Fee-for-Service: One Grantee's Roadmap for Sustainability

Early in her two-year YVPP grant cycle, Annette Klinefelter, executive director of the Girls' Initiative Network (GIN), began thinking of ways to maintain and expand Girls' Empowerment Group program and Allies in Action, an after-school curriculum encouraging girls to become leaders in changing girl-to-girl relational aggression in schools. Both programs have a history of positive outcomes and schools were requesting more trainings. Klinefelter realized that reliance on grant funding was too risky for the long term. She weighed her options and chose to move to a fee-for-service model. In that model, current and future clients would now have to pay for the skills and education they had been receiving free through grant funding. Anticipating the concerns this change would generate, Klinefelter laid out a very thoughtful plan to ensure a successful transition. She focused on three elements: influencing school curriculum policy; creating an affordable yet realistic fee-for-service model; and preparing her present and future "customers" for the transition.

Influencing School Curriculum Policy

Klinefelter envisioned a community that embraced not only the need and importance of after-school programming but specifically, gender-specific programming. To make this a reality, she had to reach out and convince those in charge of curriculum policy. "Funding follows policy," Klinefelter said. "You have to be proactive about influencing policy." she and her staff took every opportunity to inform school, county, and state boards about the need for gender-specific programming in Out-of-School-Time program mandates. Regularly she sent policymakers correspondence, invited them to GIN events, visited their offices one or more times a year, and scheduled face-to-face meetings. In addition, she demonstrated the link between gender-specific programming and culturally competent services, another issue important to policymakers. Her measure of success? Gender-specific programming was written into policy as a school mandate. Thus, schools were required to provide gender-specific programming and Klinefelter had a proven program schools could use to fulfill the mandate.

Establishing the Fee-for-Service Model

In the second year of the YVPP grant, Klinefelter began sketching out the fee-for-service model for Girls' Empowerment Group program and Allies in Action. The most challenging aspect of the process was establishing the fee for the training. Klinefelter wanted to make sure that the "asking price was reflective of the costs of the program," taking into consideration staff time, materials, and other predictable costs. Yet, she needed to balance those costs with the limited resources available in the community, especially since the Girls' Initiative Network's clients are schools, serving primarily low-income populations with limited budgets. She researched what other organizations charged for their services, conducted interviews with current and potential clients, and ultimately decided on an affordable fee for her clients.

Preparing for the Transition

Conscious of the impact of charging for a program that was once provided free, Klinefelter began informing schools well before the transition occurred. In winter, she sent letters notifying schools that in September 2004, the GIN would charge schools to receive Allies in Action. Her goal was to educate schools about what was behind the fee-for-service structure - the more schools knew about the quantity and quality of the services they'd receive and GIN's need to generate revenue independent of grants, the more willing they would be to allocate money for the already successful program.

Coming Together

Four months into the school year, Klinefelter reported a successful transition to the fee-for-service model. Because of her comprehensive, proactive approach, she retained 40 per cent of her school clients and anticipates many more next year. This is especially gratifying considering schools that experimented with providing a similar program on their own quickly realized that their total cost (including staff time) was higher than purchasing Girls' Empowerment Group Program and Allies in Action from GIN.

Klinefelter offers these tips for those who plan to shift to a fee-for-service model:

• Don't compromise quality for cost: In other words, don't establish a fee that isn't reflective of the services you're providing, even if it may draw initial opposition.
• Invest time in relationships: Klinefelter has been developing relationships with key stakeholders for five years.
• Be consistent with your pricing and information: Don't charge one price for one school and another price for a different school. This only serves to dilute the value of the program.
• Educate your client base: It's important for you to establish the value of your "product" as thoroughly and as early as possible.