Elizabeth Gaines
Communities for Kids Convening Topic Speaker
Elizabeth Gaines is the founder and executive director of
Children’s Funding Project. Begun in 2018, Children’s Funding
Project is the response to Gaines’s 25-year career in child
advocacy that persistently led her to question whether adequate
resources were being directed to children. Her career began with
leading after-school and community-based youth programs at the
Atwood Community Center in Madison, Wisconsin. She later served
as youth policy analyst for Citizens for Missouri’s Children,
followed by 13 years at the Forum for Youth Investment, where
she helped policy leaders develop tools and techniques to
improve their use of data, increase their policy alignment, and
more efficiently apply resources for greater impact. As an
expert on children’s policy at the state and local level, Gaines
has worked with communities in nearly all 50 states to establish
children’s cabinets, conduct fiscal maps, and pursue dedicated
funding for youth. Since 2018, she has guided Children’s Funding
Project through over 40 projects with national networks, state
and local governments, advocates, and youth leaders. A native of
St. Louis, Gaines attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison
and currently resides in Washington, D.C.