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Empowering Communities RFP Now Open
OCDCA and the
CareSource Foundation are launching the
Empowering Communities Grant Challenge. The Empowering Communities Grant Challenge opportunity will provide funding for innovative solutions to unique community challenges that involve the social determinants of health. Applications are due by May 4, 2018. Join us for an informational and a technical assistance webinar for this brand new funding opportunity.
| Event and Date |
Location |
Registration |
What is Empowering Communities?
March 20, 2018
2:00 - 3:30 PM |
Webinar |
Register Here! |
| Event and Date |
Location |
Registration |
Empowering Communities RFP TA Webinar
April 10, 2018
10:00 - 11:30 AM |
Webinar |
Register Here! |
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Save the Date! #cdcOhio18 is in Columbus October 3-5, 2018!
Join us this October in the Capitol City at the Westin Columbus Downtown as we explore all of the work going on in the Arch City. Read more here. Follow the excitement on Twitter with #cdcohio18.
Thank you to our early sponsors:
- PNC Bank
- Franklin County
- Citizens Bank
- Regionomics LLC
- NeighborWorks Collaborative of Ohio
- LISC Greater Cincinnati & Northern Kentucky
- LISC Toledo
If you are interested in sponsoring or exhibiting at the conference, please contact Lisa Much.
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State of the Arts: Akron's Kenmore Neighborhood Reimagined
"Kenmore has so much life and so much vibrancy that you don't see on the surface," Tina Boyes, executive director of the Kenmore Neighborhood Alliance, said.
Listen to the whole NPR State of the Arts story. |
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Share Your Stories
We love hearing about the awesome work you do throughout Ohio. If your organization is mentioned in the news, please share it with us. We love photos too! If you send it to Lisa Much
, we can put it on our blog and in this newsletter.
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Building a Successful HDGF Deal: No Credits, No Problem!
Looking to build or renovate a modest affordable housing deal but not sure where to start? Want to master the application process for OHFA's non-tax credit Housing Development Gap Financing program? Are you a development pro but want a refresher on this dynamic program? Join OHFA on April 5th for an interactive training with their experienced staff!
Registration is open through March 22, but seating is limited, so save your seat now.
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Public Service Scholarship Applications
The
Ohio Conference of Community Development (OCCD) Foundation Scholarship application is open until April 13. OCCD would encourage you to make people aware of this great opportunity to provide some financial assistance to those seeking college degrees in economic and community development related fields.
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AmeriCorps VISTA Spotlight
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We're a little over halfway through the VISTA year, so we're conducting site visits through the month of March!
We're very excited to see all the great work that our VISTAs have been doing firsthand. Our VISTAs have done amazing things so far, like Dylan Bean at
Live Healthy Appalachia, who has recruited 235 volunteers to help his organization's work and Eleanor Gaston at
Yellow Springs Home, Inc., who has leveraged over $400,000 for affordable housing efforts in her community.
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Grassroots Empowerment: The African American Financial Capability Initiative
Join Prosperity Now on March 5th from 3-4 pm EST to discuss a new initiative that adopts a community-centered, collaborative approach to fighting racial economic inequality.
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Funding Opportunities with the Finance Fund
Join Heritage Ohio for a
webinar on March 7th where Anne Geggie of the Finance Fund will discuss some of their available funding programs, including pre-development grants of up to $30,000 and economic development grants which fund up to $100,000.
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This
webinar on March 8th will feature NMTC experts who will discuss case studies and best practices from various perspectives, including innovative uses of NMTC to make your applications more competitive and to overcome barriers of complexity and challenges in a project, and more.
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For over 25 years, the Coalition on Homelessness and Housing in Ohio has hosted an annual conference that convenes the nation's foremost experts on the issues of homelessness and affordable housing to share new approaches to house Ohio's most vulnerable citizens.
Housing Ohio 2018 will take place April 9, 10, and 11 in our long-time venue - the Sheraton Columbus Hotel on Capitol Square.
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Vodafone Wireless Innovation Project
The Vodafone Wireless Innovation Project™ (the "competition") seeks to identify and fund the best innovations using wireless related technology to address critical social issues around the world. Project proposals must demonstrate significant advancement in the field of wireless-related technology applied to social benefit use. The competition is open to projects from universities and nonprofit organizations based in the United States. Although organizations must be based in the United States, projects may operate and help people outside of the United States. Deadline is March 5. |
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ServeOhio Youth Service Day Funding
The primary intent is to support projects that create or improve community assets or infrastructure, such as parks, schools, senior centers, community gardens or low-income homes through youth volunteer engagement. Project grants may also be used to support educational events intended to encourage volunteerism or link populations in need with service providers. Projects should be collaborative in nature, involve a broad spectrum of community participants, and benefit the larger community. Deadline is March 6.
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Community-Based Collaborative Action Grants
Enterprise provides $5,000 grants for organizations to host a Collaborative Action. By design, Collaborative Actions allow conversations to emerge that shape the community and social context, and catalyze positive dynamics. These actions may be permanent or temporary, tangible or intangible, and may include creative placemaking, mapping, art installations or community events. They are typically small-scale, low-cost, and short in duration, but often fit into a larger community effort.
Deadline is March 9.
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Treatment for Individuals with Serious Mental Illness, Serious Emotional Disturbance, or Co-Occurring Disorders Experiencing Homelessness
The goal of this program is to increase capacity and provide accessible, effective, comprehensive, coordinated, integrated, and evidence-based treatment services, peer support and other recovery support services, and linkages to sustainable permanent housing. To achieve this goal, SAMHSA will support three types of activities: (1) integrated behavioral health treatment and other recovery-oriented services; (2) efforts to engage and connect clients to enrollment resources for health insurance, Medicaid, and mainstream benefits (e.g. Supplemental Security Income (SSI)/Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI), Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), etc.); and (3) coordination of housing and services that support sustainable permanent housing. Applications due March 9. |
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CommunityWINSSM
Wells Fargo Bank and the Wells Fargo Foundation are teaming up with the U.S. Conference of Mayors (USCM) to offer the CommunityWINSSM (Working/Investing in Neighborhood Stabilization) Grant Program. CommunityWINSSM will be administered by USCM with the goal of awarding $3M over three years, to support local nonprofits in promoting long-term economic prosperity and quality of life for their community. Deadline is March 16.
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Community Connectors
Community Connectors can help students appreciate how important values are to success in life - values like hard work, discipline and personal responsibility - all of which can help motivate and inspire them to find their purpose and reach their full potential. Deadline is March 16. |
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Donald R. Myers Legacy Fund (Appalachia Only)
The Donald R. Myers Legacy Fund was created to support projects and activities of organizations in the 32 Appalachian counties in Ohio that improve quality of life with emphasis on concerns Mr. Myers worked so passionately to address: education, regional networking opportunities, support for community leaders, and fulfillment of basic needs.
Deadline is March 22.
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View more employment opportunities on our website. Organizations with employment opportunities in community development may send their notices for free posting to Lisa Much. |
First round of signatures filed to put payday lending reform initiative on statewide ballot
Leaders of an initiative to put payday lending reform on the November statewide ballot on Wednesday turned in over 2,000 petition signatures to the Ohio Attorney General's Office. This is the first step to getting the measure on the ballot. Backers are pursuing this direction because state lawmakers have not acted on reform. The
petition language
calls for a constitutional amendment that would cap payday loan interest rates in Ohio at 28%. Pastor Carl Ruby, of Springfield, and Nate Coffman filed the petitions. At least 1,000 of the Ohio voter signatures must be validated and the Attorney General's Office must determine that the summary of the proposed constitutional referendum is a fair and truthful representation of the proposed law.
Payday lenders charge an average 591% annual percentage rate in Ohio, the highest such rate in the nation. Pastor Ruby said that rate is ridiculous, and he is tired of seeing lenders gouge vulnerable, lower-income working Ohioans. The ballot initiative mirrors some of the reforms called for in the bi-partisan
HB 123
, which seeks to establish a maximum interest rate on such loans of 28% plus a maximum monthly fee of $20.
Coffman pointed out that in 2008, Ohioans overwhelmingly voted in favor of payday lending reforms. "Since then, payday lenders have by-passed the will of the people and state law and are charging even higher prices,'' he said. "That's unacceptable, and we are certain Ohio voters will agree if legislators themselves don't move quickly on reform.''
View Nate on the
The State of Ohio show (12-minute mark)
and
In Focus
. Check out more coverage from the
Columbus Dispatch
,
Plain Dealer
,
Dayton Daily News, WHIO, and WKSU
.
The coalition would like to thank the many OCDCA members that collected signatures during a short window of time. The coalition will be in touch soon with a call for volunteers for the second phase of signatures.
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Window of Opportunity - Sign Here for Increased Community Development and Housing Resources
We all know that there is tremendous unmet need in the state for community development funding and for housing that low-income people can afford. However, there is good news:
Congress's recent bipartisan budget agreement is the first opportunity in many years to get increased federal funding for community development and affordable housing.
President
Trump's new budget is a bad start, but it's just symbolic.
The fact is, Congress just lifted austere spending caps that have starved HUD programs for years. The bill adds $131 billion in domestic non-defense spending for the next two fiscal years, and now they need to figure out how to spend it.
While Trump's budget would add only $2 billion of that new money to HUD (for an overall 14% cut), we know that increased funding for Community Development Block Grants (
CDBG), HOME Investments Partnership program (
HOME), rental assistance, and the National Housing Trust Fund would go a long way to alleviating resource scarcity and the affordability crisis.
But we need to let our members of Congress know these programs really work. The first step is to add your organization to this sign-on letter asking Ohio's congressional delegation to support increased funding for HUD programs.
After you sign the letter, we'll get in touch when the time comes to call your members of Congress to let them know how important these federal community development and housing programs are to their constituents.
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Non-Defense Discretionary Funding Increases Under Bipartisan Deal Yet Remains Below Historic Levels
The recent
budget deal from House and Senate leaders would substantially boost overall non-defense appropriations that fund such key national needs as education, job training, and infrastructure. Such funding would, however, remain below its level of eight years ago in inflation-adjusted terms - a sign of how much this part of the budget has been squeezed in recent years.
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