Foster America Fiscal Leadership Circle Fellowship 2025

Since 2016, Foster America has worked alongside bold government leaders, community advocates, and those with lived expertise to reimagine and reshape the child welfare system. Our mission is to build a future where all families thrive.

The Fiscal Leadership Circle (FLC) is a 12-month professional fellowship designed for emerging and mid-career fiscal leaders who are ready to expand prevention services and reduce reliance on foster care within their jurisdictions. Through hands-on collaboration, immersive training, and leadership development, the FLC equips fellows to advance and implement innovative upstream fiscal strategies within child welfare systems.

The FLC brings together 12–15 leaders from across the country for a powerful learning community grounded in equity, collaboration, and systems change. Candidates will strengthen their capacity to integrate innovation as a fiscal leader, gain a nationwide community of support and care, and co-design fiscal approaches to sustain upstream prevention.

Why now?

Our nation has reached a critical inflection point. With unprecedented shifts in federal funding policies impacting community safety nets for families, this is a time for strategic thinking, partnerships and bold creativity.

Fiscal leadership is pivotal to a prevention-first child welfare system. With expanded knowledge, shared tools, and deeper collaboration, leaders can maximize funding streams like Family First, TANF, Medicaid, and more, ensuring families receive support before system-involvement or family separation.

Our first FLC cohort supported more than $4.3B in jurisdictional budgets, advancing projects from maximizing prevention funds to creating funding pipelines for substance-exposed newborns.

Fellowship Experience

Over the course of the year, FLC fellows will:

• Participate in monthly virtual sessions (2.5 hours every third Friday)
• Engage with fellowship content across key topics, including:
• Child welfare financing
• Fiscal project development
• Leadership and professional development, featuring areas such as adaptive leadership, strategic storytelling, and advocacy.
• Attend three in-person 1.5-day convenings (major costs covered):
• Convening 1 – January 2026: Held in an alumni or Foster America site, focused on state capacity building
• Convening 2 – May 2026: Held in Washington, D.C., focused on federal policy and advocacy
• Convening 3 – October 2026: Held in Seattle, focused on sustaining innovation and fiscal strategy
• Design and present a capstone project that highlights their fiscal innovation during the October 2026 Fiscal Innovation Showcase.
• Examples of projects include but are not limited to:

• Expanding use of prevention funding streams (e.g., Family First, TANF, Medicaid, Social Services Block Grant, IV-B Kinship, etc.).
• Sustaining upstream prevention initiatives (e.g., 211 warmline, Family Resource Centers, Community Pathways, Juvenile Rehabilitation).
• Developing a return on investment for prevention services and/or community-designed upstream programs.
• Identifying opportunities for interagency partnerships.
• Creating fiscal models that increase prevention funding investment and allocation.
• Braiding or weaving available prevention funding streams to support projects such as Guaranteed Basic Income, housing supports, or prevention initiatives in Tribal communities.

Fellows will have access to:

• A dedicated program facilitator and project development coach.
• Strategic partnerships and expert guidance in child welfare financing.
• One-on-one professional and leadership development coaching.
• A network of fiscal leadership peers and Foster America’s Alumni Services Network.

Eligibility Criteria

We are seeking individuals—fiscal or non-fiscal leaders—who have at least three years of experience informing, developing, managing, or working on budgets related to child and family services. Candidates must be committed to expanding and maximizing prevention-focused funding sources that safely reduce reliance on out-of-home placements.

Applicants should either:

• Have decision-making authority to implement their proposed project; or
• Be designated as the project lead for an approved fiscal innovation initiative by a supervising decision-maker.

Eligible roles include but are not limited to private and public sector CFOs, budget and fiscal analysts, fiscal managers, and prevention services providers seeking innovative ways to fund prevention services in child welfare. Fellowship candidates are expected to serve as project leads, fully participate in the fellowship, and deliver the final capstone presentation.

The ideal candidate will:

• Demonstrate a commitment to innovation and reimagining a future for children and families that does not rely on out-of-home placement.
• Show a strong dedication to personal learning and leadership growth, and value connection with a network of changemakers in the fiscal space.
• Have a current or emerging project or initiative that advances financing strategies for upstream prevention efforts while reducing reliance on out-of-home placements.
• Be available for monthly virtual sessions on the third Friday of each month from Noon-2:30pm Eastern (with the exception of January, May and October 2026 when in-person convenings are held).
• Attend three in-person convenings.

Program Cost

We ask each fellow's organization (or sponsoring agency) to contribute $15,000 toward participation in the fellowship.

The cost of the program is $32,000 per fellow, which includes expert faculty, individual coaching, e-learning modules, videography and communications support, three in-person convenings, and full program administration. Thanks to the generous support of Casey Family Programs and other philanthropic partners, we are able to offer the fellowship at this significantly reduced rate.

Scholarships are available to ensure that cost is not a barrier to participation. Once a fellow is accepted, we will work to identify and secure financial support as needed.

Why invest?

Despite growing support for prevention, only 14% of U.S. child welfare spending goes to preventive services, while nearly half is used to fund out-of-home placements. Systems are ready to shift, but they need the tools, capacity, and leadership to do so.

The Fiscal Leadership Circle is answering that call, developing a new generation of fiscal innovators equipped to invest in families. This fellowship is a collaborative initiative supported by Casey Family Programs, national experts in child welfare and social services financing, and professionals in leadership and career development.

Investment in the fellowship fuels:

• System Transformation: Fellows learn to braid federal, state, and philanthropic dollars — leveraging funds like Family First, TANF, Medicaid, and more — to invest in services that keep families together. 100% of fellows surveyed agreed that their learning needs were met.
• Real-World Innovation: From financing housing for at-risk families to creating funding pipelines for substance-exposed newborns, FLC fellows are piloting and scaling tangible fiscal innovations. 100% of fellows surveyed agreed that the fellowship catalyzed systemic change.
• Leadership for the Long Haul: Fellows build adaptive leadership skills, strategic storytelling tools, and system-change mindsets that sustain innovation well beyond the fellowship. Participants gain relationships with jurisdictions seeking to deepen their investment into prevention resources. Participants walk away with new tools, partnerships, and national recognition. 100% of fellows surveyed agreed that the fellowship positively impacted their current role and had both short- and long-term impacts on their career.
• National Impact: Fellows return to their agencies empowered to build coalitions, reduce silos, and influence state and national narratives about child welfare transformation. 100% of FLC fellows surveyed reported the fellowship was a valuable use of their time. Fellows left the experience feeling more prepared, more energized, and more equipped to lead transformative change in communities.

To learn more about FLC’s impact:

Read our FLC Project Summaries and FLC Convening #1 Blog

Watch a video on Foster America's Fiscal Approach to Child Welfare Transformation

Listen to our podcast episode, Finding the money: How Fiscal Leaders Can Keep Families Together with Marie Zemler Wu and D.L. Moffitt

How to Apply

The Fiscal Leadership Circle is a hands-on fellowship that empowers leaders through collaboration and team work to drive innovation. While fellowships are awarded to individuals and not organizations, we encourage applicants to invite team members to assist with completing the application. Fellowships are awarded to individuals and not organizations.

Foster America is accepting applications at foster-america.org/careers until Friday, Aug. 15, 2025.

Fellowship invitations will be issued in September 2025, followed by a kickoff session on Oct. 17, 2025.

For information about this opportunity, contact [email protected]

Originally posted on Himalayas

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