The HFFI Local and Regional Healthy Food Financing Partnerships Program (HFFI Partnerships Program) is a new grant program under the expanded America’s Healthy Food Financing Initiative.
Donor Name: Healthy Food Financing Initiative
State: All States
County: All Counties
Type of Grant: Grant
Deadline: 11/03/2023
Size of the Grant: up to $30,000,000
Grant Duration: up to 3 years
Details:
The purpose of HFFI is to support food supply chain resiliency, improve access to healthy foods in underserved areas, create and preserve quality jobs, and revitalize low-income communities by providing financial and technical assistance, either directly or through other partners and intermediaries, to eligible fresh, healthy food retailers and enterprises to overcome the higher costs and initial barriers to entry in underserved areas.
All Americans deserve access to fresh, healthy, and affordable food. Research indicates that when people have local access to fresh food, they make healthier choices about their diets, have better health outcomes, and benefit from improved local economic development. Equitable access to healthy food is enabled by a food system where enterprises across the food supply chain can thrive and deliver fresh, healthy, and affordable products. The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed how essential grocery stores, food suppliers, and their employees are to communities. The economic impact of the pandemic has only further constrained low-income families’ ability to afford and access healthy food. The goal of the Healthy Food Financing Initiative is to address this critical issue by investing in food retail and food enterprises throughout the food retail supply chain that contribute to improved fresh food access for low-income and underserved communities across the country.
HFFI Partnerships Program supports the work of local, state, or regional Food Financing Programs (FFP) in underserved communities throughout the United States.
Funding Information
- HFFI Partnerships Program grants are broken down into two types of activities: Capacity Building activities and Credit Enhancement activities. Up to $30,000,000 is available for grants for the 2023 HFFI Partnerships Program: up to $10,000,000 for Capacity Building activities and up to $20,000,000 for Credit Enhancement activities.
- Grant awards may be from $200,000 – $1,000,000 for Capacity Building activities and $500,000 – $3,000,000 for Credit Enhancement activities.
- Eligible Partnerships may apply for one or both types of activities as part of their grant application. Total grant award amounts (capacity building and credit enhancement activities combined) may be up to $3,000,000 total per award.
- They expect to make 10-20 grant awards under the HFFI Partnerships Program in 2023. Any funds not awarded under this RFA will be applied to the RFA for the next HFFI Partnerships Program competitive award cycle or another HFFI Program. Depending on funding availability, they expect to offer a future funding round for the HFFI Partnerships Program no sooner than two years after this RFA.
Funding Period
Grant Awards funding only Capacity Building activities may have a Grant Period up to 3 years. Grant Awards funding Credit Enhancement activities, either solely or with Capacity Building activities, will be expected to deploy all funding to Eligible Projects within 3-5 years. The Grant Period will extend beyond the deployment period to include the time needed for servicing of applicable financing activity.
Eligible Activities
- Proposed Capacity Building activities by Partnerships could include (but are not limited to):
- Personnel, fringe, and/or contractual expenses to administer the program
- Surveying local communities to identify food access gaps/challenges and assets
- Analyzing data to identify food access gaps and underserved areas, and develop financial products (e.g., loans, grants, tax credits) to serve Food Retail and Food Enterprises in Underserved Areas
- Seeking additional partners for the initiative
- Identifying a local lender to provide financial assistance through a loan fund
- Supporting projects that are applying for assistance through HFFI or other healthy food retail loan or grant programs
- Providing technical assistance to food retailers and food enterprises
- Business development, outreach, and promotion to food retailers and food enterprises
- Site visits, travel, presentations, and other events, meetings, and marketing strategies for promotion, outreach, business development, and portfolio administration
- Creation and distribution of marketing or outreach materials and strategies
- Creation and distribution of program materials, applications, forms, software, and other program administrative costs
- Staff training
- Contractual work necessary to launch or grow the Food Financing Program, such as legal consul to review loan or grant documents, creation of a legal opinion for lending authorization, or tax or accounting support.
- Eligible Credit Enhancement Activities by Partnerships could include (but are not limited to):
- Enabling the establishment and use of flexible credit requirements for lending activity to Eligible Projects, such as loaning funds for a greater percentage of the project’s cost than typical
- Buying down interest rates from applicant’s existing loan policies and products to better meet market demand
- Waiving or changing typical lending policies and requirements, such as waiving origination fees
- Establishing a dedicated loan loss reserve or guarantee pool to offset increased risk of lending to Eligible Projects
- Providing grants to Eligible Projects.
Eligible Projects
- Partnerships should be organized to provide financial assistance to Food Retail (defined above) and Food Enterprises. Partnerships that receive HFFI Partnerships Program grants must provide financial or technical assistance to Food Retail and Food Enterprise projects in Underserved Areas that meet the following criteria:
- Plans to expand or preserve the availability of staple and perishable foods in Underserved Areas with low and moderate-income populations (defined above); and
- If the project involves retail sales, accepts benefits under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) established under the Food and Nutrition Act of 2008 (7 USC 2011 et. Seq.)
- Plans to maintain and improve Food Supply Chain Resilience.
- For example, eligible HFFI Partnerships will provide grants and loans to healthy food retailers (such as grocery stores, mobile markets, food cooperatives, etc.) that sell staple and perishable groceries in eligible underserved areas, or food enterprises (such as food hubs, wholesale food distributors, food aggregators, etc.) that work in support of food retail in underserved areas.
Eligibility Criteria
- Partnerships are eligible to apply to the HFFI Partnerships Program.
- Partnerships include any meaningful collaboration between two or more entities. One of the partners must be a public entity such as a local, state, or tribal government, authority, or agency, among others. The other partner(s) may be entities such as nonprofit organizations, private businesses, foundations and funders’ collaboratives, community development financial institutions, credit unions, community development organizations, food policy councils, food systems and food access organizations, among others.
- Partnerships must fulfill all the following criteria:
- Organized to improve access to healthy foods.
- Expand or preserve the availability of staple and perishable foods by maintaining or increasing the numbers of retail outlets in underserved and low or moderate-income areas.
- Demonstrate ability to provide grants, loans, or technical assistance (TA) to eligible projects, now or in the future, as a result of HFFI Partnerships Program capacity building grant support and evaluate progress.
- Engage local partners from across sectors in promoting or delivering healthy food financial and technical resources.
- Demonstrate ability to leverage Federal HFFI resources locally.
- A Partnership is an agreement between at least two Eligible Entities (see below), one of which must be a public entity, that meets the criteria above. The agreement may be in the form of any official documentation such as a contract or Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). The partnership may also include other partners not listed as Eligible Entities below.
- Eligible Entities (at least one of the Partners must be a public entity):
- State, regional, and local governments and governmental agencies, authorities, commissions, and councils (Public entity)
- Tribal governments and tribal governmental agencies, authorities, and councils (Public entity)
- Public universities or hospitals (Public entity)
- Tax-exempt nonprofit corporations
- Qualified lenders such as Community Development Financial Institutions, Credit Unions, or Community Banks
- Cooperatively-owned businesses
- For-profit business enterprises (including a corporation, limited liability company, or public benefit corporation)
- Economic development corporations.
For more information, visit HFFI.