Campaign for 20%

In Brief: This post talks about the history of the Campaign for 20%. We are a State-wide coalition of human service executive directors and CEOs, current and retired, who are committed to moving contracting toward a more sustainable, performance-based, lowest responsible bidder approach.

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The Campaign for 20% started as the Human Infrastructure Group, a subcommittee of Brave Commitments. After an extensive study of the challenges faced by children-, youth- and family-serving organizations, the Human Infrastructure Group determined that the most pressing is the way we are funded.

For the past several years, we have watched organizations and programs close because of funding challenges. For example, one of Brave Commitment’s early members, Peace for the Streets by Kids from the Streets closed in 2019. Seattle Counseling Services closed in 2022. Almost every organization in Brave Commitments has walked away from at least one government contract on which they lost a painful sum of money every year, some even closing entire programs. And some government contracting opportunities have had no bids from human service organizations who recognize that a win on that particular contract would cause them irreparable financial damage.

In 2022, Brave Commitments made this campaign our top priority, and we opened the campaign to all human service organizations. All of these organizations suffer from the same challenge: we lose 20% or more on of our costs on every contract we have with governmental agencies. Demand from the governmental sector is growing at an unprecedented rate, and our fundraising efforts cannot keep up. We need a change.

We are asking human services contracting processes be required to use a performance-based, lowest responsible bidder approach, just as other vendors providing services to the State currently are. This will allow human service entities to bid competitively (as we currently do), but without line-item constraints, and with the opportunity to request payment for the full cost of the services we will deliver. We will also be held accountable for outcomes (as we currently are). This is a great first step moving towards a more sustainable human services sector.

If you have not already done so, please sign onto our letter of support. You can find the link on the navigation bar at the top of the page. Don’t forget to sign up for this blog, as well. This will help us keep you informed of progress on the campaign.