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PAGE 73 Perception of Need and Funding PERCEPTION OF NEED At the organizational level, nonprofit executives and staff noted the broader perception that Eastern Alameda County is an affluent region with lower human service needs. Consequently, they noted significant resource gaps and funding challenges in the Tri-Valley, resulting in a relative “resource desert” compared to other cities within Alameda County. This is reflected in the community data focused on long wait lists or having to travel further for services (as described in the Community Challenges Health and Mental Health sections). This creates a need for greater service navigation and care coordination. Participants said that needs were often less recognized, particularly within Dublin and Pleasanton, as high pockets of poverty are often buried within census tracts. Nonprofit participants expressed frustration about Alameda County funding historically not being allocated to the Tri-Valley because of the median incomes and other metrics of overall economic health in the cities. One participant in the nonprofit focus group expressed frustration: “There tends to be a disconnect between Alameda County and East County; East County tends to not get as much. It’s figuring out what we need when we do this assessment, and being able to show that…we have this struggle with enough food for our seniors, we don’t have transportation, we don’t have enough housing, we don’t have all these things. It doesn’t matter how big or how much money each of these cities has or what the medium income is…if we still can’t take care of all these people here.” FUNDING In addition to a need for more funding overall, nonprofits identified a need for earmarked funding for infrastructure (e.g., buildings and vehicles), operating costs, marketing (to increase service awareness), and providing staff with a living wage (as a mechanism for retention). One nonprofit participant said: “No one wants to pay for capacity building. It’s not that we don’t want to have capacity for training or for a fair market salary, it’s because funders won’t pay for those things. They will only pay for programs, which of course, if we don’t have staff or we don’t have properly trained staff, we don’t have programs, but no one wants to address that or acknowledge that. Everyone feels like someone else is supposed to pay for that. For whatever reason, people don’t understand that we have infrastructure costs.” In addition to the request for funding to support operation costs, there’s a desire to overhaul each city’s grantmaking process to be more efficient, reduce organizations’ administrative burdens (e.g., reporting), and to make the process feasible for less-resourced organizations. Along these lines, one interviewee asked: “Who is receiving grants and who is not receiving grants? Some organizations don’t have access to people who write grants. They might not have the capacity to write grants, they might not necessarily understand the grant process. They might be unable to make cogent arguments amenable to being funded, so when they submit a grant it’s not written to score high on the rubric.” Some participants had a preference for a more coordinated grant-making process to help with duplication of services and in recognition of the linked fates of the three cities. Some said that ideas for coordination, such as forming new agencies to mitigate inefficiencies within cities and funding consolidation, were met with hesitation or concern about loss of control. Emergency Preparation: Supplies and Infrastructure The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the unpreparedness of many nonprofit organizations in the Tri-Valley to deliver human services during an emergency. They said it’s imperative that the three cities and nonprofit organizations within them be nimble and responsive to emergent conditions. Participants noted the possibility of another public health emergency and the negative effects of climate change as two reasons that service providers would need to pivot quickly. The pandemic showed nonprofits just how challenging this is, as they had tight budgets with no room to quickly purchase EASTERN ALAMEDA COUNTY HUMAN SERVICES NEEDS ASSESSMENTSS Page 131 of 554