ACF: 2023 Community Economic Development Planning Grants

The Administration for Children and Families (ACF), Office of Community Services (OCS) will solicit applications to award approximately $1.5 million in Community Economic Development (CED) discretionary funds to Community Development Corporations (CDCs) to stimulate new CED project development through administrative capacity building.

Donor Name:  Administration for Children and Families

State: All States

County: All Counties

Type of Grant: Grant

Deadline: 07/12/2023

Size of the Grant: $150,000

Grant Duration: 24 months

Details:

The Community Economic Development program seeks to address barriers to economic self-sufficiency in communities with low incomes by awarding funds to CDCs to implement community economic development projects that create business development and job opportunities. The CED program recognizes that non-profit CDCs intimately understand the unique assets and challenges in their communities. When CDCs and their partners have sufficient capacity, they are best suited to create new community economic development projects that reflect community needs.

OCS Priorities

OCS-funded programs are vital in addressing persistent poverty and pervasive disparities and inequities. To achieve their vision, OCS established the four overarching priorities below to ensure that their goals are achieved across the country. Award recipients must ensure that these priorities are considered throughout the planning and execution of activities.

• Ensuring the programs they administer are of the highest quality possible and are reaching those most in need.
• Lifting up voices from the field and using lessons learned to be thoughtful, inclusive, and innovative in their approach.
• Identifying opportunities to break down silos and implement cross-cutting initiatives within OCS and ACF and across the federal government.
• Focusing on three additional priorities that complement and strengthen OCS’ priorities listed above. First, Executive Order (EO) 14008: Tracking the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad and the Justice40 Initiative, which underscores funding support for energy communities. Second, increasing equity in the geographic distribution of CED funds. Third, breaking down service silos and leveraging existing partnerships across OCS programs to reduce poverty through a wraparound service model for communities with low incomes.

The CED program seeks to address the personal and community barriers that must be overcome for individuals with low incomes to become self-sufficient. This funding opportunity is aligned with the following:

• Upholding EO 14008: Tracking the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad and the Justice40 Initiative, which underscores funding support for energy communities.
• Increasing equity in the geographic distribution of CED funds.
• Breaking down service silos across OCS programs and leveraging existing partnerships

The objective of this funding opportunity is to focus resources in persistent high-poverty areas with struggling economies that have been unable to put forth a viable CED project in the past. The goal of this funding opportunity is to provide CDCs with financial assistance for administrative capacity building. With increased administrative capacity, CDCs will be better equipped to design a sustainable business project and package a viable competitive application to be submitted in a CED competition within the 12 months at the end of the project period.

Eligible Activities

CED funds under this opportunity may be used to implement activities that will lead to the development of a viable CED project concept and a CED application that will allow CDCs to compete for future CED funding. This includes the following:

• Convene and organize stakeholders within the target community to strategize on shared economic development efforts, visions, and desired paths forward. Stakeholders include, but are not limited to, local government officials, entrepreneurs, schools, faith-based organizations, social service organizations, non-profit organizations, chambers of commerce, or other business support organizations.
• Develop, update, or expand existing community economic development visioning statements and planning documents.
• Obtain and expand community buy-in for planned economic development efforts.
• Inventory existing data and conduct data collection efforts to assess local economic assets and identify viable markets for business development.
• Identify existing federal, state, local, and private funding opportunities that can be leveraged, along with CED funds, to implement business development and job creation projects.
• Develop and secure partnerships with social service providers, such as workforce development agencies and safety net providers to support economic development projects.
• Develop a business plan for an identified business development or economic development opportunity that describes sources and uses of funding; market analysis and strategy; products, services, and target customer base; marketing and sales plan; management plan; and operations plan.

Funding Information

• Estimated Total Funding: $1,500,000
• Award Ceiling: $150,000
• Award Floor: $75,000

Project Periods

Projects funded under this NOFO will have one 24-months project and budget period.

Eligibility Criteria

To be eligible to apply for a CED Planning grant, an applicant must meet the following three conditions:

• Applicant must be a private, non-profit CDC with 501(c)(3) status;
• Applicant must have articles of incorporation or bylaws demonstrating that the CDC has as a principal purpose the planning, developing, or managing of low-income housing or community economic development activities; and
• The Board of Directors must have representation from each of the following: community residents, business leaders, and civic leaders.
• Faith-based and community organizations that meet the eligibility requirements are eligible to receive awards under this funding opportunity.

Note: The CDC designation does not need to be specified on any official documents as long as the three requirements stated above are met.

• Applications from individuals (including sole proprietorships) and foreign entities are not eligible and will be disqualified from competitive review and funding under this funding opportunity.

For more information, visit Grants.gov.