:13
    What the heck was going on?
  • 01:08:14
    I couldn't explain it.
  • 01:08:16
    and part of what I would like to be able to understand for my own purposes, but also to be able to explain is, is there something, has anything changed?
  • 01:08:30
    That's all.
• • SPEAKER_07
  • 01:08:31
    Fair point.
  • 01:08:32
    Fair point.
  • 01:08:33
    Just like a note in the beginning of the packet or something of what changed from last year and why things might be scored differently this year, higher or lower.
  • 01:08:43
    You know, just that like a little abstract in the beginning.
  • 01:08:46
    Like these are things that were, you know, looked at, were given more weight this year or less weight this year or something.
• • SPEAKER_00
  • 01:08:59
    I think, I mean, with that in mind though, you always have to remember that maybe nothing changed except for the variables coming in with the competition.
  • 01:09:11
    either the priorities may have changed.
  • 01:09:14
    But I think about this with the way the city of Charlottesville asked for road funding every two years.
  • 01:09:22
    We could submit the same project two cycles in a row, but it's all based on all the other projects from around the state.
  • 01:09:30
    One year we could be the best and two years later be one of the worst when nothing changed.
  • 01:09:37
    So I mean,
  • 01:09:39
    That's an extreme, but I do think that does happen just based on the competition.
• • 01:09:45
    Yeah.
• • SPEAKER_07
  • 01:09:45
    Would that be part of the little abstract?
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 01:09:48
    Yeah.
  • 01:09:51
    Two years ago, you know, we moved to this, I think it was two years ago, we moved this model of identifying also the essentialness of and the importance of a program to meet community needs and
  • 01:10:05
    There's no program in the world who doesn't see itself as absolutely critical, absolutely essential, and it's like a critical component of meeting this community's needs.
  • 01:10:14
    And so the idea that somebody might not be ranked at the top of that heap is always really difficult.
  • 01:10:21
    And so, and, you know, that the level of importance during a pandemic in which people were losing
  • 01:10:28
    housing and going hungry is different from a level of importance for your program during traditional peacetime.
  • 01:10:36
    And so I think that we had a lot of, there was a lot of upheaval in the last 24 months for a lot of reasons.
  • 01:10:41
    So that doesn't surprise me that we would have folks who would, whose understanding of themselves in that ranking would be challenged.
• • SPEAKER_09
  • 01:10:51
    Right, and I think that's, I think, you know, as Khaki said, the shifting variables, whether it be the pandemic and then starting, what was essentially going through a new process for the first time on the eve of a pandemic where we had to stop midway through the, I mean, if you recall, the last work session we did before we stopped having any in-person meetings due to the pandemic,
  • 01:11:13
    was this agency work session.
  • 01:11:14
    And then we had to kind of reboot in the summer to figure out, oh, wait, we need to shift our focus and our thinking.
  • 01:11:19
    So it kind of was a little bit of a perfect storm in that we were trying to find our footing on this brand new process we were using.
  • 01:11:27
    We ran into a pandemic.
  • 01:11:28
    And then, you know, we come back in year two.
  • 01:11:31
    And, you know, one of the things, you know,
  • 01:11:33
    that's very hard to explain to an agency is, yes, you scored the exact same, but you're getting $10,000 less because there was, as Chip said, there was more people and more funding requests that scored in this higher pool.
  • 01:11:47
    And so there was less dollars to go around to everybody.
  • 01:11:50
    And so that's another thing that we have to grapple with.
  • 01:11:53
    What is, you know, the
  • 01:11:56
    Fairest and most and the best way to allocate those funds across.
  • 01:12:00
    And that's where we come to you.
  • 01:12:02
    We have those
  • 01:12:04
    In the past, we've had those grids or the quadrants or whatever we call them to say, okay, we want to fund these and we can move the percentages around and try to get people as close to level funded or increases or whatever it may be.
  • 01:12:15
    And so there's still, you know, again, that's a part of that whole, these are the details we still got to dig through once we get this framework of this process, then we can really start digging into some finer and finer tuning those details as we move into that side of the back into the process.
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 01:12:33
    So to jump from the frying pan into the fire, can we go to the next slide?
  • 01:12:40
    How did this sit with you all?
• • SPEAKER_09
  • 01:12:47
    So, Kaki, before council weighs in, can you just kind of a refresher of what you mean by prioritizing equity as a requirement?
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 01:12:58
    So I mean that this becomes a
  • 01:13:02
    An eligibility criteria that unless an organization can identify that the work it does advances equity in the community, either because they're addressing a particularly significant unmet need, because they're focused on like engaging and actively reaching out to disenfranchised communities, because they're focusing on repairing a disparity
  • 01:13:31
    in our community some way in which they can tie their work specifically to an equity outcome, then they don't, in this proposal, they wouldn't have access to even apply under the more traditional broad categories.
  • 01:13:47
    And again, this would be for the competitive pool that would be asking everyone to prioritize equity.
  • 01:13:53
    And so you would have to jump through this threshold, meet this threshold in order to compete with everyone else.
  • 01:13:59
    Now the alternative would be that we provide additional points in the scoring section for those organizations that are prioritizing equity.
  • 01:14:09
    And so it becomes a point generator as opposed to a threshold.
  • 01:14:14
    Either way, you can identify prioritizing equity as being something that you're committed to doing for all of the applications for the whole process.
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 01:14:25
    So I liked where we were going with this in the first year, second year, second year, can't keep up, but in allowing, cause this then, I think we're gonna run into some of the same challenges
  • 01:14:48
    that where just like you said before, everyone thinks they're doing a great job where everyone thinks their work is prioritizing equity.
  • 01:14:59
    And I just don't know what the work around here.
  • 01:15:04
    I think we were on a good path where we created kind of that category to evaluate those people who thought that they were really prioritizing equity to compete amongst, kind of amongst each other.
  • 01:15:19
    Sorry.
  • 01:15:20
    Go ahead.
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 01:15:21
    Well, so adding, I think what we did this year was to add equity as one of the six broad categories of priorities.
  • 01:15:31
    We could do both in that we could create this equity pool, as you suggest, and we could also give additional points to those organizations in the other five categories who are able to demonstrate
  • 01:15:43
    that they're either doing work internally to improve their own internal sort of anti-racist or equity-based work around themselves as an organization and or doing equity work in the community as part of their work.
  • 01:15:55
    And so that allows for two paths, the one that you suggest, which is the equity pool that's independent, like you can apply for an equity project as a priority, and it also then provides additional points to those organizations in the other five categories
  • 01:16:12
    who are able to demonstrate that they are working on equity issues either with impact or internal process.
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 01:16:18
    Yeah, I think that's good.
  • 01:16:19
    The other two things I think are good major points here is that the solutions and management, performance and measurements, whatever that position is called now, that that's going to be key.
  • 01:16:39
    And, you know,
  • 01:16:40
    because we have to be able to, and I said this last night, we have to be able to measure in some way whether this is working.
  • 01:16:50
    And then the point you brought up earlier, which even when we had the meetings, it was hard for us to figure out how to capture respect, confidentiality and things like that.
  • 01:17:01
    But that consumer feedback piece, I think, is tied to this, to prioritizing equity.
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 01:17:28
    Is this idea of prioritizing equity in two ways in the pool appeal to other counselors?
• • SPEAKER_07
  • 01:17:34
    Yes, because if I'm looking through all of the applicants, I only see two people, two applicants that might struggle with saying how they're, I think people, I mean, and I do think it needs to be in some ways, not just a check mark, but an actual, you know, to go into detail, how are you prioritizing equity?
  • 01:18:02
    Um,
  • 01:18:03
    because as the mayor said, there's a lot of places who think they are prioritizing equity and they aren't necessarily, but they do honestly think they are.
  • 01:18:14
    And hopefully also in having to write down, it could also be a learning experience as to some inner searching of their organization too.
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 01:18:27
    It's easy to be performative.
  • 01:18:32
    from the outset when you're thinking about addressing equity.
  • 01:18:34
    And so one of the things that we need to make sure that we're doing internally is evaluating that in a really meaningful way.
  • 01:18:41
    And thankfully, there's lots of other organizations, including the Community Foundation, who have found a way to do that meaningfully.
  • 01:18:47
    And so I think there are tools available for us to adopt pretty readily.
• • SPEAKER_12
  • 01:18:53
    And I also agree that having this kind of hybrid two ways of going at this is important.
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 01:19:00
    And, Kaki, I think also, because I don't know what measurement tool CACF is using, but having it to be broader than just the numbers.
  • 01:19:12
    You know, there could be organizations that serve 90% of, like, Black and Hispanic families or children.
  • 01:19:18
    That doesn't translate into you prioritizing equity because that's your client base.
  • 01:19:26
    So however it looks.
  • 01:19:28
    I just hope that's captured in some way.
  • 01:19:33
    And that's just one example I could give a lot for, you know, somebody's going to say you only gave one example, but that's just the example that came to mind.
  • 01:19:42
    But if that can be captured on whatever measurement tool that we are using, that would be helpful.
  • 01:19:48
    So it's not just the number of people served.
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 01:19:58
    Are we ready to go to the next slide?
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 01:20:02
    If you all have enough information, then we are good.
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 01:20:06
    Okay.
• • SPEAKER_03
  • 01:20:11
    Mr. Wheeler.
• • SPEAKER_10
  • 01:20:17
    I'm sorry, Keck, could you repeat that?
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 01:20:19
    I asked you to facilitate the rest of this work session and to do all of the work that council identifies.
• • SPEAKER_10
  • 01:20:25
    I thought you said.
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 01:20:27
    Otherwise known as move to the next slide, please.
  • 01:20:32
    Thank you.
• • SPEAKER_10
  • 01:20:33
    You're welcome.
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 01:20:34
    This is the piece on consumer feedback.
  • 01:20:37
    And so again, the primary way in which we're suggesting that council evaluate and gather consumer feedback that would inform this process
  • 01:20:48
    would be through your strategic planning process and that you would specifically reach out for consumer feedback to understand gaps needs and underfunded resources in the community and also specific feedback around the vibrant community process and organizations that are included in that as part of your strategic planning process.
  • 01:21:08
    It seems to me like it's a natural fit as you're identifying your broad strategic goals
  • 01:21:13
    your funding priority areas and that you would also be able to hear from community members most readily I think during this problem.
  • 01:21:20
    Shouldn't be the only one, but I'm making a bid to have this very specific piece be included in your strategic planning.
  • 01:21:28
    And then we'll continue to do some research around best practices for including consumer feedback as part of grant making.
  • 01:21:34
    It's not gonna be a surprise to you all to hear that in fact lots and lots of foundations around the country are trying to figure out a way to really get to consumer feedback
  • 01:21:43
    so beyond the application process they get or the song and dance that they're receiving to actually hear from consumers.
  • 01:21:51
    And so really, these are not ORs.
  • 01:21:54
    For me, these are layered systems that will help us get to a better understanding.
  • 01:21:59
    And we do get lots of consumer feedback in different kinds of ways, but through the Community Risk Reduction Assessment
  • 01:22:08
    the stepping stones.
  • 01:22:09
    The American Community Survey gives us really great information that's neighborhood level and community level around sense of safety, a sense of efficacy, sense of participation.
  • 01:22:19
    And then the MAP consumer work is also really important.
  • 01:22:24
    They've done just a tremendous number of focus groups.
  • 01:22:28
    And so I'm not saying or.
  • 01:22:30
    I'm just saying and that we layer that on.
  • 01:22:34
    Right now, we do ask vibrant community applicants to tell us how it is they gather feedback and how it is they use it to make decisions.
  • 01:22:43
    And so we're asking for them to give us more specific information about how they include consumer feedback in strategic planning, program planning, and individual case planning.
  • 01:22:53
    And so that the assumption being that consumer feedback would inform programmatic and strategic planning, not just around individual case planning.
  • 01:23:02
    And that we ask
  • 01:23:04
    If they're using feedback, are they getting meaningful feedback?
  • 01:23:08
    Using what kind of tools, and then is it meaningful?
  • 01:23:11
    So you're only hearing from 7% of your consumers, and how do you really know what's going on?
  • 01:23:17
    And how do you reach out beyond the 7%?
  • 01:23:19
    And so right now, I think the survey is a traditional use for many nonprofits as a way to solicit feedback from a large number of people, but it's not always representative.
  • 01:23:31
    of the consumers that are receiving the service.
  • 01:23:33
    And so that really just increasing the expectation that people are both pursuing in meaningful ways and using in meaningful ways consumer feedback.
• • SPEAKER_12
  • 01:23:47
    Related to the strategic planning piece, because obviously that's the one that really falls in our in our
  • 01:23:51
    realm.
  • 01:23:52
    I'm just curious if, Chip, when you've scoped this as you've been considering this and talking with other parties who might be assisting us in this process, do you see a natural way that we can work that in with that process or just something we might have to do separately on our own?
• • SPEAKER_00
  • 01:24:07
    No, definitely would be worked into this, the process we've been talking about.
  • 01:24:14
    It will be very compressed given
  • 01:24:18
    how we'll be doing the strategic planning, getting it completed in time for when I think Councilor Snook asked earlier about when applications are due.
  • 01:24:28
    Well, they've normally been due in late October, early November, if I remember correctly.
  • 01:24:33
    You know, you'll be completing your strategic planning in the fall, hopefully.
  • 01:24:41
    I just was
  • 01:24:43
    emailing with the consultants giving us a proposal this afternoon.
  • 01:24:48
    So it'll be very compressed this first year, but should work very, very easily into that process every year thereafter.
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 01:24:58
    Well, since we don't do the process every year, is it right, then
  • 01:25:03
    That was my only thought there.
• • SPEAKER_00
  • 01:25:07
    I still think you should be updating though.
  • 01:25:11
    Even if you don't completely do your strategic plan, you do an assessment of what you've accomplished and what types of things may have come up that would make you want to, for lack of a better word, amend it.
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 01:25:26
    Yes, but will we do these kind of focus groups annually?
• • SPEAKER_00
  • 01:25:31
    We could.
  • 01:25:32
    We certainly could.
  • 01:25:33
    Yeah.
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 01:25:34
    I'm always with that, but I just want to make sure that we know what we're agreeing to.
  • 01:25:41
    Yeah, I think it's important to figure out what that process looks like and to incorporate it.
  • 01:25:50
    But just if we're going to agree to it, then this would be something that would start
  • 01:25:59
    right after August would be a timeframe, June.
  • 01:26:07
    I mean, you could have it, compile it.
  • 01:26:10
    I mean, this is also another area where we're trying to capture the information and have staff give it to us in a format that we can actually take it and do something with it and it's influencing all decisions all the time.
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 01:26:35
    Any additional comments or questions around consumer feedback?
• • SPEAKER_07
  • 01:26:40
    One thing that I've been thinking about for the last couple of years based on a lot of different things is having, and again, I don't know how feasible this is, but something just to think about is having somebody at the city who does do these random check-ins with people who's received services
  • 01:27:04
    You know, people maybe who have agreed when they receive a service, they check a box if they're willing to be contacted by a representative of the city to ask them how their service went and that those people are then contacted six months or so into the service or after the service was completed, depending on what type it is.
  • 01:27:29
    And then it's brought the person as, you know,
  • 01:27:35
    We at the city want to make sure you got value for the money that we your tax money that you put towards this again in very empowering language so that someone doesn't feel that they should just be grateful for whatever they got.
  • 01:27:55
    But that that value is something that they have just because the city helped fund it
  • 01:28:02
    They're a tax paying citizen, therefore they earned it just as much as anybody else did.
  • 01:28:09
    Because there's that whole psychology behind if I've received something for free, at least it's better than nothing.
  • 01:28:16
    And do I really have the right to complain about it?
  • 01:28:21
    And again, this isn't trying to criticize nonprofits, but I think sometimes a lot of people will say they were satisfied with something when really they weren't.
  • 01:28:33
    or six months later, they realize that they really weren't.
  • 01:28:38
    And usually with a little bit of time passing, people are more willing to speak up than immediately afterwards.
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 01:28:51
    It might be really helpful to have that actually not be a representative of the city.
  • 01:28:56
    So we can think through some of that
• • SPEAKER_07
  • 01:29:00
    which is not the actual nonprofit that's doing it.
  • 01:29:03
    So that it's, yeah.
  • 01:29:06
    So someone feels that they can actually speak honestly.
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 01:29:09
    Agreed, which is why I'm thinking that maybe it's not the city either.
  • 01:29:13
    But yeah, we can certainly chew on that as part of our sort of stepped up follow-up and evaluation strategy.
  • 01:29:24
    Okay, Mr. Wheeler, next slide, please.
• • SPEAKER_10
  • 01:29:30
    I'm with you.
  • 01:29:32
    My button is disappeared.
  • 01:29:33
    Let's see.
  • 01:29:36
    There we go.
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 01:29:40
    So this is probably a more of a longer term strategy for you all to consider.
  • 01:29:44
    I don't think that you're in a position to probably do this in time for our instructions for this year, but it's something I would encourage you to think about because while the broad categories do allow for some sense of prioritization,
  • 01:29:59
    I also think there's some specific tools within each one of those categories that you have expressed an interest in supporting overall.
  • 01:30:07
    And so the more complete our information to nonprofits, the better.
  • 01:30:13
    So if we say, yes, they're generally interested in health and mental health, but specifically interested in improving the outreach and engagement to Black members of our community who are suffering from compounded trauma disparities.
  • 01:30:27
    and difficulty accessing traditional existing services.
  • 01:30:31
    And so I think that then what that does is create a mandate or an opportunity for an agency to say, we better get better at that.
  • 01:30:39
    And it also allows you another level of saying, yes, all of the mental health agencies scored roughly the same, but the one we're really interested in supporting is the one that's filling this particular gap.
  • 01:30:51
    And so
  • 01:30:52
    I think to the extent that you can think through some of those things, it would be my preference that you do that with the Smarty Pants staff you have to help inform that conversation.
  • 01:31:01
    But in any case, in any place that you do that, to have that conversation, you say, you know, it's come up again and again in the last three years about the importance and interest in supporting and expanding peer support services in every single area of focus.
  • 01:31:17
    And so why not say we're interested in these five broad category areas and we're specifically interested in funding peer support organizations or those kinds of things.
  • 01:31:27
    I think that you have some of those general interests, but they're not necessarily embedded in our transparent application process.
  • 01:31:35
    And so
  • 01:31:35
    To the extent that we can name those things in advance, it's better for the nonprofits to be able to know how to respond to our solicitation.
  • 01:31:42
    And it makes your deliberations easier in the end as well, because then you have a specific way of prioritizing application A or application B. So again, I don't think this is something you can do now, but maybe can be part of your strategic planning process this fall or the next year.
  • 01:32:05
    And if you generally agree, then we'll work with Mr. Boyles to make sure that this gets embedded in some of those conversations.
• • SPEAKER_12
  • 01:32:12
    I think it sounds great.
  • 01:32:14
    Yeah.
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 01:32:18
    Great.
  • 01:32:19
    We're moving to another slide.
  • 01:32:20
    Amazing.
  • 01:32:22
    Mr. Boyles, you're still there.
  • 01:32:24
    Sorry, Mayor Walker.
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 01:32:25
    No, I don't want to.
  • 01:32:26
    Go ahead.
  • 01:32:27
    Get excited.
  • 01:32:29
    I can go back.
  • 01:32:30
    I can go back.
  • 01:32:34
    No, it's fine.
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 01:32:34
    Okay.
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 01:32:35
    Yeah, I can wait until we have that discussion for that question.
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 01:32:38
    Okay.
  • 01:32:40
    Okay.
  • 01:32:40
    So this issue came up several times in our conversation, too, about to what extent should the agency's need for funding drive the process?
  • 01:32:48
    And this is one of the clearest places where a shift in values on counsel happened
  • 01:32:56
    before the value shifted or before the application shifted.
  • 01:33:01
    And so you were particularly interested in supporting nonprofits who needed city money, whereas previous counselors have been specifically interested in funding those nonprofits who had substantial reserves, who are meeting sort of a standard of nonprofit excellence, and that therefore were good investments for the city taxpayer dollars.
  • 01:33:26
    And so that's a shift in value about how and when you use the support that you all have.
  • 01:33:32
    And so it's worth, I think, engaging in this conversation about how it is we include agency need.
  • 01:33:39
    And so right now we do ask, describe what the program will do if it does not receive any or all the funds requested, be as specific as possible, and would funds be sought from other sources, would services or staffing decrease, if so, quantify.
  • 01:33:53
    And so
  • 01:33:53
    They all answer this question.
  • 01:33:55
    It is right now included in your responses in the big book that comes to you.
  • 01:34:01
    But it's not a scored question.
  • 01:34:04
    It's not pulled out in additional levels of the deliberation.
  • 01:34:09
    And so this is one way that we do ask the question, but it's not necessarily embedded in the matrix for evaluating the tool.
  • 01:34:19
    It's just additional information for you all in the book.
• • SPEAKER_12
  • 01:34:22
    So it wasn't something that reviewers in the past have weighed, not in a formal way, but not even in an informal way.
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 01:34:28
    It was really... It's just information that's included in the book.
  • 01:34:32
    Yep.
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 01:34:33
    I don't think I realized that.
  • 01:34:35
    I think it's important.
  • 01:34:37
    Of course I do, because I've been seeing it, but I just want to acknowledge that part.
  • 01:34:43
    But I do think it's important.
  • 01:34:44
    And, you know, the couple of examples...
  • 01:34:48
    You know, I've been nonprofits saying that their overall budget had nothing to do with this component, you know, one component or this one program.
  • 01:34:59
    Organizations who, again, had the reserves could sustain, you know, themselves could continue, but weren't.
  • 01:35:10
    And I don't know how you
  • 01:35:12
    And then we had agencies who could only function if they received the funding from us.
  • 01:35:18
    Even if we still give the other organizations because they meet all the other categories, I think it just would at least be important to know if we are in a position where we get to every year where we're saying this organization or that one or 50% to this one, 70% to that one, however, you know, it's taking different
  • 01:35:42
    the routes, but I think this would be good information to have when we're at a point where we're like, do we fund these organizations at the same level, at different levels?
  • 01:35:52
    How do we spread the limited amount of funding amongst agencies?
  • 01:35:57
    And if we had this, I think an agency that could possibly do it without our funding would weigh heavily on the back and forth that council does at that time.
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 01:36:06
    So because, of course, this information is just embedded in that giant report, I'm thinking that one of the things that Ryan does is pull out salient information for a spreadsheet for you all to look at during those deliberations and that we might find a way to include this information as part of that spreadsheet so that it's right in front of you as opposed to sort of buried in the book.
  • 01:36:29
    The other is the percentage of city money to overall budget, that that's something that you all have brought up a couple times where you've wanted to know in the course of your deliberations.
  • 01:36:40
    And so some of this can be making sure that we are getting really meaningful responses from nonprofits and also finding a way to share that data with you so that it's more easily accessible than in the book.
• • SPEAKER_12
  • 01:36:55
    Kathy, when you're saying
  • 01:36:59
    You know, including it in the application process.
  • 01:37:02
    I'm sensing you're going to take it a step further, though, that it's actually going to be part of the evaluating groups assessment.
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 01:37:10
    Is that not the case?
  • 01:37:11
    Right now, I would need that specific direction from you all because, again, this flips the value that's embedded in the tool and it's fine to do that.
  • 01:37:20
    I would just want you all to agree.
  • 01:37:22
    And we could just, you know, one point for an agency who would suffer some bruising
  • 01:37:29
    but would be okay.
  • 01:37:33
    Two points for an agency that would have to lay off staff or shut down a program.
  • 01:37:39
    Three points for somebody who would close the entire organization if they didn't have them.
  • 01:37:43
    There's not very many people who fall into that category, but that would be a point generator.
  • 01:37:48
    Need would then be reflected as additional points in that way.
  • 01:37:52
    And we haven't done that historically.
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 01:37:56
    The thought that I had was how do we make, there were some organizations that again gave us like the budget for the program they were requesting money for or my understanding of what has happened and then there were other organizations who gave us the like the organization like this is what our year looks like and how do we I think make that consistent because that would help in terms of
  • 01:38:25
    determining need to.
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 01:38:27
    Ryan can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think we ask for if your program is your agency, then all we need is the agency budget.
  • 01:38:35
    But if you have multiple programs, then we ask you to separate out the budgets for your program.
• • SPEAKER_09
  • 01:38:41
    That's correct.
  • 01:38:44
    That's part of the application already where we, as Kaki said, if there is an agency that has multiple programs, even if it's not programs that are funded by the city, even if there's just one program that's funded by the city, we want that budget in the application for the program that's funded by the city.
  • 01:39:04
    And then we also ask them to submit their entire agency application so we can look at that agency as a whole.
• • SPEAKER_07
  • 01:39:10
    Okay.
  • 01:39:13
    I've got a couple of things on this one.
  • 01:39:17
    One question that would really be in for me is how much will a nonprofit lose in other funding if we don't fund them?
  • 01:39:27
    Because a lot of times they need, there's a lot of nonprofits who have other grants and funds dependent on whether or not they get local dollars.
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 01:39:39
    It's interesting.
  • 01:39:40
    I hear you, and I think it's easy enough for us to add that question in.
  • 01:39:44
    I will say that when we've talked about creating a matching pool, which would be one way to reflect that, there actually hasn't been that much interest in the nonprofit community in actually having a specific matching pool.
  • 01:39:56
    What they're referring to is more that is a symbolic interest or symbolic support from the local community is necessary to ask for, you know, a national foundation to give them money.
  • 01:40:08
    And so it's not necessarily a specific amount as much as the fact that they could point to it.
  • 01:40:13
    Like the city is in, the city supports us and the city is in.
  • 01:40:17
    And then the Ford Foundation or, you know, MacArthur or whoever else is willing to give you a look because your local community supports you.
  • 01:40:24
    But I think it's worth asking that question.
  • 01:40:26
    We can get closer to how it is that we can create the matching pool or a smaller amount of money that would meet that symbolic need or whatever.
• • SPEAKER_07
  • 01:40:36
    I mean, that's just kind of, I mean, even if it's then there's like 10 that we give $5,000 to you because we know that they can then leverage that to actually get the majority of their budget.
  • 01:40:51
    I just want to make sure
  • 01:40:53
    because there are, we do, we are a city of a gazillion nonprofits.
  • 01:40:58
    Most of them are very good.
  • 01:40:59
    And I mean, it's hard to pick and choose.
  • 01:41:05
    And so if we can try to use every dollar to leverage, then for me, that's just important there.
  • 01:41:17
    The other thing is how do we start,
  • 01:41:22
    I guess weaning people off city funding.
  • 01:41:26
    And that if we have decided that this kind of is going to be about, I guess, one of the further slides up front and something that's been really on my mind is we create programs and I'm going to use the mental health court docket.
  • 01:41:41
    There's no way the mental health court is going to go out there raising funds from something.
  • 01:41:46
    We created this program to fill a need in our community.
  • 01:41:53
    and it's an effort to try to keep people who have severe mental health issues from spending their life in jail.
  • 01:42:01
    And that's part of, you know, that's part of our justice system, that's part of our societal, I see that more than helping a nonprofit than as being part, an integral part of our city government and what we do for our people.
  • 01:42:16
    The same thing, it's like the dental clinic is such a,
  • 01:42:21
    a needed hole here that this is a commitment, not a yearly competition.
  • 01:42:33
    And if we have a program then that we are funding year after year after year, that we should be moving that to a more permanent structure versus a program that is
  • 01:42:50
    Maybe we help a few times or help a sub portion of that program get its going and then they get more funding out of that or we give them a small amount every year to help so that they can get other grants.
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 01:43:07
    I think we're trying to get to that by creating the essential category.
  • 01:43:11
    I have heard of a number of programs in the community where essentially city staff slash council at some point said to an organization, will you please take on this giant program?
  • 01:43:26
    It's a critical need in our community.
  • 01:43:28
    And then made them compete for funds in the Vibrant Community Fund.
  • 01:43:33
    And so
  • 01:43:34
    Is that a real competition if the city has already said we're going to support you?
  • 01:43:38
    So either it undermines the competitive pool or it actually creates a really difficult spot for a nonprofit who took on something, you know, the meeting of a critical need.
  • 01:43:47
    And so I think finding this sweet spot between something that is strictly legally contractual and something that is traditionally competitive is going to be really important for you all and will, I think, affect
  • 01:44:02
    and impact a lot of nonprofit satisfaction with the vibrant community fund process and those of us included in it.
  • 01:44:11
    I think it's going to be tricky, honestly, for us to identify that pool.
  • 01:44:14
    And Councilmember Hill, you asked earlier sort of what the financial sort of shakeout for that would be.
  • 01:44:23
    who, of course, got many Smarty Pants staff in the background working hard on these numbers.
  • 01:44:28
    And so this is truly just sort of, you know, sampling, I guess.
  • 01:44:34
    And so if we have 2.4 million set aside roughly in the last two years and we set aside 300,000 for the emerging needs and set the startup pool, that leaves us 2.1 million.
  • 01:44:50
    and then it's just about $750,000 for the group of folks who would fall into this broad sort of essential category.
  • 01:44:57
    And that would leave us 1.35 for the more traditional competitive pool.
• • SPEAKER_12
  • 01:45:08
    Thank you.
  • 01:45:08
    Can you remind me again the number you typically do for our existing contractual obligations?
  • 01:45:13
    I know it's in addition to the 2.4.
  • 01:45:14
    It's not part of that number, but I'm just trying to remember what that scale is.
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 01:45:19
    Ryan's big brain can help you.
• • SPEAKER_09
  • 01:45:22
    Um, I, you can hear the audio right this second, but yeah, it's, it's a really large number.
• • SPEAKER_03
  • 01:45:29
    Okay.
• • SPEAKER_09
  • 01:45:31
    I don't want to throw, I don't want to throw a guess out there right now, but I mean, there's several that, um, receive the jails in there and some other big, yeah, jail, juvenile detention, ECC,
  • 01:45:43
    Region 10 are all the contractual side.
  • 01:45:46
    And so those are all million dollar plus allocations.
  • 01:45:50
    So it's, you know, it's a large number.
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 01:45:54
    And two thoughts just now.
  • 01:45:56
    So when, because I know like DJJ, ACRJ, like when they decrease, should that money go back to the general fund or should that money go into vibrant communities?
  • 01:46:07
    Because we know that we need
  • 01:46:13
    And we know that people are nonprofits or some don't meet that.
  • 01:46:20
    And I think that if we are just, you know, we had this past COVID where a number of people's bill has been reduced.
  • 01:46:31
    Now, we won't see that immediately in terms of the amount that we contribute, but at some point we will.
  • 01:46:37
    When that decrease happened, I think there was a decrease last cycle.
  • 01:46:42
    That money then goes to, can we set that up or talk, think about that a little bit more.
  • 01:46:49
    So we are introducing the amount of funding to help individuals that we know are places, not places that we don't want them.
  • 01:46:59
    I had another thought and I should really write these things down.
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 01:47:03
    Heather Hill, This idea of like a pay for success model, which is what you're suggesting, like on a micro scale, which is that if the jail population goes down, those money savings should go into prevention programs that keep the jail population low, Heather Hill, is certainly consistent with some of the programs that, for example, hospitals will pay for permanent supportive housing programs because they know that permanent supportive housing programs actually
  • 01:47:29
    It results in a dramatic decrease in the use of deep end health care systems like emergency rooms, even surgeries and like death by chronic condition.
  • 01:47:38
    And so they actually take their cost savings is or predicted cost savings and then invest it up front in the permanent support of housing to reduce.
  • 01:47:49
    And so that makes good sense.
  • 01:47:50
    I think it would be complicated for us to figure out, certainly for this cycle, but in general.
  • 01:47:56
    But I like that idea that
  • 01:47:59
    sort of paying for the success to drive costs out of the deep end, more restrictive system.
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 01:48:06
    And this is kind of what we are being asked to defund money into.
  • 01:48:11
    And so then we would be able to say that the money that we're saving here is going to support people in the community to prevent recidivism and, you know, things like that.
  • 01:48:20
    And it would just, I think it would be a lot of flow.
  • 01:48:25
    I really don't remember why that was important, so I'm not.
  • 01:48:28
    if it comes back.
• • SPEAKER_09
  • 01:48:34
    And while I hear what you're saying and I understand the processes and the needs behind it, I just want to put out a reminder that because we fund the jail through our general fund, when that
  • 01:48:50
    Steve McLaughlin, You know, there is the other competing needs of city operations that need to be taken into into account and because it's all the same it's all competing for the same pool of money, so if we say anything that reduces in the jail now goes over here that is to these prevention programs or whatever we are finding community funds that is now meaning that that.
  • 01:49:14
    300, for example, this past year was close to $300,000.
  • 01:49:17
    That $300,000 is now no longer available for city operations for things such as, you know, one of the things we paid for that was the Climate Action Program and some of these other things we added into into the mix later on in the process.
  • 01:49:31
    So that is, I mean, it's
  • 01:49:33
    Council's prerogative to be able to do that when we get these types of savings and instruct staff to look at that.
  • 01:49:39
    But just wanted to remind everyone that, you know, it isn't like just because we have the agency funds, this is a whole separate thing that's all competing for the same general fund dollars.
  • 01:49:48
    And so that would be a consideration we would need to look at on an annual basis.
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 01:49:55
    Yeah, and I do understand that, but I just think it making it a more streamlined process where, you know, even if we were going to fund more of the pathways, you know, more money there, even if we were going to keep those dollars in the house, just that it's going towards an equity, definitely from an area where if the population was consistent, we wouldn't have a say on what our contributions would be or not.
  • 01:50:25
    So that was just my thought there.
  • 01:50:28
    And that's another thing.
  • 01:50:29
    I know that khaki staff capacity and all of that, but definitely if we are able to do some of these things too, then that ask, even from vibrant communities, I would hope that that would be a possibility even internally.
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 01:51:00
    Mr. Wheeler, could you advance a slide?
• • 01:51:03
    Yes.
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 01:51:05
    Okay, so this is your out of cycle requests sort of policy.
  • 01:51:10
    I don't think a lot has actually changed in here.
  • 01:51:14
    There's some nuance in here and I know Mr. Davidson is prepared to talk some about some history and background around this, but generally around this issue we're encouraging that
  • 01:51:26
    The proposals for out-of-cycle requests match what the Vibrant Community Fund requests for either broad or specific priorities, that they do the same paperwork, they meet the same eligibility requirement, that they can demonstrate a meaningful and compelling reason why they were unable to submit the request, that you limit those requests to under $50,000 or your awards under $50,000.
  • 01:51:47
    Two of you would like public consideration of it.
  • 01:51:54
    and that after that, that the staff evaluate progress through quarterly site visits in advance of the quarterly payments.
  • 01:52:02
    So again, this sort of stepped up version of monitoring and that the next year they would be expected to participate in the Vibrant Community Fund competitive process.
• • SPEAKER_09
  • 01:52:14
    And all of these are with the, I would say with the exception of the staff evaluative
  • 01:52:20
    evaluating the progress and the staff evaluative process there.
  • 01:52:24
    All of these are in some form in the current policy that was passed in, I believe, February, March of 2018.
  • 01:52:36
    So what we have here is not a large change.
  • 01:52:39
    There's also, when we've been doing some subsequent research related to out-of-cycle requests, there is also
  • 01:52:47
    some state code requirements that agencies for these kind of out of cycle special funds will have to meet above and beyond, like if they were to come through the regular vibrant community fund, regular appropriation cycle.
  • 01:53:02
    So that that's something else that we'll have to look at that we've been discussing with the city attorney.
  • 01:53:09
    So that's another piece that we would kind of need to work into the process and into the
  • 01:53:17
    Policy, I would say.
  • 01:53:20
    But this might be something that if there's general consensus around this or things that council wants us to tweak, let us know, and then we can come back at a later meeting with a cleaned up policy for you to look at, an amended policy, a cleaned up policy for you to look at and be able to look at it holistically from start to finish and be able to discuss, come up with a
  • 01:53:47
    of consensus and vote at that point.
• • SPEAKER_12
  • 01:53:51
    When I look at, like, obviously we had some discussions as recently as last night about just the funding limits, but I think that with the proposals that you guys have put at the front end of this around allocating this emerging needs pool, this $100,000, I do think it does give us that additional flexibility beyond the $50,000.
• • SPEAKER_09
  • 01:54:17
    And maybe, again, we were talking about the, you know, with that emerging needs and pool or startup pool, kind of the
  • 01:54:25
    and I don't need to flesh out the details, but one of the things we had discussed was potentially setting that funds aside, not necessarily for something that comes up, hey, give us your new nonprofits through the community fund process, but kind of having that to meet needs that potentially council identifies that they want to put out an RFP for sometime in the fiscal year, or if an agency comes in and off cycle to be able to
  • 01:54:49
    for that same kind of idea.
  • 01:54:52
    So that could, as you said, that could alleviate some of the pressure on this policy.
• • SPEAKER_12
  • 01:54:56
    And let me just be sure because you said it is like basically how we manage this now.
  • 01:55:00
    This comes from our funds.
• • SPEAKER_09
  • 01:55:04
    The currently outside of cycle requests have been paid out of the council strategic initiatives funding.
  • 01:55:15
    That's how we've handled this pretty much since I've been here.
  • 01:55:17
    Every now and then there will be a separate funding source that's identified for this.
  • 01:55:22
    Maybe there's a department that partners with them that has some additional funds or something like that.
  • 01:55:26
    But traditionally it's come from the council's strategic initiatives fund.
• • SPEAKER_12
  • 01:55:31
    Yeah, I just want to separate that that's a different bucket than this 2.4 we keep working towards.
• • SPEAKER_09
  • 01:55:36
    Right, right, that's correct.
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 01:55:39
    Yeah, and I think the flexibility that this one was supposed to have, I would like to see, I think before I even had more thoughts around it, this proposal, the current policy and whatever the state code
  • 01:56:02
    whatever they are, and then that would help me with my questions.
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 01:56:11
    I know that Lisa has been working on, Lisa and Ryan have been in conversation and working on being able to present that material to you in some way so that you can move forward with the policy that sort of addresses all of those concerns.
• • SPEAKER_03
  • 01:56:27
    Okay.
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 01:56:30
    Mr. Wheeler.
  • 01:56:31
    So we've talked a little bit about creating opportunities for ongoing evaluation that we've baked into the process.
  • 01:56:40
    And this is just a recap of those that are embedded in other pools, but staff provide evaluation outcome training to prospective applicants.
  • 01:56:49
    I do think this would be really helpful to clarify what it is we're looking for in terms of impact.
  • 01:56:54
    and also a requirement to disaggregate data by race that we're looking at whether folks from all races are having the same kind of experience or impact.
  • 01:57:07
    Authorizing requires staff to provide information to council and to review team on previous years evaluation materials so that we haven't always done that.
  • 01:57:16
    So if we know something, we haven't always shared it with the review team and I think
  • 01:57:21
    What we heard from you all is if we know you want us to include that information in the deliberations.
  • 01:57:28
    Staff evaluate progress through quarterly site visits.
  • 01:57:32
    And so there's multiple pools of folks who we would be going to visit and encouraging the support, of course, of the growth and development around organizational needs as well as part of that evaluation slash support.
  • 01:57:46
    and require staff to include consumer feedback in the evaluation process as described in the previous slide.
  • 01:57:52
    So there's no, I don't think there's any specific decision making here, just sort of a specific response to the tension point that has come up before around making sure that we're tracking and managing outcomes.
  • 01:58:09
    Comments or feedback about this slide?
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 01:58:21
    I just think this is a very, like for us getting this part right, it would be just very helpful.
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 01:58:28
    Yep, I agree.
  • 01:58:31
    Certainly something we heard from you over the last several years, but also I think the full council during this last deliberation, being able to identify and know what impact is really happening.
• • SPEAKER_03
  • 01:58:43
    Yeah.
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 01:58:44
    I imagine this is also part of a continuous improvement process that probably there'll be something that gets tweaked around this every year going forward.
  • 01:58:52
    I don't think there's a place where we say, yep, that's the magic thing.
  • 01:58:54
    We got it right.
  • 01:58:55
    I think we're going to be evolving this over time.
  • 01:58:58
    Sorry.
• • SPEAKER_07
  • 01:58:58
    I was just going to say, I mean, and I think, I mean, most nonprofits I've ever worked for have wanted this kind of feedback, too.
  • 01:59:08
    And it can be hard to get.
  • 01:59:14
    and to get good data on it.
  • 01:59:18
    So I think it's gonna take a lot of experimentation because we serve so many different types of nonprofits that how you evaluate the bridge line with brain injury versus how you evaluate literacy volunteers is gonna be very different
  • 01:59:42
    or versus AHIP or Habitat.
  • 01:59:44
    I mean, their measurements are going to be so different and their impact measurements are going to be different.
  • 01:59:51
    And it's also going to be in some cases hard to measure a negative.
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 01:59:55
    An absence of something.
  • 01:59:56
    I agree.
  • 01:59:57
    I think that and we'll sort of experiment around with like process goals versus impact goals, narrow impact goals versus big community impact goals.
  • 02:00:08
    consumer experience versus outcome.
  • 02:00:12
    And I think this is where sort of marrying the consumer feedback piece with the data I think will be pretty critical for us to understand.
• • SPEAKER_07
  • 02:00:20
    I also think one part that's going to be incredibly critical is when evaluating consumer is also that there is some component that measures the level of the consumer's feeling of being respected.
  • 02:00:38
    and empowered because too often the power dynamic in receiving help from a non-profit and I'm just I'm talking about this from my own personal experiences can be very it's difficult and it's it's hard again to speak up when you're feeling disrespected and
  • 02:01:05
    A nonprofit is thinking of that as being efficiency and not realizing how that efficiency comes out as disrespect or pushing someone further down.
  • 02:01:22
    Again, they should just be grateful to get whatever you get kind of thing.
  • 02:01:26
    And I don't think anyone's ever doing that intentionally, but it's easy for that to happen.
  • 02:01:34
    So I think any any way to also get consumer input of that they felt empowered and respected in the process, both in applying for assistance and receiving their assistance is really important.
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 02:02:01
    Mr. Wheeler, one more slide.
  • 02:02:05
    So this is the multi-year commitment issue.
  • 02:02:08
    We talked a little bit about obviously making those multi-year commitments for startup and emerging needs pools earlier.
  • 02:02:15
    And it seems like you all have some agreement about making more than one year commitment at a time and actually increasing the amounts from the three amounts that we included.
  • 02:02:27
    And so what we're seeing
  • 02:02:30
    this is sort of just clarifying that this is a mechanism that would allow us to allow you all to do that and that while we can commit to the second year in theory, we cannot commit to it in reality because it does need to be appropriated and it is dependent on both the availability of funds and successful progress towards the performance goal and so
  • 02:02:53
    We did consult with Lisa on this and feel confident that there's a mechanism for saying you'll be first in line for the money next year based on successful completion of these things and availability of funds and have that serve as your commitment to two years without being a pre-appropriation.
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 02:03:14
    Yeah, I think that works if we're doing all the other things.
  • 02:03:21
    If we're not doing all the other things, then I think we might be funding some people that we end up in that debate like we, you know, that we do every year.
  • 02:03:33
    And then if we, like the conversations we've had about established nonprofits versus start out what time frame,
  • 02:03:43
    Is there we're back to the priority list or somebody working on something that we have specifically said is a need.
  • 02:03:51
    And then, of course, we would want to fund them.
  • 02:03:53
    I just think as long as we're clear about what that means and just not guaranteed for everyone just because you receive because that's kind of the backing of what people some nonprofit leaders were saying in the past that they thought certain nonprofits just had kind of leg up.
  • 02:04:13
    you know, on them because they just had better grant writers and things like that.
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 02:04:23
    So to be clear, we're just suggesting that you consider multi-year awards for those folks in the startup and emerging needs pool, but not for the traditional.
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 02:04:32
    Okay.
  • 02:04:32
    Yeah.
  • 02:04:33
    Okay.
  • 02:04:33
    And we're good.
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 02:04:34
    Yeah.
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 02:04:35
    Yes.
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 02:04:37
    Otherwise, we should just make this a two-year process and only do it every two years.
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 02:04:42
    Brian is like, listen, let's talk about that.
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 02:04:44
    Brian, this could have been a lot easier.
  • 02:04:49
    Okay, our last slide, please.
  • 02:04:54
    So this is the essential service category, if you can think of a better word.
  • 02:05:01
    We're certainly not wedded to this idea of essential, but it speaks to the fact that it's not traditionally contractual.
  • 02:05:08
    but not in the traditional competitive pool either.
  • 02:05:11
    And so when I've looked at other municipalities who have done something similar, they have identified two or three things that drive the placement into this category.
  • 02:05:25
    And the first is that there's like a baseline level of support for those in the highest risk and the highest need.
  • 02:05:31
    And so they include shelter services for people who are experiencing homelessness.
  • 02:05:36
    So
  • 02:05:37
    that becomes something that the municipality says we're never not going to fund this because it's a baseline need for our community.
  • 02:05:45
    And the same for critical system coordination that reduce duplication and improve system impact.
  • 02:05:51
    And so you think about that as the coordinator of local coalitions who are trying to decrease duplication and increase access points.
  • 02:06:03
    and then services that provide that directly avoid jail costs.
  • 02:06:07
    And so this gets to a little bit of that sort of pay for success kind of idea that we have a vested interest in supporting those programs that avoid jail costs.
  • 02:06:18
    Some municipalities have direct ties also to their emergency rooms because they have local dollars that actually go into their emergency health care systems.
  • 02:06:27
    We don't have that directly.
  • 02:06:30
    But that's another thing is to sort of say we're invested in solutions that avoid deep and more restrictive, more invasive, higher costs in all the systems.
  • 02:06:43
    But in this case, we have a direct tie to the jail costs with our municipal dollars.
  • 02:06:47
    And so it seems rational to include them in this pool.
  • 02:06:52
    And so this would mean that those folks
  • 02:06:56
    for example, that the drug court, the mental health court, pre-trial services, those kinds of things would fall into the avoiding jail costs, but there might be other programs that would make a bid for that as well.
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 02:07:14
    So what happens in a case like yesterday, consent agenda with the,
  • 02:07:26
    when there's an influx of funding, because this is now maybe a priority at a state level, federal level or whatever.
  • 02:07:32
    And if you are able, if it doesn't come with like a rule in the policy that you can't, it has to be an additional to local funding, because we had that last night on the body camera funding.
  • 02:07:50
    It said that it couldn't replace the local funding or whatever it had to be in addition to.
  • 02:07:57
    But that's a lot of money, 800 some thousand.
  • 02:08:00
    And so then do the locality still need to contribute that year in the same way that they've contributed before?
  • 02:08:08
    I have a lot of those thoughts, like with Kat as an example, you know, the
  • 02:08:14
    Someone thought that CAT deserved a lot of money doing CARES and, you know, and so when those type of decisions are made, are we on a local level able to pivot any, you know, do we or do we not?
  • 02:08:26
    Those are just some questions that I've had during budget, so that would be one that I would have here.
  • 02:08:31
    So if we create these categories, are we then monitoring all of those other
  • 02:08:35
    things, or are we just saying we'll continue to fund you at the level we have been, and is there an easy way to monitor that?
  • 02:08:42
    That's the only thing that I would want to know about the categories.
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 02:08:46
    You ask a lot of questions I can't answer at the moment, but I can say that one of the things that came up in our conversation is that we agree that we want to do a better job evaluating the applications for the contractual pool
  • 02:09:00
    and a better job evaluating this group if they were identified as this essential service category.
  • 02:09:05
    And so we would list them and rank them in the same kind of way.
  • 02:09:09
    We would score them and rank them in the same kind of way.
  • 02:09:12
    We would just list them separately so that if you all were prioritizing your money, you would say, we're going to prioritize this essential category first because that's what we said.
  • 02:09:22
    But it wouldn't automatically mean that you get 100% of what you got last year.
  • 02:09:26
    you'd still have to go through the process of justifying the need, including the budget.
  • 02:09:32
    And so if somebody's, I mean, certainly the review teams are really actually really good at looking at those budgets and if they see that somebody used to have, you know, a big grant for $300,000 for the last four years and this year they hope to fill that gap with fundraising
  • 02:09:49
    There's a lot of questions for that nonprofit.
  • 02:09:51
    Like, what do you mean?
  • 02:09:51
    That's a big chunk to fill all of a sudden with fundraising.
  • 02:09:54
    Do you have major donors lined up?
  • 02:09:56
    Those kinds of things.
  • 02:09:57
    In the same way that if suddenly there was a new source of revenue that popped up that said, wait a minute, maybe they don't need us as much.
  • 02:10:04
    And so they might actually get fewer points based on the need thing.
  • 02:10:08
    And they also might get additional questions from the review team about like, well, maybe we don't need to contribute as much as we have anymore because you got $806,000.
  • 02:10:17
    Yeah.
  • 02:10:18
    So that piece, you know, in terms of the evaluation, scoring and monitoring, I think is going to be stepped up for all three categories of applicants.
  • 02:10:27
    But there's still some questions in there that you asked, but I'm not, I'm not sure how that would play out.
  • 02:10:32
    I have to do some more.
  • 02:10:34
    Thank you.
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 02:10:36
    And the other thing that I would like here with these or the contractual organizations that if we have an organization that is in those two categories, that we do make sure that we are not allowed, that we are clear, very clear in the review process if another organization is saying they're going to do the same work.
  • 02:11:03
    to make sure that it's aligned with why we think this organization is the, you know, we should have a contract with.
  • 02:11:10
    And I'm thinking of United Way right now and the child care scholarships is the example.
  • 02:11:16
    And so if we think that other people can meet that need better, should they still be a contractual organization?
  • 02:11:22
    Or if they are a contractual organization, do we give other people funding to do that?
  • 02:11:27
    You know, the thing that we have contracted with them to do.
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 02:11:31
    Or as a
  • 02:11:32
    Ms.
  • 02:11:33
    McGill suggested earlier to be incentivized the collaboration and merging of the two efforts if that can be done in a healthy way.
  • 02:11:40
    And I think there's lots to consider there.
  • 02:11:43
    And certainly that sort of plays up the city's role as convener and technical assistance provider that we have a role to play in helping existing organizations be more responsive and in supporting new organizations to respond to unmet needs.
  • 02:12:02
    I think we can play both roles.
• • SPEAKER_07
  • 02:12:06
    I think we also need to, I haven't seen where this kind of shows up yet.
  • 02:12:10
    This is just another issue that has, we've talked about both the pros and cons of some of it.
  • 02:12:18
    I don't, it's if an agency is getting money for more than one pot within the city.
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 02:12:23
    Yeah.
  • 02:12:26
    We're not there yet.
  • 02:12:28
    That was one of the things on our list that we had so hoped we'd be able to figure out that coordination for the CDBG and CAF funds.
  • 02:12:34
    And now we weren't able to do that before this meeting.
  • 02:12:38
    So we anticipate coming back with some suggestions around how to do that once we've had a chance to consult with our colleagues in a way that allows us the time to do that.
  • 02:12:48
    We just haven't been able to do that yet.
  • 02:12:50
    But it's on our minds, too.
  • 02:12:51
    And certainly, Council Member Hill has been asking about that sort of system coordination between those three schools for some time.
• • SPEAKER_09
  • 02:12:58
    Right.
  • 02:12:59
    I mean, currently, it's not perfect.
  • 02:13:02
    But currently, on the applications, we do ask if there is any other
  • 02:13:07
    if the organizations are receiving any other city funds and there is on those ones that we know traditionally have applied for multiple pots like that.
  • 02:13:15
    We do have staff coordination between us on the various applications to see, but there's no, I guess, at this point mechanism built into the application to score up or down if you receive additional funds or really take other than have it as informational for us at this point.
• • SPEAKER_07
  • 02:13:36
    I mean, honestly, I mean, I remember, again, working in nonprofits is you could get a lot of the times money for this program or that program, but there was no way you could get any money for the admin part with the glue that held it all together.
  • 02:13:52
    And I mean, I understand if that's necessarily someone was asking for and that we maybe even allow that that is something that we ask for within this particular funding.
  • 02:14:05
    that it's not necessarily for the programmatic cost, but for the actual admin cost of holding the rest of it together.
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 02:14:13
    And that certainly has been something that's been embedded in our assumption about what a contractual organization is.
  • 02:14:19
    If it's somebody like a coordinator who serves as a backbone for an entire system of care, they're not going to be able to get impact money anywhere, but they can get sort of admin support.
  • 02:14:31
    And we recognize the value in that coordination and improved care.
  • 02:14:35
    We've reflected that.
  • 02:14:37
    I see Mr. Payne has turned his mic on and off several times, but hasn't actually had a chance to say anything.
• • Michael Payne
  • 02:14:45
    Well, just, yeah, my only thought is that for some of the contractual agencies, either for services we're required to provide, or I'm thinking in particular services like OAR, drug court,
  • 02:14:59
    Would it not make sense for a couple of those to even pull them out of the Vibrant Community Fund if we know that we're going to need to fund them every year and there's really no intention on the part of council to think of something like OAR drug court as being part of a competitive process?
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 02:15:19
    I think that's a great question.
  • 02:15:21
    I think this pool of people who would be in this category of these sort of emergency services, critical system coordination, and the sort of avoiding jail costs could be organizations that we treat like contractual, that they still have to file all the same paperwork as the contractual, but we treat like contractual and we just reflect that in different lists for you all during the final deliberations.
  • 02:15:49
    or we can list them as part of your vibrant community fund pool just sort of set aside.
  • 02:15:54
    It's up to you how you want us to reflect them.
  • 02:15:57
    This is really in response to the conversations in the last two cycles from you all and we want to make sure we're meeting your expectations.
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 02:16:04
    I would need to see what the proposal for this list would look like.
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 02:16:14
    Who's in the categories?
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 02:16:15
    Yeah, more thoughts from me.
• • SPEAKER_07
  • 02:16:26
    Again, I just keep coming back to this in my head of if we have been supporting something every single year and we are still seeing that they are doing what they're supposed to be doing, it just seems weird to keep making them compete.
  • 02:16:40
    I mean, beyond even some of the, I mean, and I guess that's where I'm coming into the essential.
  • 02:16:46
    It doesn't mean that we don't still evaluate whether or not they're still doing the service they're supposed to be doing that we say as a community we need.
  • 02:16:59
    like I look at like oh yeah I don't bring up any I'm trying not to bring up non-profits so um there's just it seems to keep competing everyone for this just doesn't make sense to me the question would be so if it's not a competition it's maybe about the amount of your requests
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 02:17:26
    And so if you're not competing about whether you get funded or not, you know you're going to get funded.
  • 02:17:33
    I think this is a question we've actually had over the years about contractual obligation organizations as well.
  • 02:17:39
    Under what circumstances can they get more than they got last year?
  • 02:17:42
    What if they start a new program that's not technically a contract anymore?
  • 02:17:47
    And so there's some nuance around this that we struggle with internally as staff about how to manage.
  • 02:17:54
    and so one of the ways we can do that is to do a better job evaluating the actual proposals and then the second would be instead of it being you're going to get some funding from the city because we're committed to doing this but we're not sure based on looking at the entire pool of applicants into our 2.4 or whatever it is that we have set aside for our vibrant community fund we're not sure if you're going to get 100% of what you asked for it's not a guarantee and so there's still some deliberations on your part
  • 02:18:25
    in determining what the amount is.
  • 02:18:27
    I don't know if that's the right answer or not, but that's one way of looking at it.
• • SPEAKER_07
  • 02:18:32
    Answer.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 02:18:35
    One thing I think we need to note while we're talking about this, I mean, the category, the four organizations I'm looking at that I had thought we should not be having any competitive pool at all,
  • 02:18:48
    Drug Court Therapeutic Docket, OAR Local Probation, OAR Pre-Trial Services, it's about $220,000.
  • 02:18:54
    And I just have a hard time, I mean, even if we took $220,000 out of that pool, we're now at $1.8 million.
  • 02:19:00
    We were, as I recall, the last numbers we had for this year, we were
  • 02:19:11
    having recommendations to spend about $2 million out of the pool.
  • 02:19:15
    So that would get us to another 180 that we're spending in other ways.
  • 02:19:21
    I've said repeatedly during both of these cycles, both last year's cycle and this year's cycle, that I just don't think the drug court therapeutic docket, probation, pretrial services are things where we ought to be in a situation where we're essentially tempted to freeload off of the county.
  • 02:19:41
    when the county funds something fully and we don't fund something fully, then we're essentially freeloading off of them.
  • 02:19:48
    But we're getting this.
  • 02:19:49
    But nobody's sitting there saying, oh, we're not going to do as many services for people who are city residents as we do for county residents.
  • 02:20:00
    We're just going to freeload.
  • 02:20:01
    And I just find that an unacceptable proposition.
  • 02:20:04
    And I don't think we ought to be in that position.
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 02:20:08
    Yeah, I don't think that's what's happening because I think the county would tell us that if, you know, that were the case.
  • 02:20:14
    And there are a lot of examples of where we are funding things that they've never even considered and it's, you know, impacting their
  • 02:20:24
    We just had this come up this year with Home to Hope and there was some funding that they did provide for the first time because we are servicing a lot of people who end up moving to the county because there's nowhere else for them to live within the city that they can afford.
  • 02:20:41
    But I mean, Kaki, you know, and I guess we're not here to make a list about that, but there are a lot of examples of that.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 02:20:53
    So if the county were to say, hey, we're paying more than your share, our share is larger than your share, you're not paying enough, but we've already approved our budget.
  • 02:21:03
    What would your answer be?
  • 02:21:05
    Sorry, we've already approved our budget or oops, gee, you're right, here's another 20,000 bucks.
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 02:21:09
    Yeah, but I think that's also, oh, go ahead.
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 02:21:14
    Oh, no, I think you're going to say the same thing I'm going to say.
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 02:21:19
    No, I don't know.
  • 02:21:21
    I just think that, you know, the example that I, it's not what I was just going to say just now, but the example that I am thinking of in this moment is conversation that I had with one supervisor only.
  • 02:21:37
    So I'll just say it's one, but about the needs in the public defender's office.
  • 02:21:42
    And if we were going to raise our rates in the city, then we would need the county to raise, increase their
  • 02:21:49
    Ramesh, Ph.D.
  • 02:21:49
    : Rates because they there's no way to really apparently separate which attorney works on what cases in that way that we were having this conversation.
  • 02:22:00
    So if we funded it, it would end up being a funding an attorney who would be working on both county and city cases without the county's contribution.
  • 02:22:09
    So that was one thought.
  • 02:22:11
    The other things like the jail.
  • 02:22:15
    There is, they tell us based on our share of what our contribution needs to be.
  • 02:22:22
    And I don't know how that's happening at somewhere like OAR, if it's based on
  • 02:22:28
    the number served or if they are competing like other organizations just saying for us to do this thing, then we need this dollars and then it's up to the city to agree whether we agree with that thing or not.
  • 02:22:42
    Then that's different than sharing the cost of a program that services the county and city at the same level.
• • SPEAKER_12
  • 02:22:53
    And those organizations still do go through their traditional ABRT process.
  • 02:22:58
    I'm just curious, historically, Ryan, how has the county handled those programs that Lloyd is referencing?
• • SPEAKER_09
  • 02:23:07
    I would have to go back and double check.
  • 02:23:10
    And with that, I'm not 100% sure how they've handled those.
  • 02:23:15
    I mean, they have gone through the, my recollection is that they went through the traditional programs.
  • 02:23:20
    what used to be the ABRT, it's a very similar process for them still with those agencies.
  • 02:23:28
    But I would say one thing, one point to add, we looked several years, many, many years ago, I can't remember exactly when we did this, at kind of the per
  • 02:23:41
    both per capita and the per beneficiary cost between the city and the county.
  • 02:23:45
    And we found, you know, it was kind of all over the place at that time because it was the traditional ABRT process where you moved up or down three or 4% in any given year.
  • 02:23:55
    And so there was a lot of areas where we were paying more than the county for certain things.
  • 02:23:58
    There were some areas where the county was paying more than the city on a per beneficiary basis.
  • 02:24:03
    And it was part of that is, you know, was based upon
  • 02:24:08
    how what level they got into the process at for the various localities.
  • 02:24:13
    Like if someone came in and we were only able to give them $10,000 to start, but this county gave them 20,000, then the counties per capita was, you know, going to be a little bit higher on that.
  • 02:24:22
    And because of the old system, you know, there was only there was a limited amount of movement.
  • 02:24:26
    So it's not it really is not one sided.
  • 02:24:30
    We've looked at it.
  • 02:24:32
    over the years a few times, and it's been kind of county pays more in some areas, we pay more in others.
  • 02:24:36
    And the other piece that's taken into account is that the values of the council may be very different than the values of the board.
  • 02:24:47
    And the council may say, hey, we value this at more.
  • 02:24:51
    over here, and the board may say, we value this at more, and then if they come back and say, hey, we're paying more, you know, there is that response of, well, you brought it in at more because at the time the values were there for that, within the board or the council for that agency to come in at that level.
  • 02:25:07
    So I know it's not, it's not perfect, but.
• • SPEAKER_12
  • 02:25:13
    And I would say-
  • 02:25:18
    I think it is helpful just to kind of see the full list of those we would consider, but I can just say that, you know, from our last budget discussions and ones that were previous to this, those programs that Counselor Snook has outlined are ones I would also be interested in us considering moving to a more regular model, given just the ongoing need and that's not something that we're going to be doing on our own.
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 02:25:42
    and the interest in the sort of baseline homeless system of care like emergency shelter and programs like what Home to Hope or reentry programs that have a deep end impact of reducing jail costs fall into that category.
  • 02:26:02
    I mean, Home to Hope is city funded so that, but Fountain Fund, I'm mostly just sort of
  • 02:26:10
    sending up trial balloons to see whether it's beyond the OAR programs.
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 02:26:17
    Yeah, I think that we should see the list.
  • 02:26:21
    Well, I would want to see the list.
  • 02:26:23
    And I think that we, because that'll help me.
  • 02:26:26
    But whatever fits into those categories.
  • 02:26:30
    Hold on for a second.
  • 02:26:43
    He's playing his instrument.
  • 02:26:44
    The evaluation period, you know, the evaluation component from the, you know, the people who receive the services is going to be critical for those two categories.
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 02:26:57
    So one of the things we can do is create the list, the sample list and send it all to you all.
  • 02:27:05
    What I would ask is because this is pretty critical for our instruction for nonprofits at the end of the summer.
  • 02:27:12
    If we can move quickly on getting to some consensus around these agencies that are on this category, I hear a general agreement that we should create such a category.
  • 02:27:25
    And now the question is who falls into it and what the rubric is.
  • 02:27:28
    And so we'll do that, send it out to you all.
  • 02:27:30
    And then if we can find agreement quickly, great.
  • 02:27:33
    If we not, then we can schedule some time for us to come back together and have a discussion around that.
  • 02:27:38
    This is the only other remaining thing that would impact our instructions for this cycle.
• • SPEAKER_09
  • 02:27:44
    And one thing I would bring up to consider as well is there have been some agencies that as staff we've reviewed through the what we're calling the contractual process that may fit more into this essential than actually contractual kind of move that other way as well.
  • 02:28:02
    And I think those are other agencies we need to there's other agencies outside of what's on this vibrant community fund list to be considered.
  • 02:28:09
    Um,
  • 02:28:10
    that have kind of gone through that contractual review process that maybe are more in line with this essential service category.
  • 02:28:17
    But because we didn't have this before, we didn't have a place where they quite fit.
  • 02:28:21
    And so we shifted them to that process that this may be the better avenue for them as well.
  • 02:28:26
    But we'll have to see how that plays out with that entire list of agencies as we look through it.
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 02:28:31
    And when that's the case, we'll indicate it on our sheet so that you know that it's historically been or more recently been paid out of the contractual pool.
• • SPEAKER_07
  • 02:28:39
    I mean, honestly, I've always been kind of confused why the public defender's office and mental health court docket aren't considered kind of the same kind of contractual service, so
• • SPEAKER_08
  • 02:29:01
    If it is treated as a contractual, we do meet with the county and consult and make sure that we are both contributing either equally or a prorated share.
  • 02:29:12
    So that would address Counselor Snook's concerns with those.
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 02:29:18
    It is 5.30 p.m.
  • 02:29:21
    and we have gone through all 14 of our slides.
  • 02:29:23
    I feel that we have very clear direction from you all and I'm deeply appreciative of that.
  • 02:29:29
    We also have our next homework which is to figure out the out-of-cycle policy and Lisa and Ryan can work on that component and to create this list of folks who would fall into the essential category and see where and how you all as the five of you stand on those agencies in that designation.
• • SPEAKER_12
  • 02:29:52
    Thank you, you and the entire team.
  • 02:29:54
    I just feel like this was a really efficient conversation and
  • 02:29:59
    Wasn't sure what direction we're going to go, but this has just been really helpful and I feel like I'm glad to hear you feel like you've gotten the direction that you need.
  • 02:30:06
    But I'm just looking forward to the next steps in this and just can't thank you all enough for the lift that you've done, obviously, to get us to this point in a pretty, you know, good, good timely way today.
  • 02:30:17
    So thank you.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 02:30:18
    I want to add my thanks also because I think this you've identified the key questions that we've continued to grapple with.
  • 02:30:26
    and hopefully giving us some paths out of the thicket.
  • 02:30:29
    Appreciate that.

6. PUBLIC COMMENT

• • SPEAKER_11
  • 02:30:33
    And we can just check to see if there's anyone who would like to speak for public comment before we... Thank you, Mayor Walker.
• • SPEAKER_10
  • 02:30:42
    If you're in the audience, we have three people right now.
  • 02:30:45
    If you'd like to speak to council, please click the raise hand icon in the Zoom webinar.
  • 02:30:49
    Thank you.
  • 02:30:55
    No hands.
• • SPEAKER_07
  • 02:30:57
    All right, we continue with the thank yous.
  • 02:31:00
    Thank you all.
  • 02:31:01
    I also want to throw in my two cents thank you because it's been very obvious the active listening that was going on throughout our struggles, especially this last year in the viral community process and where we are.
  • 02:31:19
    I mean I know myself I was just struggling to try to to understand certain things and then also make decisions based and how to make my decisions and I just hope everyone does know that it was never a lack of trust and expertise but just sometimes just not knowing certain things of and having trying to
  • 02:31:45
    trying to explain not fully knowing some stuff.
  • 02:31:49
    And as much as everyone try, I mean, I just really appreciate everyone's work.
  • 02:31:56
    And this is emotional and difficult.
  • 02:32:00
    And we know our nonprofits are doing a lot in our community.
  • 02:32:06
    And trying to evaluate them against themselves for the dollars is always ridiculously hard.
  • 02:32:15
    from the monetary sense, but also the compassion sense.
  • 02:32:18
    This is our community.
  • 02:32:19
    So, and I know it's everyone else's community as well.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 02:32:22
    And so thank you very much.
• • SPEAKER_05
  • 02:32:23
    Okay.
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 02:32:30
    All right.
  • 02:32:31
    Well, I'm glad that you all have what you needed.
  • 02:32:34
    I thought it was on that first slide for a long time, but I'm glad that we made progress.
  • 02:32:42
    So yeah.
  • 02:32:44
    So if there's
  • 02:32:46
    Any other comments?
  • 02:32:48
    All right.
  • 02:32:49
    So meeting.
  • 02:32:50
    Thank you all.
• • SPEAKER_12
  • 02:32:52
    See each other tomorrow again.
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 02:32:55
    Good night.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 02:32:57
    And Thursday.