Through the Rural and Small Cities Program, we developed a capacity-building and technical assistance approach designed to help state and local government leaders and practitioners move from learning to action. One part of that work is the Public Finance Resource Bank, a publicly accessible digital library created primarily for government officials and staff who are responsible for, or help inform, decisions about public finance, budgeting, capital planning, and investment.
In conversations with public officials about their capacity needs, we heard a consistent message throughout this program: they wanted more than explanations. They wanted practical, hands-on resources they could use immediately.
The Resource Bank was built in response to that need. Each topic provides a clear introduction to a core public finance practice, a real-world example from a jurisdiction, and links to templates, worksheets, and other practitioner-oriented resources that can help government leaders put the ideas into practice.
The topics and structure of the Resource Bank reflect both what we heard from government leaders and what we have learned through years of working at the intersection of public finance and place. We also saw an opportunity to bring together many valuable resources that already exist but are often scattered across organizations and websites, while addressing gaps where practical guidance is harder to find.
Although designed with government practitioners as the primary audience, the Resource Bank can also serve foundations, nonprofits, intermediaries, and other partners working alongside governments to strengthen public finance and community investment. To that end, examples, templates, and ideas featured in the resource bank come not just from our work, but from a wide range of actors in the ecosystem, including the Vermont Bond Bank, the City of St. Paul, the United Nations, the City of Tampa, the Vermont League of Cities, among others.
Three Sides of Public Finance
The Resource Bank is organized around three complementary functions at the heart of our work in public finance as an organization, anchored by a vision for place-based values:
1. Generating resources
How governments raise the revenues and other resources they need to operate and invest. Topics included in the first installment of the resource bank that address this include, for example, debt, public-private partnerships, and new market tax credits.
2. Allocating resources
How governments make choices about where and how to invest those resources through budgeting and capital planning. Topics included in the first installment of the resource bank that address this include, for example, pay-as-you-go and capital planning.
3. Holding place-based values when making resource and expenditure decisions
How governments can be attentive to the values and priorities they feel are most important when spending and raising money or making allocation decisions on what they will fund. Topics included in the first installment of the resource bank that address this include, for example, climate adaptation and climate mitigation.
These functions are deeply connected. A government's ability to advance its priorities depends not only on how much it can raise, but on how effectively it allocates those resources toward the investments that matter most.
The Resource Bank is designed to help government practitioners strengthen both sides of that equation with practical knowledge, real examples, and tools they can put to work.
Explore the initial topics we cover in the resource bank:
- Pay-As-You-Go
- Municipal Debt
- New Market Tax Credits
- Capital Planning
- Climate Adaptation
- Climate Mitigation
Our goal is simple: make public finance knowledge more accessible, practical, and actionable for the people responsible for financing and investing in communities via a living digital resource that we hope to continue to grow over time.
Acknowledgements & Disclaimer
This resource was created for educational purposes only as part of the Rural & Small Cities Program, with the support of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The views and perspectives presented in this resource are those of the authors and the Public Finance Institute team.
