Overview

• Agency: Housing and Urban Development
• Purpose: The Choice Neighborhoods initiative is a comprehensive, multi-sector approach to neighborhood transformation that focuses on the intersecting barriers faced by poor families and children. The initiative specifically funds collaboratives to design a Transformation Plan that will provide high-quality mixed-income housing in a place, support more equitable outcomes for residents living there, and support public and private reinvestment in that place. Flexible funding supports partnerships between organizations, agencies, and institutions working within a specific neighborhood to be responsive to that neighborhood's specific needs, including but not limited to: building affordable housing, providing social services, supporting community placemaking and arts initiatives, improving neighborhood internet access, expanding access to fresh food, caring for and offering education to children and youth, ensuring public safety, and reinvesting in the neighborhood's business infrastructure (section I.4.1 of the NOFA).
• Scale of Funding: Planning and Action grants of up to $1.3 million over a project period of 3.5 years, or up to $350,000 for Planning grants of up to 2 years (section II of the NOFA).
• Eligible Applicants: Public Housing Authorities, local governments, tribal entities, and nonprofits (section II.A.1 of the NOFA ).

Key Conditions for Collective Impact

• Infrastructure for Aligned & Mutually Reinforcing Activities: Grantees are required to undertake a comprehensive and integrated planning process that assesses the strengths and assets of a neighborhood, while also noting the challenges and gaps in services experienced by residents living there. The resulting Transformation Plan must involve a variety of agencies and stakeholders who can provide effective strategies for achieving improved outcomes associated with housing, supportive services for residents, and improved educational opportunities (section III.F.b.2.b of the NOFA). These may be both public and private agencies, organizations (including philanthropic organizations), and individuals, and they should not only participate in the development of the overall pan, but should also contribute to a governance strategy that will provide long-term accountability and secure commitments for long-term collaboration to ensure that the plan is successfully implemented; gather and utilize resources for the plan's sustainability; align and leverage existing and anticipated neighborhood efforts and investments from federal, state, regional, and local sources; and strengthen management and decision-making capacities of participating organizations (section III.F.b.4 of the NOFA).
• Data Infrastructure & Supports for Continuous Improvement: Within the first 12 months of the grant, recipients must conduct a household-level needs assessment of the public and/or assisted-housing residents in the target development(s) to better design solutions for challenges facing the children and families of HUD housing. In addition, grantees must evaluate existing data (such as the census [including the American Community Survey (ACS)], police reports, health care agencies/providers, school reports, research surveys, etc.) to determine whether more comprehensive needs assessments are required at the neighborhood level. Grantees must then also evaluate existing sources of data to determine if additional needs assessments are necessary at the neighborhood level (section III.F.a.1 of the NOFA). Core components of the needs assessments are outlined in section III.F.b.1 of the NOFA. These analyses must then be used to help identify effective strategies aligned with program outcomes. Recipients must also plan for the collection and strategic use of relative data to track future impacts on the community as the Transformation Plan is executed, partnering with local, state, regional, and federal agencies and organizations to identify common metrics, integrate data systems, and/or negotiate data sharing agreements so that data can be used for intervention targeting and improvement (section III.F.b.6 of the NOFA). Grantees may also utilize grant funds to identify and secure the involvement of effective practices and actors based on evidence. This may include a variety of supportive activities to improve practice and collaborative efforts (section III.F.b.7 of the NOFA).
• Resources for Equitable Power-Building & Governance: The Choice Neighborhoods initiative funding requires direct, continuous involvement of affected residents in the planning, implementation, and management of the Transformation Plan (section III.D.8 of the NOFA). Meaningful resident, community, and stakeholder participation may include, but not be limited to, public hearings, meetings, websites, forums, and other communication that engage community stakeholders in a timely manner and provide sufficient time and opportunity for them to review, react, and make informed decisions about how the Transformation Plan may impact them directly. HUD specifically instructs grantees to prioritize the engagement of communities traditionally marginalized from planning processes (section III.F.b.5 of the NOFA).
• Funding for Intermediary Organizations: Intermediary organizations may receive direct funding if they apply as the lead applicant.

Community Development Block Grants - Entitlement Programs

Overview

• Agency: Housing and Urban Development 
• Purpose: Community Development Block Grants (CDBG) provide flexible funds for communities to address a wide range of community development needs, especially those most pressing for low- and moderate-income residents. The flexibility of these funds allows for both service provision and coordination, as well as brick-and-mortar investment in housing development. If allocated for service delivery, funds may be used to address coordinated responses to immediate needs of residents, as long as spending does not exceed program allocation caps. While these funds are delivered to government agencies, nonprofit intermediaries may consider coordinating with grantees around service provision.
• Scale of Funding: Annual funding allocation is determined by a statutory dual formula which uses several objective measures of community needs, including the extent of poverty, population, housing overcrowding, age of housing and population growth lag, in relationship to other metropolitan areas.
• Eligible Applicants: Principal cities of Metropolitan Statistical Areas; metropolitan cities with populations of at least 50,000; qualified urban communities with populations of at least 200,000 people.

Key Conditions for Collective Impact

• Infrastructure for Aligned & Mutually Reinforcing Activities: Community Development Block Grants require grantees to submit a consolidated plan every five years, outlining how programs supported by the grant will align to achieve goals set through the grant. Funds may be sub-granted to nonprofits and intermediaries as long as 70 percent of all funds are being used for activities that benefit low- and moderate-income residents and/or are being used to address urgent community development needs for which other funding is not available. 
• Data Infrastructure & Supports for Continuous Improvement: Reporting requirements for Community Development Block Grants are limited and flexible and may be aligned with the broader strategies being held by a coalition as long as they align with the integrated service delivery approach outlined in the consolidated plan. 
• Resources for Equitable Power-Building & Governance: Grantees must develop and adhere to a detailed plan for incorporating resident access to decision-making around the use of CDBG funds, although it is difficult to know how consistently this kind of engagement takes place authentically. By rule, 70 percent of all funds must be used to benefit low- and moderate-income residents. 
• Funding for Intermediary Organizations: A portion of CDBG dollars may be used by recipients to fund general operating. CDBG funds may also be used as match funds for eligibility to compete for additional federal funding streams.

Continuum of Care (CoC) Program

Overview

• Agency: Housing and Urban Development
• Purpose: The CoC program provides funding to nonprofit providers, states, and local governments to adopt a community-wide commitment to planning and strategic use of resources to address and end homelessness in a place. The program is specifically designed to assist individuals, including unaccompanied youth, and families to move into transitional and permanent housing, with the goal of long-term stability. Core programmatic components of CoC initiatives may include permanent housing, transitional housing, supportive services, and homeless prevention.
• Scale of Funding: $2.3 billion allocated for FY2019
• Eligible Applicants: CoCs may apply as Collaborative Applicants with valid registration; nonprofit organizations, states, local governments, instrumentalities of state and local governments, and public housing agencies may apply as Project Applicants (pages 3 and 24 of the NOFA). A variety of applications are eligible for funding, including planning projects, projects created for reallocation or CoC bonus projects, new projects that specifically address domestic violence, expansion projects, consolidated projects, and renewal grants for specific projects (pages 29-32 of the NOFA).

Key Conditions for Collective Impact

• Infrastructure for Aligned & Mutually Reinforcing Activities: Demonstration of cross-sector collaboration for planning and implementation is required for an applicant to receive funding, with an intention for grantees to provide programs that operate in a coordinated way to provide systems-level solutions.
• Data Infrastructure & Supports for Continuous Improvement: Grant funds may be used directly for operating costs associated with establishing, housing, operating, and maintaining a CoC's Homeless Management Information System—a local information technology system used to collect client-level data and data on the provision of housing and services to homeless individuals and families, as well as persons at risk of becoming homeless.
• Resources for Equitable Power-Building & Governance: Each CoC must establish a board to act on its behalf, with additional committees and workgroups fulfilling responsibilities outlined by the board. CoC boards must include at least one individual who is experiencing or has experienced homelessness, as well as organizations who directly serve communities of individuals who are homeless who also experience additional disparities in services, including families with children, unaccompanied youth, and victims of various domestic and intimate partner violence (HUD guidance).
• Funding for Intermediary Organizations: Nonprofit intermediaries are eligible to apply for funding, which can be used to cover administrative costs for providing component services. Recipients and subrecipients may use up to 10 percent of any grant for project administrative costs. Additionally, applicants may apply for Unified Funding Agency designation, which if approved, would allow that agency to utilize program funds to cover up to 3 percent of costs, including arranging for an annual survey or audit, monitoring subrecipients of funding, and managing dispersal of funds to recipients (HUD guidance).

Education Innovation & Research Program (formerly Investing in Innovation)

Overview

• Agency: Department of Education
• Purpose: The Education Innovation and Research (EIR) Program provides funding to a wide variety of agencies, organizations, businesses, and consortia of partners to create, develop, implement, replicate, or scale innovations to improve student achievement and attainment for high-need students. The program focuses on innovations that are entrepreneurial, evidence-based, and field-initiated, and supports rigorous evaluation of such efforts, and in doing so is intended to generate and validate solutions to persistent educational challenges and to scale such solutions to large populations of students. The program offered tiered grants (early-phase, mid-phase, and expansion) to support a diversity of projects, including those that employ solutions that already demonstrate a high degree of effectiveness, as well as those that are more nascently developed.  The size of each award may increase as the quality of evidence in support of the innovation deepens. The EIR Program is the successor of the Investing in Innovation Program.
• Scale of Funding: 12-month grants are tiered, according to demonstration of existing evidence, from early-phase (up to $4 million), mid-phase (up to $8 million), and expansion (up to $15 million). All tiers are eligible for up to five years of funding.
• Eligible Applicants: State education agencies (SEAs) and local education agencies (LEAs), a consortium of SEAs or LEAs, the Bureau of Indian Education, nonprofit organizations, as well as partnerships between these qualifying applicants as well as with businesses and institutions of higher education. Specific considerations for rural applicants apply (section III.1.a of the Early-Phase NOFA, section III.1.a of the Mid-Phase NOFA, and section III.1.a of the Expansion NOFA). All applicants are required to apply under one of three Absolute Priorities: (1) Demonstrates a Rationale; (2) Field-Initiated Innovations –General; or (3) Field-Initiated Innovations–Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM).

Key Conditions for Collective Impact

• Infrastructure for Aligned & Mutually Reinforcing Activities: Resources are not directly defined for the purposes of building infrastructure that will align and reinforce activities within EIR projects. However, funding is intended to support grantees in assessing the effectiveness of activities, and may therefore support better alignment.
• Data Infrastructure & Supports for Continuous Improvement: All EIR projects are expected to generate information regarding their effectiveness in order to both inform grantees' own efforts to learn and improve upon their strategies, and to help inform the field with beneficial lessons learned (section I of all EIR NOFAs).
  • Early phase grants are meant to support the development, implementation, and feasibility testing of a promising program that may successfully improve student achievement.  Early phase grants must demonstrate a rationale for whether and in what ways new practices may do so.  Early phase applicants are encouraged to develop a logic model, theory of action, or other conceptual framework that includes the goals, objectives, outcomes, and key components of their projects with the intention to disseminate evaluation findings. Early phase grantees and their independent evaluators may receive technical assistance to design and regularly update their evaluation plan.
  • Mid-phase grants are intended to support projects that refine and expand the use of practices with prior evidence of effectiveness in order to improve outcomes for students, as well as generate better understanding of who benefits from interventions and in which contexts. Projects will ideally help answer critical questions around how to scale projects, including how to adjust cost structures as an initiative grows and how to facilitate smooth implementation.  Grantees are directed to do so using administrative or other readily available data. Mid-phase grantees and their independent evaluators may receive technical assistance to design and regularly update their evaluation plan.
  • Expansion grants are meant to scale practices that have demonstrated prior evidence of effectiveness, as well as to generate important information about how an intervention has been effective, such as: In what context(s) has an intervention been effective? Where has it worked well and where has it not worked well? What components of the project are most critical to its success?  Similarly to mid-phase grants, expansion grants are intended to provide new learning to the field about adapting cost structures as well as facilitating effective but flexible implementation practices. Ideally, learnings from expansion grants will help build knowledge for the field around effective approaches to scaling interventions to the national level.  To do so, expansion grants are expected to design evaluations that examine the cost-effectiveness of practices and identify potential obstacles and success factors to scaling that could be relevant to other organizations. These evaluations are expected to be conducted in a variety of contexts and for a variety of students.  Expansion grantees and their independent evaluators may receive technical assistance to design and regularly update their evaluation plan.
• Resources for Equitable Power-Building & Governance: N/A
• Funding for Intermediary Organizations: Intermediaries may be directly funded through the program if they are a co-applicant in a consortium.

Full-Service Community Schools Program

Overview

• Agency: Department of Education
• Purpose: TheFull-Service Community Schools Program grants support the planning, implementation, and operation of full-service community schools that improve the coordination, integration, accessibility, and effectiveness of services for children and families, particularly for children attending high-poverty schools, including high-poverty rural schools. Full-Service Community Schools provide comprehensive academic, social, and health services for students, students' family members, and community members that will result in improved educational outcomes for children. The program encourages coordination of academic, social, and health services through partnerships among (1) public elementary and secondary schools; (2) the schools' local educational agencies (LEAs); and (3) community-based organizations, nonprofit organizations, and other public or private entities.
• Scale of Funding: Awards are estimated to range from $275,000-$500,000 for each 12-month budget period, and between $1.375 and $2.5 million for an entire 60-month project period. The average award for a 12-month budget period is $450,000. The project has allocated $72,500,000 across 47 grantees since FY 2010.
• Eligible Applicants: Consortia consisting of a Local Education Agency (or the Bureau of Indian Education) and one or more community-based organizations, nonprofit organizations, or other public or private entities. Consortia must comply with the provisions governing group applications in 34 CFR 75.127 through 75.129 of EDGAR.

Key Conditions for Collective Impact

• Infrastructure for Aligned & Mutually Reinforcing Activities: Applicants must be engaged in a consortium of LEAs, community-based organizations, nonprofits, etc., and the consortium must enter into a binding agreement as to shared aligned activities. An MOU must be in place.  Pursuant to section 462 (e) of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), grantees must use FSCS grant funds to (1) coordinate not less than three existing pipeline services and provide not less than two additional pipeline services at two or more public elementary schools; (2) to the extent possible, integrate multiple pipeline services into a comprehensive and coordinated continuum to achieve annual performance measures to meet the holistic needs of children; and (3) if working in a consortium, coordinate and integrate services provided by community-based organizations and government agencies (section III.5 of the NOFA).
• Data Infrastructure & Supports for Continuous Improvement: Awardees are expected to leverage funds to design and implement a plan for annual evaluation based on performance objectives and outcomes (section V.e of the NOFA). The federal program uses a single consistent performance measure across grantees: The percentage and number of individuals targeted for services who receive services during each year of the project period (section VI.5 of the NOFA). While the federal program does not specify consistent short- and long-term results to be pursued by grantees, the Coalition for Community Schools—a network of local community school implementers—have developed a proposed results framework for planning, implementing, and continuously improving community school strategies to ensure that students graduate ready for college, careers, and citizenship. Guidance is also provided to prospective implementers for utilizing the framework to better align partners to sync and scale interventions, leverage data for organizing and evaluation, and support the development of leadership and management.
• Resources for Equitable Power-Building & Governance: N/A
• Funding for Intermediary Organizations: Intermediaries may be directly funded through the program if they are a co-applicant in a consortium.

Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs (GEAR UP) 
*FY 2019 only funded state grants

Overview

• Agency: Department of Education
• Purpose: The Gaining Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs (GEAR UP) is intended to support local consortia of K-12 schools, institutions of higher learning, community-based organizations, and state agencies to (1) increase the postsecondary readiness of students, (2) improve high school graduation rates and rates of enrollment in postsecondary education, and (3) expand students' and families' access to and knowledge of ways to prepare for and finance postsecondary education. Funded agencies and partnerships engage cohorts of students no later than the 7th grade and support their academic outcomes through high school graduation.  Additional funding may be available for awardees to support their cohort through the first year of postsecondary entry.  Grant funds may also be used to provide scholarships directly to students enrolled in postsecondary programs.
• Scale of Funding: $360 million appropriated for FY 2019; awards range from $2.5-$5 million per 12-month budget period. Grant periods last 72 or 84 months.
• Eligible Applicants: GEAR UP offers two different types of funding: funding directly to state agencies designated by the governor of that state, and partnerships of one or more local educational agencies and one or more degree-granting institutions of higher education. The statutory language of USC §1070a–21(c)(2) makes the inclusion of community organizations or entities optional; however, if an applicant decides to include community organizations or entities in its eligible partnership, it must include at least two.

Key Conditions for Collective Impact

• Infrastructure for Aligned & Mutually Reinforcing Activities: Grantees must demonstrate strong strategies for aligning appropriate partners in order to maximize the effectiveness of project services (section V.1.c.3.ii of the NOFA).
• Data Infrastructure & Supports for Continuous Improvement: The GEAR UP program utilizes a set of 10 common performance measures to gauge how effectively the program, as a whole, is contributing to (1)increases in the academic performance and preparation for postsecondary education for participating students; (2) increased rates of high school graduation and participation in postsecondary education of participating students; and (3) increased educational expectations for participating students and increased student and family knowledge of postsecondary options, preparation, and financing (section VI.5 of the NOFA). Grantees are required to build out a robust evaluation system that will support periodic assessment of the project. This evaluation design should include objective performance measures that are clearly related to the intended outcomes of the project, leveraging both qualitative and quantitative data. Ideally, both periodic assessment and longer-term evaluation will produce insight into the effectiveness of these projects for the broader field as well as effective strategies that might be implemented in other contexts (section V.1.f of the NOFA).
• Resources for Equitable Power-Building & Governance: Grantees must demonstrate strong strategies for ensuring that a diversity of perspectives will be incorporated in the implementation of the project, including parents, teachers, the business community, recipients and beneficiaries of services, and members of disciplinary and professional fields, etc. (section V.1.c.3.iv of the NOFA).
• Funding for Intermediary Organizations: Awardees may use an indirect cost rate of up to 8 percent of a modified total direct cost or the amount permitted by its negotiated indirect cost rate agreement, whichever is less, to cover costs not associated with direct service.

Innovations in Community-Based Crime Reduction (CBCR) Program (formerly Byrne Criminal Justice)

Overview

• Agency: Department of Justice
• Purpose: The CBCR program is intended to strategically reduce crime in communities by building cross-sector partnerships between law enforcement, criminal justice partners, neighborhood residents, and community stakeholders in a specific geographic area. CBCR resources are meant to enable leaders to work together to select powerful, community-rooted strategies and tap into the resources and capacities of diverse partners to implement those strategies. The program requires that an initiative have a place-based strategy, focusing on a specific geographic area; have a strong approach to engaging community members in developing strategies; utilize a data-driven lens to identify evidence-based or innovative strategies to address drivers of crime in that specific community; and draw on cross-sector partnerships to align efforts comprehensively.
• Scale of Funding: Planning and implementation grants of up to $1 million over a 48-month performance period (page 10 of the NOFA). To date, $54.7 million has been awarded to 74 communities in 31 states.
• Eligible Applicants: Institutions of higher education, units of local government, nonprofit organizations, and federally recognized Indian tribal governments.

Key Conditions for Collective Impact

• Infrastructure for Aligned & Mutually Reinforcing Activities: An explicit aim of the CBCR program is to build strong cross-sector partnerships. Grantees are expected to engage in iterative cycles of analysis, planning, and review with the project's management team, cross-sector partners, and members of the community (page 7 of the NOFA).
• Data Infrastructure & Supports for Continuous Improvement: The CBCR program partners with researchers to support the continuous use of data for strategizing. Together, these partnerships identify focus areas in neighborhoods where communities are experiencing disproportionate rates of crime, discuss and analyze various drivers, and select strategies that are both appropriate for the community and that draw on evidence-based approaches. As strategies are implemented, grantees are encouraged to utilize this research and data support to actively evaluate strategies' effectiveness and modify them accordingly (page 7 of the NOFA).
• Resources for Equitable Power-Building & Governance: Active engagement and decision-making by community residents and stakeholders is a key element of the CBCR program. The process outlined by the initiative involves direct involvement and decision-making by community stakeholders in the planning of the collaboration, determination of strategies to be employed, ongoing evaluation of those strategies and appropriate modifications, as well as active roles in developing sustainability and long-term implementation plans for the program (pages 7-8 of the NOFA).
• Funding for Intermediary Organizations: Intermediary organizations may receive direct funding if they apply as the lead applicant.

Performance Partnership Pilots for Disconnected Youth (P3) 

Overview

• Agency:  Department of Education
• Purpose:  P3 was developed to offer local leaders additional flexibility in how they braid discretionary federal funding from the departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, Justice, as well as the Corporation for National and Community Service and the Institute of Museum and Library Services to achieve outcomes for disconnected youth.  There are no funds available through P3.  However, the designation allows sites to blend Federal funds and utilize waivers of program requirements (statutory, regulatory, and administrative) that may create barriers to testing innovative, outcome-focused strategies (section I of the NOFA).   A list of potential waivers offered to P3 sites is available on the youth.gov website here.   By offering sites greater flexibility in how federal funds are utilized, the initiative intends to support greater collaboration across silos, relieve fiscal and reporting burden, and create greater space for more innovative strategizing.  Grantees who receive pilot programs must utilize Federal programs (at least one of which is administered in whole or in part by a State, local, or Tribal government) that are designed to prevent youth from disconnecting from work or school, or are targeted toward those who are already so (section I of the NOFA). 
• Scale of Funding: There are no funds available through P3.  However, the designation allows sites to blend Federal funds and utilize waivers of program requirements (statutory, regulatory, and administrative) that may create barriers to testing innovative, outcome-focused strategies (section I of the NOFA).   In past fiscal years, designations have been offered to 10 sites per year. 
• Eligible Applicants:  The lead applicant must be a State, local, or Tribal government entity, represented by a chief executive or head of that agency (see section III of the NOFA).

Key Conditions for Collective Impact

• Infrastructure for Aligned & Mutually Reinforcing Activities: P3 is intended to directly support alignment of strategies across federally-supported programs.  Designees must merge two or more funding streams, or portions, or funding streams, ideally with the result of increasing the efficiency and/or the effectiveness of the activities supported by those funds.  Designees may do so by blending or braiding funds.  Should a designee choose to blend streams, those funds lose their individual identities and may be subject to a single set of reporting requirements.  Braiding funds allows a designee to leverage multiple funding streams to support unified initiatives, while still tracking and holding accountability for the outcomes specified for each stream.  
• Data Infrastructure & Supports for Continuous Improvement: While P3 does not explicitly support data infrastructure across programs, the designation does require designees to outline the outcome(s) that the pilot will support for disconnected youth or youth at risk of becoming disconnected; a reliable, appropriate, and methodology for determining whether or not those outcomes are being achieved; criteria for determining when a pilot is not achieving those aspirations; and strategies for adjusting the pilot if those outcomes are not being achieved.
• Resources for Equitable Power-Building & Governance: N/A
• Funding for Intermediary Organizations: The P3 designation is explicitly intended to generate significant cost savings to designees by relieving some of the burdensome requirements associated with Federal funding, thereby freeing up the funds to be more flexibly applicable to new and innovative strategies.  This may, then, provide capital for strategies that could be otherwise difficult to fundraise for.  While requests for waivers are considered on a case-by-case basis (section I of the NOFA), they may be useful to intermediaries in flexing reporting requirements as multiple federal grants are aligned, may allow designees to free up formula funds that might otherwise be limited by statues, and augment projects funded under multiple Federal grants to support initiatives being undertaken to better serve youth who are disconnected from work or school, or at risk of becoming so.

Promise Neighborhoods 

Overview

• Agency: Department of Education
• Purpose: Inspired by the success of the Harlem Children's Zone, the Promise Neighborhoods program combines high-quality education with community and family-based supports, and creates a continuum of services from the cradle to college to career. A Promise Neighborhood does not focus on simply a few isolated issues faced by children, or attempt to improve educational and life outcomes of just a small number of children in low-income communities.  Instead, it focuses on the whole child and whole community, challenging inequitable policies and systems, and using data and a relentless focus on results to identify what works to help children succeed in the classroom and beyond. The vision of the program is that all children and youth growing up in Promise Neighborhoods have access to great schools and strong systems of family and community support that will prepare them to attain an excellent education and successfully transition to college and a career, and that eventually funded programs will continue to scale to serve larger geographies.
• Scale of Funding: Implementation grants are available for up to $6 million per 12-month grant period for five five years. Extension grants are available to implementation grantees for up to $6 million per 12-month grant period for up to two additional years (section II of the NOFA).  To date, 71 grants have been made to 54 communities in 24 states.
• Eligible Applicants: Nonprofit organizations, institutions of higher education, and federally-recognized tribal communities.

Key Conditions for Collective Impact

• Infrastructure for Aligned & Mutually Reinforcing Activities: Grantees must facilitate the coordination of a pipeline of wraparound services for children and youth living in their respective neighborhoods (section III.3.6 of the NOFA). While grantees may provide these services directly in an evidence-based manner, they may also contract with additional stakeholders who can support, enhance, operate, or expand comprehensive services. Grantees must also support partnerships between schools and other community resources with an integrated focus on other social, health, and familial supports (section III.3.6.c of the NOFA). Grantees are encouraged to utilize the program's data infrastructure to align and reinforce contributions from both the grantee and partners toward improving outcomes associated with the program's results framework. Each grantee must secure memoranda of understanding with partner organizations, detailing financial, programmatic, and long-term commitments to agreed-upon strategies (section III.3.12 of the NOFA).
• Data Infrastructure & Supports for Continuous Improvement: The Promise Neighborhoods strategy provides a national results framework of 10 results and 15 corresponding indicators (see Table I of the NOFA). This results framework places a strong emphasis on accountability for the well-being of children and families but allows communities the flexibility to implement the strategies that make the most sense for their particular context. To be eligible for funding, grantees must have the capacity to address specific data collection requirements and engage in rigorous performance management, including effectively collecting and employing a comprehensive range of case and longitudinal data to meaningfully evaluate activities (section III.3.10 of the NOFA). This includes hiring a dedicated staff to manage data collections and systems, establishing clear annual targets and performance measures, designing a plan to collect data at least annually, establish a plan to track case management information for individual children, and design a plan to develop and maintain a longitudinal data system. Each grantee is required to report this data to the Department annually, to work with a national evaluator to ensure that data collection is consistent with plans to conduct a national evaluation of the program, and to be using data in real-time to engage partners and community stakeholders in discussion of continuous program improvement.
• Resources for Equitable Power-Building & Governance: Grantees are encouraged to involve parents and community residents directly in the visioning, planning, implementation, and continuous improvement of strategies. To ensure that parents and residents are deeply engaged in these efforts in a meaningful way, grantees must outline a process for maintaining family and community engagement in the initiative, including strategies to involve members of the neighborhood in the planning and implementation of the grant, as well as strategies to assist families and community members in actively supporting students (sections III.3.5 and III.3.8 of the NOFA). Grantees are also required to make information about the number and percentage of children in the neighborhood served, as well as information related to the program performance metrics, available to parents and families in the neighborhood in a way that is practical and in an accessible language (section III.3.12 of the NOFA).
• Funding for Intermediary Organizations: Intermediary organizations may receive direct funding if they apply as the lead applicant.

Social Impact Partnerships to Pay for Results Act (SIPPRA) Demonstration Projects 

Overview

• Agency: Department of the Treasury
• Purpose: The SIPPRA demonstration grant program is intended to encourage funding of social projects that achieve results. SIPPRA funds are directed toward state and local governments to fund social impact partnerships.  Payments are made through grants to government agencies for successful outcomes associated with the partnerships. Funds are currently only available for social impact partnership project grants (including evaluations); however feasibility study grants are anticipated to be announced in late 2019.
• Scale of Funding: $66,290,000 for payments ; $9,940,000 for project evaluations
• Eligible Applicants: State or local governments as lead applicants, working with eligible partners, including intermediaries, service providers, and investors (section C.2 of the NOFA). Half of all funds will be set aside for projects serving children under the age of 18 (sec A.2 of the NOFA).
• Most recent Notice of Funding Availability: February 21, 2019

Key Conditions for Collective Impact

• Infrastructure for Aligned & Mutually Reinforcing Activities: Funding requires that the lead entity provide a partnership agreement that demonstrates clearly defined roles and responsibilities, a flexible and adaptive service delivery plan, data sharing agreements, and agreement around payment arrangements.
• Data Infrastructure & Supports for Continuous Improvement: Recipients are required to demonstrate measurable progress around any of 20 qualifying outcomes or other measurable outcome defined by the state or local government that could result in positive social outcomes and federal savings (section A.3 of the NOFA), an evaluation design plan that is shared by partners, as well as a plan for data sharing among partners. As a part of their overall evaluation strategy, recipients must also estimate baseline federal revenues and outlays as a direct result of each proposed intervention, as well as any estimated changes that might occur to those revenues and outlays (section D.2.b of the NOFA). Applicants are encouraged to provide a brief description of each intervention and to specify the outcome target(s), intervention period, target population to be served, proposed theory of change for the intervention, and justification for how the proposed intervention will have a predicated effect. Guidance for calculating outcome valuations and a template workbook for calculating baseline, post-intervention, and outcome valuations are available on the SIPPRA website here. Recipients are required to perform an independent evaluation with an independent evaluator regardless of whether or not outcomes are met.
• Resources for Equitable Power-Building & Governance: N/A
• Funding for Intermediary Organizations: There is no direct funding available specified for intermediaries in the funding NOFA for the program. However, intermediaries may work directly with their state and local agencies (section A.4.c of the NOFA). As a partner, the intermediary must agree to the overarching service delivery plan for the partnership, an evaluation design plan to be used within the partnership and an independent evaluation plan, a data-sharing agreement among partners, and a payment agreement with the applicant demonstrating understanding that "the payment by the federal government is conditioned upon the independent evaluator's verification that the project's predetermined outcome(s) and value generated have been met within the grant period" (section D.2.b of the NOFA).  Specific directions for describing the qualifications of the intermediary are outlined under the heading "Partner qualifications" in section D.2.b of the NOFA.

Youth Homelessness Demonstration Program (YHDP) 

Overview

• Agency: Housing and Urban Development
• Purpose: The program is intended to support the development and implementation of a coordinated community approach to preventing and ending youth homelessness, and sharing that experience with and mobilizing communities around the country toward the same end. As outlined in the NOFA, the initiative intends to:
  • "Build national momentum. Motivate state and local homelessness stakeholders across the country to prevent and end youth homelessness by forming new partnerships, 2 of 43 addressing system barriers, conducting needs assessments, testing promising strategies, and evaluating their outcomes;
  • Evaluate the coordinated community approach. Evaluate coordinated community approaches to preventing and ending youth homelessness, including local and state partnerships across sectors and other planning operations;
  • Expand capacity. Demonstration communities will expand their capacity to serve homeless youth, pilot new models of assistance, and determine what array of interventions is necessary to serve the target population in their community
  • Evaluate performance measures. Evaluate the use of performance measurement strategies designed to better measure youth outcomes and the connection between youth program outcomes and youth performance measures on overall system performance for the Continuum of Care (CoC);
  • Establish a framework for federal program and TA collaboration. Determine the most effective way for federal resources to interact within a state or local system to support a coordinated community approach to preventing and ending youth homelessness" (page 4 of the NOFA).
• Scale of Funding: Awards range from $1 to $15 million per 12-month budget period over two years, unless a project has been identified for a planning grant, in which case it is eligible for one year of grant funding with potential for a one-year renewal (page 11 of the NOFA).
• Eligible Applicants: State governments, county governments, city or township governments, special district governments, nonprofits with 501c(3) status; institutions of higher education may apply as applicants on behalf of a Continuum of Care.

Key Conditions for Collective Impact

• Infrastructure for Aligned & Mutually Reinforcing Activities: The Youth Homelessness Demonstration Project directly funds Continuum of Care (CoC) collaboratives of nonprofit homeless providers, victim service providers, faith-based organizations, governments, businesses, advocates, public housing agencies, school districts, social service providers, mental health agencies, hospitals, universities, affordable housing providers, law enforcement, organizations that serve homeless and formerly homeless veterans, and homeless and formerly homeless persons. This cross-sector coalition must develop a shared vision, list of goals, objectives, and action steps with partner contributions for implementing the collaborative's plan. This must also include a governance structure, including an organizational chart and predetermined decision-making processes (page 16 of the NOFA).
• Data Infrastructure & Supports for Continuous Improvement: In their coordinated community plans, grantees are required to specify a plan for continuous quality improvement.
• Resources for Equitable Power-Building & Governance: YHDP grantees are required to involve a variety of cross-sector stakeholders in the development and implementation of the CoC's strategies. This includes the convening of Youth Action Boards led by youth who have or are experiencing homelessness.  These youth lead planning and implementation of YHDP strategies. Additionally, as communities develop their strategies, they are encouraged to center the needs of youth at-risk of experiencing homelessness, including youth of color, LGBTQIA youth, parenting youth, youth involved in the foster care and juvenile justice systems, and youth victims of human trafficking (guidance from HUD).
• Funding for Intermediary Organizations: Intermediary organizations may receive direct funding if they apply as the lead applicant.