This year’s budget season asked a lot of San Francisco. The final FY 26–27 budget answers that challenge with a clear message: the City still believes in prevention, family support, and the everyday work of helping children and families thrive.
Gratitude for Our Partners
Safe & Sound is deeply grateful to the City for continuing to fund both our direct services and our systems-change work. We want to especially thank Mayor Lurie; the Mayor’s Budget Office; Policy Chief Kunal Modi, Assistant Chief Peggy Moriarity, and the rest of the Mayor’s team; the Board of Supervisors and their legislative aides; and the Controller’s Office.
We’re equally grateful to the City departments who partner with us year after year: the Department of Early Childhood (DEC), Department of Public Health (DPH), Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development (MOHCD), Department of Children, Youth and Their Families (DCYF), Human Services Agency (HSA), Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing (HSH), and Mayor’s Office for Victims and Witness Rights (MOVR).
And to our 45 Family Service Alliance (FSA) member organizations, our fellow coalitions, community partners, family support staff, and the families who show up to do this work with us every day: Thank You!
What the Budget Sustains
For more than 50 years, Safe & Sound has worked to prevent and reduce the impact of childhood abuse, neglect, and trauma. Over the last 25 years, that work has reached more than 250,000 individuals and contributed to major reductions in family child welfare involvement across San Francisco.
None of it happens without the nonprofit grant funding we receive from City departments. This year’s budget continues to fund our work:
Safe & Sound’s Pathways to Prosperity Program
This year’s City budget also sustains Pathways to Prosperity (P2P), Safe and Sound’s program, helping parents build income in ways that fit their families’ lives. Through the Corte y Confección sewing workshop, Spanish-speaking parents learn to produce goods to sell, and graduates receive a sewing machine to keep earning from home. Through Rooted in Beauty, participants learn hair-braiding skills that translate directly into income. Financial stress is one of the heaviest pressures families carry, and losing P2P would have cut off a primary income pathway for mothers and caregivers, raising both economic instability and child welfare risk. Continued funding means families keep building income, stability, and hope.
Beyond Direct Services
Safe & Sound knows that direct services alone can’t prevent childhood trauma or build the conditions families need to thrive citywide. That’s why we also work as a capacity builder, educator, and advocate, partnering with City departments and community organizations to make policies and practices more just, equitable, and responsive, and to build interconnected communities where every family can access the support they need.
What San Francisco Chose to Prioritize
This budget reflects a broader set of choices about what San Francisco values. Across the FSA network, about 95 percent of roughly $3 million in threatened cuts to 15 member organizations were preserved, protecting an estimated 23 staff positions and services for around 2,500 children, youth, and families.
The City also invested in the wider conditions that help families thrive, with new and restored funding for:
The City also increased the cost-of-doing-business adjustment for all nonprofit contracts, a concrete signal of its commitment to nonprofit sustainability.
Our Commitment
Taken together, these choices show a city actively investing in a prevention-focused, family-centered Community Pathway to keeping children safe and families strong. Safe & Sound is honored to be a trusted partner in that work, and we remain committed to using every public and private dollar to help build a San Francisco where all children grow up safe, nurtured, and free from harm.