Allocation Committee meeting recap (1-27-26)

Small grants funding round update

The Portland Children’s Levy received 55 eligible applications for small grants requesting $10,362,326 in funding. That’s nearly $7 requested for every dollar available.

The majority of applications were in the after school and mentoring program areas.

Organizations were eligible for a small grant if their annual revenue in their last closed fiscal year was between $90,000-$750,000. About 1 in 3 applications requested the maximum grant of $240,000 over three years.

PCL staff and Community Council members recently reviewed and scored all applications, which include a written component and a 5-minute video component. Three staff members scored the application’s written component, and 9 of 12 Community Council members scored the video component of each application.

The Community Council meets on February 23 to consider, discuss, and vote on staff funding recommendation packages. Three different funding recommendation packages are being crafted using factors including application score, program area and funding priorities from community engagement, and program feasibility. 

The resulting recommendations will be sent to the Allocation Committee and applicants by March 3. Applicants will have two weeks to submit written testimony. The Allocation Committee is scheduled to make small grant funding decisions at its April 7 meeting, and decisions would be subject to City Council approval.

Learn more in the meeting slide deck

Financial update

Several factors unique to PCL have led to an approximate $6.5 million increase in projected resources available for fiscal years 2027-29 – or about $2.17 million per year over the three years.

Allocation Committee members unanimously approved using the money to:

• Increase the allocation to the current small grants funding round by $1 million to $2.5 million total over three years. This would result in up to 12 total small grants, instead of the originally projected 6 to 10 grants.
• Increase three-year funding to all current large grants by 8% for use in fiscal years 2027 and 2028. This would total $5.2 million across the two years. This would help grantee partners address rising costs and allow for cost-of-living adjustments. It would also mitigate the impact of funding reductions last year that resulted in PCL awarding lower grant amounts than requested by large grant applicants.
• Leave $300,000 in reserves for potential future grant renewals.

Allocation Committee funding decisions are subject to City Council approval later this spring. If approved, additional funding for grants would begin July 1, 2026.

The unexpected additional revenue resulted from several factors unique to the levy:

• $2.8 million in updated revenue projections for fiscal years 2026-28. Updated projections from the City of Portland economist in December 2025 showed that the impacts of property tax compression were not as deep as previously forecast in December 2024.
• $1.7 million in offset due to compression from the Portland Parks & Recreation levy. The current Parks Levy is scheduled to end June 2026. Voters in November 2025 approved the new Parks Levy at a higher rate starting July 1, 2026. This means that the Parks Levy will continue to further compress and reduce revenue that the Children’s Levy would otherwise receive. However, the City Council resolution referring the Parks Levy to voters included language requiring PP&R to continue offsetting the impacts to the Children’s Levy.
• $2 million from a combination of the following factors: grant underspending in the previous fiscal year; an increase in actual property tax revenue collected in fiscal year 2025 compared to projected revenue; additional interest last year and projected additional interest through fiscal year 2028; and savings from City of Portland internal reorganization changes.

Revenue from the voter-approved Children’s Levy is legally required to be spent on grants that support children and families and cannot be used for other purposes. By law, PCL is limited to 5% spending on administration, which limits staff capacity for grant management.

Learn more in the meeting slide deck

2024-25 performance data

Staff presented performance data summarizing results of grantees’ work during fiscal year 2024-25, including the number and demographics of people served, service level, participation and program outcomes. Key highlights include: 

• More than 9,900 children served in after school, child abuse prevention and intervention, early childhood, foster care, mentoring and small grants.
• Many grantee organizations continue positive recovery from the pandemic, with many outcomes returning to pre-pandemic levels.
• Hunger relief programs served more than 13,000 children and distributed more than 3 million pounds of food.
• Staffing remains a challenge for some programs.

View the meeting slide deck and performance data for more detail. 

Miss the meeting?

Watch it on YouTube or on CityNet Xfinity Channel 30 and 330 (HD) at 2:30 p.m. Feb 2, 7 p.m. Feb 5 and 7 p.m. Feb. 7. You can also view the meeting slide deck.

Join us for the next Allocation Committee meeting

Please join us for the next Allocation Committee meeting 2-4 p.m. April 7. Agendas for future meetings will be sent to our email list, shared on our social media channels and posted on portlandchildrenslevy.org
 
We welcome your comment on agenda items or the work of the Portland Children’s Levy. If you would like to join the next meeting to participate, please sign up for our email list and stay tuned for the meeting invite.