You would be hard pressed to find an idea that has gained more traction more quickly than a guaranteed income. When it was first proposed in Stockton, CA, people were shocked — “How will you stop them from buying flat-screen TVs?” “Won’t they just spend it on drugs and alcohol?” “But there must be some limits on what they can purchase, right?”

Stockton’s guaranteed income pilot began disbursements in 2019, serving just 125 residents, and was solely funded by philanthropy. Fast forward five years and Cambridge, MA (where one of us, Sumbul, is mayor) has taken their own fully philanthropically-funded pilot, implemented in partnership with the Cambridge Community Foundation, to now becoming the first city in the country to expand its guaranteed income program to every family living in poverty, using public dollars. This shift was largely catalyzed by public-private partnerships.

In 2017, using public funds for a guaranteed income pilot was entirely unthinkable, and open-minded funders stepped outside the proverbial box and fully funded the $3.5 million cost of the two-year pilot. The positive results in the midst of a pandemic that left much of the country in economic uncertainty pushed the radical into the realm of the pragmatic.

Philanthropy helped us show what was possible, enabling us to harness the power of public-private partnerships to move from one pilot in one city to launching Mayors for a Guaranteed Income (MGI), a coalition of mayors advocating for direct cash as a way to build a fairer and more equitable economy. Since 2020, MGI has grown from 11 mayors to 115 mayors across 33 different states. We have also supported the launch of over four dozen guaranteed income pilots across the country — in total, these pilots will deliver at least $200 million in direct, flexible relief to everyday Americans. The majority of these funds will be public dollars.

None of this progress would’ve been achieved if bold philanthropists hadn’t been willing to buck the status quo and take a risk on rejecting the idea of business as usual. So many philanthropic projects are specific in what they give, or who they give to, and how. The notion of relinquishing the reins of control and simply giving money is something that challenged the way philanthropy has traditionally worked, but the rapid results show that this kind of community-centered and direct giving is a model philanthropists should adopt across issue areas.

Through the help of our funders, the work of MGI helped lay the foundation for the expanded Child Tax Credit, which essentially functioned as a guaranteed income for nearly every parent in America. Unfortunately, a minority of leaders who operate with a deep mistrust of their constituents kept us from making the most effective tool our country has ever had in fighting poverty permanent. Rather than derail our efforts, though, we redoubled them: expanding our cohort of local leaders working on a shared mission to create an economy that works for all.

Data from across several dozen of our pilots shows we’re making progress — recipients of guaranteed income programs are overwhelmingly women and people of color, two groups facing the most economic marginalization in this country.

Read the full article about public-private collaboration by Sumbul Siddiqui and Michael Tubbs at The Center for Effective Philanthropy.