The money we spend on prevention is a lot like George Bailey.

George, of course, is the hero of “It’s A Wonderful Life.” Aside from the fact that he’s played by Jimmy Stewart, he’s the opposite of glamour and drama. His whole career in the building and loan biz is devoted to creating a solid foundation on which all people can get their footing and become productive members of the community.

George works hard for his town, but the other guys get the parades. His work is unheralded, taken for granted. When the money he manages disappears, he despairs.

That’s when Frank Capra shows us what life would have been like in Bedford Falls if George had not been there, making the personal and economic investments that kept the town from developing into a crime-ridden pit.

In that alternative universe, George’s town looks a lot like Tacoma a couple of decades ago.

In their darkest time, the people of Tacoma and Pierce County reshaped their concept of who’s in charge of a community. They realized that helping a kid recover from the trauma of family violence and substance abuse isn’t just the right thing to do. It is less expensive than ignoring the child, and it helps everyone.

Like the people of Bedford Falls, they stepped up to volunteer at anything from mentoring kids to facing down gangsters. Hundreds showed up for meetings where they identified the most pressing needs for kids throughout Pierce County.

In 1995, they got help from Washington State Family Policy Council Community Networks. Of the 39 community networks in the state, two are in Pierce County, where they have been doing solid work for more than a decade. Now they face losing state funding on July 1.

Though their operations differ, Tacoma Urban Network and Greater Pierce County Community Network share a mission: They help coordinate community groups, agencies and governments to get the most effective services to kids and families at risk.

They prevent further harm. And they multiply their money.

The Greater Pierce network received $324,000 from the state for July 1, 2007, through June 30, 2009. It gave $130,000 away in grants of $2,000-$8,000 each to organizations such as Campfire USA, Franklin Pierce YOUTH FIRST, Communities in Schools in Orting, and Children’s Home Society in Key Peninsula.

The groups used the money to leverage matching grants. Exodus Housing, for example, used its $8,000 to bring in another $36,000 to pay for a therapeutic program for kids who have witnessed domestic violence.

In the 2005-2007 budget period, agencies used Greater Pierce grant money to bring more than $3 million in matching funds into the county, said administrative director Sarah Kluesner. That means they multiplied state money by a factor of 10.

The networks lobbied to put pseudophedrine behind pharmacy counters where meth cooks couldn’t get it. They helped the effort to build the Youth Resources home in Spanaway. They helped resurrect New Phoebe House as a home where mothers coming out of prison and off of drugs could rebuild lives and families.

Kluesner and Julie Grevstad, her counterpart at the Tacoma Urban Network, call this “capacity building.” They help players collaborate to develop effective programs, then study and improve them.

Tacoma Urban Network, which got $86,257 for the two-year period, does not give grants, said Grevstad. Instead, it has brought together courts, governments, schools and social services working to cut youth violence, child abuse and domestic violence.

It collects data on what works, what doesn’t, where improvement is needed. The service has saved taxpayers so much, Grevstad said, that it’s likely Tacoma, Lakewood and Pierce County would end up paying consultants to replicate the job.

If that happens the state will have cut its budget by shifting the cost back to Pierce County taxpayers.

Saving the networks is not hopeless, Grevstad said. It has strong supporters in strong positions of the Legislature. Given the dire finances they’ll be wrangling with, lawmakers need to hear from voters who see the value of prevention. Voters who understand how unsung heroes like George Bailey built a wonderful life.

Kathleen Merryman: 253-597-8677

kathleen.merryman@thenewstribune.com