Funding Alignment Council (FAC) overview

Purpose

To promote and facilitate alignment and coordination of public and private funders toward anti-poverty goals

Role / responsibilities

• • To align funders of poverty programs and strategies by increasing communication, enhancing learning, and gaining agreement on a shared data set to reduce data collection burden on grantees
  • To support RMAPI backbone staff in setting a fundraising strategy and implementation plan, which includes researching new funding options for RMAPI

Initial activities:

• Map current funding sources / flows in the community related to poverty reduction
• Agree on points for greater alignment and coordination
• Outline current data requests among funders and determine if there is a “common data set” that can be asked of all grantees
• Build funder capacity on RMAPI’s guiding principles
• Advise RMAPI on how to diversify funding sources
• Identify opportunities to bring more private / public dollars to poverty reduction work

Expected outputs:

• A shared picture and understanding exists among funders of current funding flows in the community
• An understanding exists of the current data requests to service providers
• Potential solutions to streamline data collection /reporting are discussed and prioritized
• A financial sustainability plan for RMAPI exists         

Expected outcomes:

• Increase in poverty reduction funding for Rochester / Monroe County
• Increase in funders taking a systems approach
• Partners align their actions to RMAPI’s goals
• Public and private funds are aligned
• Partners share and use data to drive decisions
• Changes in attitudes and behavior related to trauma and structural racism