And here I sit so patiently/Waiting to find out what price/
You have to pay to get out of/going through all these things twice
– Bob Dylan, “Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again

PROVIDENCE – The Rhode Island Foundation has convened a group of influencers to lead an effort to come up with five big transformative ideas about how to invest the approximately $1 billion in new discretionary money that will flow to the state under the American Rescue Plan, separate from its effort to convene stakeholders to develop long-term strategic plans of health and education.

Neil Steinberg, president and CEO of the Rhode Island Foundation, described the effort as “a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” in the news release announcing the initiative. In a follow-up interview, Steinberg described the mission: “What is the best way, best to be defined, what is the most equitable way, most transformative [way], for the people of Rhode Island to invest these dollars.”

More than “tactics,” Steinberg explained, in his interview with ConvergenceRI, the goal is to identify big ideas on how to invest the money wisely.

The decision-makers in Rhode Island – including the Governor, the Senate President, and the House Speaker – were consulted about the effort, according to Steinberg. “We presented it to the decision-makers, and they were happy to hear we were doing it.”

Steinberg drew the distinction between a previous Rhode Island Foundation-led effort, “Make It Happen,” in which some 350 stakeholders gathered at the R.I. Convention Center in 2013 to come up with ideas to improve Rhode Island.

‘I think this is different,” Steinberg said, explaining that with “Make It Happen,” there was no money on the table. “We’re starting with the money this time. That, to me, is what makes it unique from the other efforts.” He continued: “It’s not like, you and I come up with a great idea, and then spend the rest of our lives trying to find the funding. The funding is there.”

Steinberg also drew the distinction between this new effort and the ongoing effort that the Rhode Island Foundation has convened with stakeholders to develop long-term statewide plans for health and for education.

As one potential metaphor describing the differences, Steinberg suggested that the new effort could be seen as “general practice,” and the stakeholder groups would be the “specialists.”

“To the extent that there are any synergies, we’ll see it,” he said. “Everything feeds everything, if you do it right,” Steinberg said. “You don’t reinvent the wheel.” He added, “Any way that those [efforts] intersect, or that it could inform a process, we’ll do it.”

The new effort, announced in a news release on Wednesday, April 7, includes a 15-member steering committee, will feature input from both the Economic Progress Institute and the Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council. The members include:

• Marcela Betancur, executive director of the Latino Policy Institute

• Jessica David, consultant and former executive vice president of strategy and community investments at the Rhode Island Foundation

• Ditra Edwards, executive director of Sista Fire

• John Friedman, professor of economics and international and political affairs at Brown University

• John Galvin, president and CEO of AAA Northeast

• Marie Ganim, former state health insurance commissioner and former state Senate policy director

• Ross Gittell, president of Bryant University

• Rajiv Kumar, technology entrepreneur and founder ShapeUp

• Tony Maione, former president and CEO of the United Way of R.I.

• Anna Cano Morales, associate vice president for diversity, equity and inclusion at Rhode Island College

• Nina Pande, executive director of Skills for Rhode Island’s Future

• Megan Ranney, MD, associate professor of emergency medicine and associate dean of the School of Public Health at Brown University

• Nic Retsinas, director emeritus, Harvard Joint Centers for Housing Studies

• Don Stanford, adjunct professor of computer science at Brown University and former chief technology officer at GTECH

• Edi Tebaldi, professor of economics and executive director of institutional effectiveness and strategy at Bryant University.

Making it work
Here is an important bit of history, much like the story of Child Opportunity Zones in Rhode Island, an initiative launched 27 years ago, that has faded away from public consciousness: The last time that Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council and the Economic Progress Institute collaborated on a similar project was in late 1995, when the two organizations collaborated on the successful reform of Rhode Island’s welfare laws in 1996.

The effort was an outgrowth of “Needs for the Nineties,” a report by United Way of Rhode Island conducted in collaboration with Ira Magaziner, which analyzed the way that the state spent is money on human services, and identified that some 100,000 Rhode Island adults had become disenfranchised members of the workforce.

In an effort to turn the needs identified into workable solutions, United Way then launched “Making It Work” in 1994, a $2.1 million program to put those disenfranchised Rhode Islanders back to work, awarding three-year grants to five projects, focused on providing supports such as child care and social and work skills.

As ConvergenceRI reported in its 2013 story, “Limiting options for change in the name of leadership and innovation,” about a conference hosted by the Hassenfeld Innovation Center at Bryant University, the back story of what happened with welfare reform is not well known:

“Left out of [Gary] Sasse’s curriculum vitae these days is the critical role he played in one of the more remarkable initiatives in public policy: the successful reform of Rhode Island’s welfare laws in 1996 that was crafted by a coalition that included Sasse as head of the R.I. Public Expenditure Council, [the late] Nancy Gewirtz and Linda Katz of the Poverty Institute, William J. Allen and Jane Nugent of United Way of Rhode Island, the Rev. Donald [now Donny] Anderson of the R.I. State Council of Churches, and legislators Jeffrey Teitz and M. Teresa Paiva Weed.”



The story continued: “The law, which created a series of supports to help recipients move successfully from welfare to jobs, achieved excellent outcomes for seven years until it was dismantled under Gov. Carcieri and his health and human services administrator, Gary Alexander.”


Further: The story of how a coalition of citizens, working together with legislators, got progressive welfare reform legislation enacted – over the objections of then state human services administrator Christy Ferguson – is under-reported and not well known.

If reading materials are being prepared for the 15-member steering committee, perhaps they should include a copy of the “Needs for the Nineties” study, the news coverage of “Making It Work,” and interviews with Jane Nugent, who coordinated much of these efforts at United Way, as a way to inform the steering committee’s work.

One further historical bit: In 1992, industrialist John Hazen White, the sponsor of an organization called “Red Alert,” invited Rhode Islanders to enter an essay contest, answering five questions about the future of Rhode Island, with a $5,000 prize. Th questions were:

• What can be one to retain new jobs and create new ones?

• What can be done by state government to improve the quality of life in Rhode Island, and Rhode Island’s social fiber?

• What can be one to improve ethics in Rhode Island?

• How should the state of Rhode Island provide for its financial needs?

• What should be done to improve the organization and effectiveness of government?

[Editor’s Note: I won the contest. My answers were published in the Nov. 8, 1992, edition of The Providence Journal.]

Plan ahead
Here is the most recent ConvergenceRI interview with Neil Steinberg, president and CEO of the Rhode Island Foundation, discussing plans to recommend options for how to spend the state’s $1 billion in discretionary funds from the American Rescue Plan.

ConvergenceRI: Who are your target audiences for this project?
STEINBERG: I’ll answer two ways. One is, we’re doing it for the benefit for everybody in the state of Rhode Island, because these are dollars that are possibly a once-in-a-generation opportunity. Ultimately, they are all of our tax dollars coming back here.

We want to make sure that whatever decisions are made or options that are being considered benefit the state of Rhode Island. The audience for that are the decision-makers. So, it’s the Governor, the legislature, the speaker and the Senate President. But, we want public input and accountability.

ConvergenceRi: Is one of the key factors how we define infrastructure? How do you think infrastructure should be defined, or redefined in Rhode Island?
STEINBERG: First, let’s talk about how this relates to infrastructure. This is much broader than infrastructure. There are buckets of monies coming in, some are earmarked for education, for childcare, for hospitals. And, then there is approximately $1 billion that’s going to the state with broader parameters, with some of the parameters to be determined.

This money is very different, though, than what may be coming down the pike as defined specifically as infrastructure. This is not money that necessarily has to go for infrastructure. This can go to whole variety of things.

The question is: what’s infrastructure? If you think roads, bridges, schools, whatever, that may be the next couple of trillion dollars coming down the pike. It may not be this.

We’re trying to brainstorm big, bold, equitable and sustainable ideas – which happened in the past with different federal programs. Of course, none were at this size. Race to the Top was a good example. Some very good programs came out of Race to the Top.

However, when the federal money dried up, the programs ended. There was no money locally. We’re trying not to do that; we’re looking long term.

The other thing that is unique about this, different than the CARES Act, [is that] the CARES Act had this incredible pressure on it, to use by Dec. 31, all that pressure that was on the Governor to use it or lose it.

As we understand it, this is money that you have until the end of 2024.

We have time to look at this, to think about how to spend it over a couple of years, and to brainstorm big ideas. It is not limited to infrastructure, but it doesn’t preclude infrastructure. The question there is: Will there be money in addition to this for infrastructure?

ConvergenceRI: Long ago, when dinosaurs still roamed the Earth, and I was at United Way of Rhode Island serving as director of Communications, there was a report produced call “Needs for the Nineties,” which was produced in a partnership with Ira Magaziner that analyzed how the money was being spent on human services in Rhode Island. Did you ever see that?
STEINBERG: It doesn’t ring a bell. At this point, I’ve forgotten more than I know.

ConvergenceRI: It might be worth revisiting that.
STEINBERG: It sounds like one of the multiple shelf documents that never got implemented. I still have a copy of “The Greenhouse Compact” here.

ConvergenceRI: As an offshoot of that, there was a collaboration developed, called Making It Work, which in turn led to an effort to reform the welfare laws in Rhode Island in a partnership that included both RIPEC, and, that point, the Poverty Institute, which is now The Economic Progress Institute…
STEINBERG: …Those are the two groups that are working with us.

ConvergenceRI: Right. I believe it’s the first time those groups have collaborated on a similar type of project since then. I mention effort because it represented a different kind of approach – legislation that was developed as an example of what I would call bottom-up innovation. My question is: As part of this process, how will you invest in bottom-up innovation?
All too often, these efforts offer a vision of a top-down approach of the corporate view of the world: Invest in companies that are going to create jobs, and the benefits from that are then going to trickle down. That’s not the way equity works. How are you going to ensure a more equitable process?
STEINBERG: I think that is a good question; it is right up there on the list. We want these to be equitable, so we need to come up with a framework.

One, government is looking at government. Separate from what we are doing, the state is looking at their functions and operations, related to this, as far as I know. Our goal is to develop a big picture, with broad ideas. Not to pick one, not to redesign something, but to come up with the ideas, and then present them to the decision makers. Three to five to six, whatever it is. And then, they vet them and decide.

From the bottom-up, [in my view], doesn’t have to do with process, it has to do with input; that’s what we are doing. We will do outreach to different groups. And in the press release is an email address, where we are saying: Send us your ideas. [The email address is arpideas@rifoundation.org]

We’ve done this before. When we did “Make It Happen” the first time, unfortunately, it was when we could still get 350 people or so into the Convention Center and brainstorm. We are looking for public input on this.

That’s not the same as going back and redesigning programs from the bottom up. It is not designed to be a top-down process, and it is not aimed at corporate America. That’s why I went to both RIPEC and EPI.

ConvergenceRI: Some would argue that RIPEC is very much involved with a corporate, top-down approach.
STEINBERG: I know that, I get that. But EPI is not. That’s the balance there.

ConvergenceRI: Another question is whether you will be looking at what is happening with private equity debt financing and hedge funds, which have been used to buy hospitals, newspapers, manufacturers, nursing homes, you name it. The problem is that all the cash gets extracted from the former company, and they can never make the vig. Will the steering committee be willing to address such structural issues?
STEINBERG: It is not a Rhode Island structural issue, Richard. That would be pretty far-fetched that we would try and undo the evils that you are attributing to private equity. I’m saying that it is not a Rhode Island issue.

ConvergenceRI: Rhode Island is not immune to it either.
STEINBERG: If you are looking at The Providence Journal as an issue, then I understand that, going after private equity as part of this.

ConvergenceRI: Would you consider a new model of local ownership of journalism?
STEINBERG: Could be. But in the scheme of things, as a program, as an initiative, even as money, it’s small ball. It’s not a big or transformative. Now, you could argue, and I would buy it, yes, the state of journalism is a big transformative, long-term issue, but buying the ProJo, no, that ain’t it.

ConvergenceRI: What about looking at the need for skills transfer?
STEINBERG: The gap in skills transfer, that gets you to a whole different category, looking at skills transfer in the state of Rhode Island. Then that starts to look like a big, bold, transformative idea. I don’t know where that fits, and I would not propose it as one necessarily, but it sounds more along the lines [we will be looking at].

What we’re looking at is how to invest money, long term. We’re looking at investments, not tactics.