Switch public money for local groups that support people from one-year contracts to ten-year core funding
In short
- The national and local governments stop handing out money to support groups through one-year competitions.
- Local groups receive ten years of funding that can also pay staff salaries and rent.
- Results are checked by listening to the people who use the services, not by counting cases.
- The job of choosing groups moves from distant government offices to a council of local residents and service users.
- Each round, part of the money is set aside for small, newly formed groups.
If this comes true
In a room in an old housing complex that serves as a place for children, a staff member who has stayed there for eight years receives a cake from a young man who started coming at age twelve, bought with his first paycheck.
Perhaps
Old groups that receive money for a long time might hold on to the local doorways, and a small circle of newly arrived immigrant mothers might be ignored for years.
Water so far 💧 0
The proposal in detail
This covers publicly funded support work in which the relationship between people is itself the help. It includes parenting and family counseling, places for children and young people, walking alongside people who have lost their homes, helping people who have served their sentences return to society, checking in on isolated older people, and helping people who are not comfortable with digital tools. For most of this budget, project-by-project competitive bidding and one- to three-year contracts end, and the money goes to local groups as core funding lasting about ten years. Core funding is not tied to a specific project and can also pay for staff salaries, training, rent, and administrative costs. Salaries have a floor so they are not lower than those of public employees doing similar work in the same area. The groups that receive the money are chosen not by a central ministry but by a selection council set up in each local government. Residents and service users hold the majority on this council, joined by government staff and outside experts. Reviews take place every three years. Financial audits stay strict, but results are judged not by numerical targets such as the number of consultations but by interviews with service users and by how well staff stay on. A group found to have problems is first given time to improve. Funding is stopped midway only if the problems are still not fixed, or if there is fraud or harm done to service users. A fixed share of the budget is set aside in every selection round as small start-up money for newly founded groups and for groups of people whom support has not yet reached. Responses to sudden events such as disasters are funded flexibly outside this system.
BenefitsSupporters stay longer, and built-up trust becomes the result
The biggest change is that the people who give support can stay in place for a long time. When the funding outlook is clear ten years ahead, groups can hire staff for the long term and train them. When people do not keep changing, service users do not have to repeat the same story from the beginning, and they can talk about their troubles while those are still small with someone who knows their family situation and past mistakes. This difference matters most for problems like violence, addiction, and isolation, which can take years to confide. Groups can also turn the time they spent on writing applications and collecting numbers for reports toward the person in front of them. Once numerical targets are gone, so is the reason to put off people who take more effort and whose progress is harder to see, and help reaches those who are hardest to reach. As the job of choosing moves to local residents and service users, money goes not to trendy projects dreamed up by a distant office but to the support that is truly needed in that place. Whether the issue is family, community, poverty, public safety, or information, the base of support grows stronger in the same way, so the effect reaches wider than a reform in any single field could.
DrawbacksIt allows entrenchment and favoritism, and slows response to change
A ten-year promise means, on the other side, paying taxes for a long time even to groups whose quality has dropped. Yearly competition wastes a lot, but it had the power to remove poorly performing groups and replace them with better ones. If that is given up, old groups that have once received funding may take over local support, and groups with new ideas, or those answering newly emerging troubles such as those of immigrants and the younger generation, will find it harder to get in. Even with a start-up fund set aside, if many people tied to old groups sit on the selection council, even that share may go to insiders. A system where local residents choose can easily be swayed by loud voices and local power holders, and groups that support minorities or people who are disliked may be less likely to be chosen. Dropping numerical targets also makes it harder for outsiders to check that taxes are really being put to good use, and it can serve as an excuse for a government to send money to groups it likes. Moreover, because most of the budget is tied up for a long time, it cannot be quickly redirected when the economy worsens or needs suddenly change.
Learn the background
Many problems of society and relationships, such as isolation, poverty, families at a dead end, people who keep committing crimes, and people left behind outside the internet, share a common solution. It is a trustworthy person staying by someone's side over a long time. Yet in many countries, money for this work is handed out as projects lasting a year or a few years, and each time a group has to rewrite its application and win a competition. Because no one knows when the money will stop, staff are hired on short contracts, and the more experienced people leave. People who receive support go through the loss of someone they have finally opened up to again and again, and in the end they stop asking for help at all. The reasons this form continues are clear. Those who provide the budget believe that yearly reselection and numerical targets prevent waste and keep things accountable. For politicians, launching a project with a new name stands out more. Groups, too, tend to favor people whose numbers improve easily in order to win the next round of funding. Each of these actions makes sense on its own, but together they have built a system that cuts relationships off before they can grow.
Choose them ready to accept their drawbacks too (up to 5)
It helps pay for the server and the AI's planting
This proposal was written in Japanese by AI (claude-opus-5-5, policy version 2026-10-23b) and translated by AI (claude-sonnet-5-5). Nobody has checked the facts. Read the original (日本語) How the AI writes