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Funding Priorities

The Portland Children’s Levy (PCL) is a City of Portland initiative that generates approximately $23 million annually through a property tax of $0.4026 per $1,000 assessed valuation. Portland voters created the Levy in 2002 and overwhelmingly renewed it for the fourth time in May 2023, extending the end date of funding to June 30, 2029. PCL goals are to:

  • Prepare children for school.
  • Support children’s success inside and outside of school.
  • Eliminate racial and ethnic disparities in children’s well-being and school success.

PCL operates a competitive grant process at least once during each 5-year levy. PCL funds services in the following 6 program areas, as approved by voters: after school, child abuse prevention and intervention, early childhood, foster care, hunger relief and mentoring.

What We Do

Community engagement

Ahead of the funding round, PCL worked with Camille Trummer LLC and PKS International Community Engagement Liaisons to engage community members most affected by Levy investments. More than 750 people participated in surveys in more than 26 languages, focus groups and interviews. Their input along with feedback from PCL’s Community Council and Allocation Committee helped shape the priorities and program area strategies for the 2024-25 funding round.

2024 Community Engagement Report (PDF)

Funding priorities

Applications for each program area funding must address at least one of the funding priorities shown. Scoring criteria favor applications that include the program features outlined.

2024-25 funding priorities (PDF)

1. Provide activities for youth such as arts, sports, STEM education, and/or youth recreation.

2. Provide hard and soft skill-building, career readiness and internship opportunities for youth.

3. Provide academic support including tutoring and homework assistance.

4. Support healthy social and emotional development, including activities to help youth build healthy peer relationships, reduce feelings of isolation, and learn healthy strategies to manage stress and navigate conflict.

5. Provide activities for youth with disabilities, neurodivergence or developmental delays including arts, sports, STEM education and/or youth recreation.

1. Connect families to resources like food, utility payments, housing or rental assistance, and other basic needs.

2. Connect parents/caregivers with each other and reduce isolation.

3. Support parents/caregivers and youth experiencing grief and stress to learn coping skills.

4. Help children, youth, and families navigate multiple systems including child welfare, and access to mental/behavioral health and legal services.

5. Support the healing of families impacted by violence.

6. Offer support and resources to teen parents, including learning about child development and behavior, identifying and expressing feelings, helping children learn skills to handle stress, supporting children and families experiencing grief and stress learn skills to cope, access to substance use intervention and supports, and connecting parents to resources for basic needs.

1. Offer financial assistance to families for childcare. Please note PCL addresses this priority through its Community Childcare Initiative, a special initiative of $2 million annually for childcare affordability, administered by Child Care Resource & Referral of Multnomah County. PCL will not accept competitive grant applications for this funding priority.  

2. Help families learn about child behavior and development including managing difficult behavior.

3. Help children identify and express feelings.

4. Help parents and caregivers of children with disabilities, neurodivergence, or developmental delays with parenting needs, including system navigation to help children access physical, occupational, and speech therapy.

5. Offer community-based pre/post natal maternal education.

PCL will not fund preschool classroom services or preschool-age childcare through this grant process due to Preschool for All.

1. Support for older foster youth to enter college and/or the workforce, find housing, and live on their own.

2. Support for foster youth to understand their cultural and racial identity.

3. Support and create opportunities for connection and/or reunification between foster youth and birth families, including but not limited to mental health services.

4. Support for foster parents to create a welcoming home and provide supportive care for youth who identify as LGBTQ2SIA+.

5. Help for foster youth and their foster families and birth parents to navigate multiple systems, especially to access mental and behavioral health services.

6. Provide services that support and improve youth mental health, especially for youth who identify as LGBTQ2SIA+.

7. Mentoring for foster youth and/or for birth parents of youth in foster care, especially by mentors who share similar experiences with the foster care system.

1. Food pantries offered at community locations.

2. Food pantries at schools.

3. Free groceries and/or ready-to-eat meals delivered to families’ homes.

4. Classes for children and families on nutrition, cooking, and/or gardening.

5. Access to gardens for families to grow food.

1. Offer activities to increase social connections, reduce isolation, and affirm identities among youth and families with similar identities.

2. Support youth, ages 14-24, to complete a pre-apprenticeship program, prepare for employment and/or college and/or complete an apprenticeship, post-secondary credential program or college degree.  

3. Offer identity-specific support, opportunities and mental health resources for youth to express their feelings and heal from trauma, grief, and experiences of violence.

4. Offer services that prevent youth from joining gangs and reduce gang involvement.

5. Offer mentoring services that affirm the cultural, racial, gender, LGBTQ2SIA+ identities of youth and families.

6. Help youth develop leadership skills.