Sustain Your Work
During your SET stage, your coalition began to think about and prepare for the sustainability of your equity-based intervention. In the GO phase, your coalition will revisit your sustainability plan to ensure that progress is being made and that changes are made as the project evolves.
This sustainability plan also helps to institutionalize your project. Because you have a plan in place for financial sustainability, your efforts can be focused on project implementation and continuous quality improvement efforts, making your project a key part of your organization’s activities now and in the future.
The following topics will lead you through steps needed to sustain your work. Please use the Read More links to learn about each step and for additional resources.
Share the Story of Your Efforts
Your coalition developed the “story” of your intervention in the READY phase when locating, understanding, and sharing your local MCH data. Your story has since evolved, and your intervention has grown and changed. You now need to communicate information about the changes you have made as well as share logic models, evaluation plans, products, and findings. With all of this great information, your coalition can build on your sustainability plan by including new places and faces with whom to share this information!
Identify Future Support
Now is the time to revisit the plan for sustainability your coalition drafted during your SET phase. The pieces needed for a successful sustainability plan can be reviewed HERE (see "Prepare for Sustainability" section at the bottom of the page).
Outside of grant funding, here are some other potential ways to obtain resources for your project:
- Leveraging shared positions
- Incorporating activities in organizations with a similar mission
- Soliciting in-kind support
- Developing a fee-for-service structure
- Becoming a line-item in an existing budget
Once you have redrafted your sustainability plan, it is important to get feedback on your plan from coalition members, consumers, key community leaders, and current funders. All of these groups will have important feedback that will strengthen the plan and will help get buy-in from these key constituents.
Resources
This list is by no means exhaustive, and CityMatCH recognizes that many experts and resources exist outside of this list.
Guide
Web site
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