Blending and Braiding Funds: Opportunities to Strengthen State and Local Data and Evaluation Capacity in Human Services

To better serve citizens and communities, state and local governments need a new approach to data and evaluation. By blending and braiding different programmatic funding streams and evaluating different operational structures, state and local leaders – from governors, cabinet secretaries and CIOs to county executives, program directors and grant recipients – can make tremendous strides toward better data-based decision-making. Federal dollars – including stimulus funds, program-specific grant funds, and project-specific funds – as well as direct state or local appropriations can be combined to create cross-program data-sharing and integration strategies.