New Website: Financing and Sustaining Youth Programs with tobacco settlement money

Posted by on June 2, 2009

Financing and Sustaining Youth Programs

States Just Received Over $7 billion in 2009 Tobacco Settlement Payments

For youth programs to be successful, policymakers, program leaders and intermediary organizations need access to flexible and sustainable sources of funding.  State payments from the tobacco Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) currently fund a range of health, education, prevention, and other initiatives serving young people.  These annual, unrestricted payments are made to the states in perpetuity, with total payments estimated at $246 billion over the first 25 years. States received over $7 billion in MSA payments for 2009 this April.

NINE NEW PROMISING PRACTICE PROFILES

The Finance Project has developed nine promising practice profiles highlighting innovative state and local uses of MSA revenue for programs and services for youth.  These profiles showcase early childhood, foster care, smoking prevention, substance abuse prevention, education, and literacy programs as well as the infrastructure created to support programs and services for children and youth, such as trust funds and children’s cabinets.

These profiles are part of a series of resources intended to provide state and local decision makers and opinion leaders with the information and tools necessary to consider how tobacco Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) revenues can support initiatives that promote the positive development of youth, including the prevention of smoking and adoption of healthy behaviors.  Resources are available online at http://www.financeproject.org/tobacco and include an interactive database highlighting MSA expenditures across the states, strategy briefs and tools, and promising practice profiles.

COMING SOON

* 2009 Analysis and Update to Interactive 46-State Database tracking tobacco MSA payments and expenditures across key areas, including health and education, with a focus on youth initiatives (June 2009)
* New Strategy Brief and Webinar:  A Guide to Effective Investments in Positive Youth Development: Implications of Research for Financing and Sustaining Programs (Early Summer)

Please note The Finance Project does not receive or distribute MSA revenue. Unrestricted annual payments are made from the tobacco manufacturers directly to the 46 states party to the agreement. States have set up various structures and priorities for managing and investing these funds which are highlighted in our state profiles.

For more information, please visit http://www.financeproject.org/tobacco or email tobacco@financeproject.org.