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In government planning, partial funding is a common and often necessary strategy, especially when resources are constrained but there is a need to maintain momentum across a broad set of initiatives. Agencies constrained by limited options and numerous competing priorities frequently must ‘peanut butter spread’ available funds across a portfolio of programs to keep as many initiatives alive as possible, rather than fully funding a few while shelving others. This method requires rigorous business case definition and outcome prioritization to achieve optimal use of taxpayer dollars.
The challenge of partial funding arises from how it is executed. Without a clear set of priorities, defined business rules, and a data-driven process, agencies risk allocating funds in ways that neither reflect strategic intent nor yield mission-aligned outcomes. This often triggers reactionary spending due to shifting priorities, delayed starts, or programs that fail to launch—conditions that create unfunded requirements (UFRs) and force agencies to reallocate resources midstream. The result is an ad hoc, negotiation-driven process lacking transparency, repeatability, and strategic clarity.
Why Partial Funding Is So Challenging
Partial funding introduces complexity because it is not just about determining what gets funded—it is about how much each item should receive. That becomes significantly more difficult in the absence of structured inputs such as:
- A clearly prioritized portfolio
- Defined breakpoints for project scoping
- Visibility into how varying funding levels affect project outcomes
Partial funding is not as simple as slicing budgets evenly. Once you decide not to fully fund every item, you face a cascade of trade-offs:
- Infinite allocation combinations: Even within a fixed budget, the permutations of ‘how much’ to give each item are nearly limitless under some circumstances.
- Unclear impacts: A project funded at 60% does not produce 60% of the value. It might deliver significantly less—or nothing meaningful at all.
- Subjectivity creeps in: In the absence of formal breakpoints or tiered scope definitions, decisions tend to default to verbal negotiation, “I’ll take whatever you can give me!”, rather than data-driven value creation and strategic alignment.
- Lack of business rules: Optimization requires decision logic. Most organizations haven’t articulated thresholds or return-on-investment breakpoints to guide partial allocation decisions.
Finally, organizations often struggle to express the differences between a 50% funded project and the same one funded at 100%. These are not simply scaled-down versions of the same initiative—partial funding can fundamentally alter scope, risks, outcomes, and timelines. Moreover, projects often possess embedded optionality: under partial funding, a project may meet only minimum thresholds for viability, but with incremental investment, it may unlock higher-value configurations or expanded outcomes. Failing to account for this dynamic can obscure critical trade-offs, leading to suboptimal prioritization and making it nearly impossible to automate or optimize funding distributions in a meaningful way.
Establishing the Foundation for Better Partial Funding
The ability to execute partial funding well starts with clarity upstream. That means doing the difficult but necessary work of defining scope, articulating tradeoffs, and structuring the problem before any dollars are allocated.
Organizations that succeed with partial funding tend to invest in:
- Priority frameworks that align portfolio items with mission objectives
- Tiered project scopes that define minimum viable, optimal, and full-execution levels
- Clear criteria for assessing value at varying funding levels
With these inputs, agencies can move from simply ‘spreading funds’ to strategically distributing them—ensuring resources are allocated in ways that maximize return on investment while still maintaining portfolio breadth.
Best Practice #1: Define Project Scopes at Multiple Levels
One effective method for handling partial funding is to break large, monolithic projects into smaller, discrete options. For example, instead of describing a program as a single $10M effort, it can be articulated as three viable configurations—each with its own costs, benefits, and risks. This allows decision-makers to select the most appropriate version for the funding available.
Decision Lens supports this by enabling ‘or’ dependencies between project variants, allowing planners to evaluate multiple scopes side-by-side and select the best fit based on mission alignment, timing, and available funds. Critically, these variants are structured to represent real, viable options—ensuring that decisions made today do not unintentionally foreclose the opportunity to invest further and scale up later. Without thoughtfully defined variant paths, organizations risk committing early to versions that cannot be easily expanded or enhanced as more resources become available.
Best Practice #2: Use Scenario Planning to Explore the Right Funding Spread
Once priorities and project scopes are in place, the next challenge is determining the optimal distribution of funds across the ranked portfolio. The goal is not to starve the bottom 30% of items into irrelevance, nor is it to overload the top few highest-priority projects. The objective is to create a balanced spread that reflects strategic priorities while preserving enough investment in each initiative to keep it viable.
Decision Lens allows users to explore different funding scenarios by adjusting allocations across the portfolio and visualizing the tradeoffs. After establishing business rules to act as guardrails, this tool enables stakeholders to compare the implications of various strategies—whether favoring top priorities or applying a more even distribution—and identify the scenario that best aligns with their objectives.
Where Technology Supports, Not Replaces, Expertise
Decision Lens does not make decisions for our customers—it equips them to make better ones. The software enables organizations to:
- House pre-decisional data in a structured environment
- Define priorities and scenarios with sliders, budget thresholds, and constraints
- Transparently collaborate on different versions of each project and their value
- Visualize different planning scenarios and compare them to understand trade-offs and select the optimal course of action
These are all critical elements when navigating the nuanced terrain of partial funding.
The key is that technology accelerates and supports decision-making by transforming chaotic, negotiation-based allocation into a transparent, data-driven process—while still relying on subject matter expertise and organizational context. The more an agency can articulate the value of different funding levels and scope breakpoints, the more effective the solution becomes.
Final Thought: From Negotiation to Strategy
Partial funding is inherently complex, but with the right practices in place, it does not have to be opaque or inefficient. By pzing early planning rigor—articulating mission-aligned priorities, defining viable scope alternatives, and using scenario planning to inform tradeoffs—agencies can move beyond verbal negotiation and reactive decision-making.
Instead, they can shape a portfolio that’s not only defensible and transparent, but also resilient—capable of adapting to changing funding realities without sacrificing strategic intent.
Want to see how Decision Lens helps agencies navigate complex and ever-changing funding prioritization and funding scenarios in action? Click here to request a 15-minute demo.
