The Fund to Fight Child Educational Poverty: A “Policy” Perspective

The Fund to Fight Child Educational Poverty (the Fund), established at the initiative of Acri, represents an outstanding example of innovation, both in terms of its focus and in the way it has brought together public and private energies, resources and expertise within a common framework. The value of this experience goes beyond addressing a major issue affecting our society: It has created a model that has already been replicated with the establishment of the Fund for the Digital Republic.

A brief history of the Fund

The Fund was established in 2016 as the outcome of a process initiated by Acri and its member foundations of banking origin, in the wake of the economic and financial crisis that was affecting Italy, with particularly severe consequences for the most vulnerable groups in society, especially children and young people.

In response to this issue, Acri decided to promote a national initiative aimed at increasing access to quality educational opportunities for minors disadvantaged by economic, social or psycho-physical conditions, and at breaking the vicious cycle of educational poverty, which is both a cause and a consequence of material poverty. Aware of the national scale of the problem, Acri and its member foundations sought the involvement both of representatives of Italy’s Third Sector – a longstanding and natural partner of Acri’s member foundations – and of the Italian Government.

The private-law agreement governing the Fund, signed by the Government and Acri, defined, among other things, two crucial aspects that embody the nature and distinctive character of the initiative: the purpose and the governance. The purpose of the Fund is to support “experimental interventions aimed at removing economic, social and cultural barriers that prevent minors from fully benefiting from educational opportunities”.

The governance of the Fund is structured on two levels:

• At strategic level, entrusted to a 12-member Steering Committee, with 4 members appointed by the Government, 4 by Acri and 4 by the National Third Sector Forum, the main representative body for the sector.
• At operational level, entrusted to a social enterprise designated by Acri which, as the Implementing Entity, manages all aspects of implementation, from project selection to the disbursement of grants and evaluation.

In the ten years since its launch, the Fund has received approximately €800 million from Acri’s member foundations; supported around 850 projects benefiting more than 660,000 children and young people experiencing disadvantage; and involved over 10,000 organisations, including Third Sector organisations, schools, universities, local authorities and businesses.

A highly innovative experience

The Fund represents a distinctive form of social innovation in many respects, which are worth highlighting briefly.

Governance. The governance architecture designed for the Fund represents an unprecedented model. Mixed public and private resources are managed, at the strategic level, jointly by representatives of public institutions and private social-sector organisations, while operational management is entrusted exclusively to an organisation from the private social sector. This reflects a forward-looking approach on the part of the public sector, which retains oversight of the Fund while entrusting its management to more flexible private-law arrangements that are better able to adapt to the context in which interventions take place.

The scale of the resources committed. This is the first time that substantial private and public financial resources have been brought together to address a single deep-rooted problem affecting our society: €800 million is a considerable sum, particularly given that it is devoted to tackling one specific social issue and that there are no precedents of comparable scale.

The collective participation of the Acri’s member foundations. As on other occasions, these foundations, which are inherently rooted in their local territories, decided to take collective responsibility for a national initiative, decoupling each foundation’s contribution from the territory in which those resources would ultimately be used. This demonstrated a strong sense of responsibility towards the challenges facing the country, as well as solidarity with areas where foundations have a more limited presence.

The experimental approach. From the outset, there was an awareness that, however substantial, the available resources would not be sufficient to solve the problem. This is why experimentation is an inherent feature of the Fund: Rather than being conceived simply as a direct operational instrument, it serves as a laboratory for innovative practices, from which the most effective can be selected and potentially developed into mainstream and universal public policies.

Measurement. If, as noted above, the purpose of the Fund is to test practices and identify those that can subsequently become public policies, robust and comprehensive measurement systems are essential. A three-level system has therefore been implemented:

• Rigorous and continuous monitoring of approved projects
• Impact assessment of each project
• “Meta-evaluation”, meaning a comparative analysis of all projects with the aim of identifying the approaches that prove most effective and replicable

The strategic approach. The initiative is based on the conviction that educational poverty cannot be regarded solely as the responsibility of the public school system, but rather as an issue that concerns and involves the entire community. This includes schools, of course, but also Third Sector organisations, local authorities, universities, parents, citizens and minors themselves. In short, the entire “educating community”.

The central role of the Third Sector. The Third Sector is deeply involved in the initiative at three different levels:

• Third Sector representatives sit on the Fund’s strategic Steering Committee
• Third Sector representatives sit on the Board of Directors of the Implementing Entity
• The partnerships selected to implement projects must be led by and predominantly composed of Third Sector organisations

Efficiency. The governance architecture has enabled the Fund to move rapidly both during its start-up phase and throughout its subsequent operations, despite the differences in characteristics, missions and expertise among the actors involved.

In terms of costs, members of the strategic Steering Committee receive neither remuneration nor reimbursement of expenses. At the operational level, the Fund’s overall implementation and management costs amount to just over 4% of the grants awarded.

Political consensus. The Fund was established in 2016 with an initial three-year horizon and has since been renewed for three further three-year periods by Governments with different political orientations. This is a relatively unusual development, considering that in Italy – and perhaps in many other countries – measures introduced by one Government are often abandoned, if not reversed, by those that follow.

Conclusions

The Fund provides a concrete example of the effectiveness of public-private partnership when it is built on a solid foundation of mutual trust; recognition of each partner’s expertise and distinctive role; and a strong focus on results. When the different parties involved do not seek visibility or leadership, but instead focus exclusively on pursuing shared objectives, contributing their respective resources and expertise within a relationship based on equality and shared responsibility, results can be achieved.

The effectiveness and success of this model inspired another partnership between the Government and Acri’s member foundations, leading in 2022 to the creation of the Fund for the Digital Republic (mentioned above), which aims to strengthen citizens’ digital skills, particularly among the most vulnerable groups.

This article was commissioned as part of Empowering Philanthropy Infrastructure for Change (EPIC), a project co-funded by the European Union.