Planning
Our Grantmaking Cycle
In 1991, San Franciscans made a historic commitment to the future of the City: voters approved the Children and Youth Fund, the nation’s first dedicated fund for services for children, youth, and families.
Our mandate is to invest the Fund in programs and services to achieve four citywide results:
all children and youth are supported by nurturing families and communities.
all children and youth are physically and emotionally healthy.
all children and youth are ready to learn and succeed in school.
all youth are ready for college, work, and productive adulthood.
We engage deeply with San Francisco’s communities to realize this vision. Every five years, we embark on a three step planning process:
Community Needs Assessment (CNA)
DCYF collects data and connects with San Francisco’s communities directly to understand the status of the City’s children, youth and families and their needs. The Community Needs Assessment (CNA) also includes an equity analysis of the disparities between low-income neighborhoods and disadvantaged communities and the City as a whole.
Services Allocation Plan (SAP)
The information, data, and insights gathered in the CNA is the used to create our Service Allocation Plan (SAP), which identifies strategic funding priorities for the types of programs that can best address San Franciscans’ needs and disparities.
Request for Proposals (RFP)
DCYF funds programs to implement the services called for in the SAP through a Request for Proposals (RFP) process. Agencies that are funded through the RFP will receive grants for five-year terms.
We collect data on 17 indicators of community well-being throughout the funding cycle to evaluate our collective impact on our four Result Areas.