|
Funding & Technical Assistance
NWCCOG Regional Grants Navigator
NWCCOG has a Regional Grants Navigator on staff to assist with identifying appropriate grant opportunities, reviewing grants prior to submission, or helping to gather letters of support. Feel free to reach out to him for assistance: Jonathan Godes, NWCCOG Regional Grants Navigator - jgodes@nwccog.org.
Federal Opportunities
Small Communities, Big Challenges: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Deadline: Jan. 31 | Details here. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is launching the Small Communities, Big Challenges competition for local governments to identify innovative and effective ways to holistically engage rural communities around environmental health issues and to identify any associated barriers to better protecting human health.
Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) - Deadline Feb 29
Deadline: Feb. 29, 2024 | Details here. Grant program for hazard mitigation activities. FEMA will extend financial assistance to eligible BRIC applicants for a range of activities, including capability and capacity-building initiatives to enhance workforce expertise, hazard mitigation projects that bolster public safety and resilience against a variety of natural hazards, and management costs, which help offset administrative expenses associated with mitigation measures and projects.
Reducing Indoor Air Risks Program
Deadline: Feb. 5 | Details here. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Program to conduct demonstration, technical assistance, training, education, or outreach projects that seek to reduce exposure to indoor air contaminants by advancing national policy and systems-level initiatives. Programs should address one or more of the EPA Indoor Air Program priority areas of radon, indoor environmental asthma triggers, or comprehensive indoor air risk reduction.
Grants for Arts Projects Program
Deadline: Feb. 15 | Details here. National Endowment for the Arts. Program supports opportunities for public engagement with the arts and arts education, for the integration of the arts with strategies promoting the health and well-being of people and communities, and for the improvement of overall capacity and capabilities within the arts sector. The program funds arts projects in the following disciplines: artist communities, arts education, dance, design, folk and traditional arts, literary arts, local arts agencies, media arts, museums, music, musical theater, opera, presenting and multidisciplinary arts, theater, and visual arts.
2024 Growth Accelerator Fund Competition
Deadline: Preapplication due Jan. 16 Details here. U.S. Small Business Administration. The competition offers $50,000 to $200,000 in prize awards in two stages to organizations to join SBA’s national innovation support ecosystem to advance small business research and development (R&D) from ideas to market.
State Opportunities
Rural Economic Development Initiative (REDI) Funding
Deadline: March 14 | Details here. The next round of Rural Economic Development Initiative (REDI) funding, which is a program designed to help rural communities comprehensively diversify their local economy and create a more resilient Colorado, opens up on February 14th, 2024, and closes on March 14, 2024. The most successful applications to this program are those from counties with less than 50,000 people, and from communities with fewer than 25,000 people. Projects that will be funded include plans, construction, programs, and capacity building. Projects should fall into one or more of the following categories: Job creation and retention; Capacity building; Economic resilience; Supports entrepreneurial ecosystems.
More Housing Now Initiative
Deadline: April 1 | Details here. This is a funding set-aside through the Energy and Mineral Impact Assistance (EIAF) program for local governments to adopt land use and other strategies to increase opportunity for affordable and attainable housing development.
Main Street LIVE
Deadline: April 1 | Details here. This is a funding set-aside through the Energy and Mineral Impact Assistance (EIAF) program for place-based development, redevelopment, and housing on downtown Main Streets that are critical to a robust and active economy, local government fiscal health, and sustainable and strategic growth development patterns. Main Street LIVE will fund planning, design and engineering, and construction of Main Street public infrastructure and facilities as Livability Investments for Vibrant Economies. This grant program aims to reinvest in our core main street downtowns and enhance long-term sustainability, support the development of housing, and attract workforce to create a more vibrant and livable commercial core.
Crime Prevention through Safer Streets Grant Program
Deadline: March 1 | Details here. Offered through the Office of Adult and Juvenile Assistance (OAJJA). The goal is to allow the department and local governments to evaluate and design safer streets and neighborhood models that discourage crime, revitalize community image, and establish place-specific crime prevention strategies that account for geographic, cultural, economic, and social characteristics of the target areas.
Strong Communities Grant Program
Round 2 Opens mid-January. Grant program through Colorado Department of Local Affairs, in partnership with the Colorado Energy Office and Colorado Department of Transportation. This round will fund the adoption of land use best practices to support affordable housing and can also support the adoption of new and upgraded planning and zoning codes, housing needs assessments, water planning and conservation efforts, wildfire planning and mitigation policies, and short-term rental policies. Direct inquiries regarding initial program interest to your DOLA regional manager, https://tinyurl.com/2n4tm2sb.
CTO’s Tourism Management Grant
Deadline: Jan. 30 | Details here. Colorado Tourism Office. The Tourism Management Grant benefits tourism-related projects that develop, enhance or manage visitor experience in Colorado. Applicants can request up to $20,000 and will receive a 4:1 match. Interested applicants are encouraged to submit a brief Letter of Interest prior to completing an application so that CTO staff can learn more about the proposed project and deliverables.
Opportunity Next Colorado
Deadline: Jan. 21 | Details here. Enacted by SB23-205, Opportunity Next Colorado aims to increase enrollment in Colorado-based postsecondary education and training programs, and will prioritize learners who pursue an in-demand or high-priority pathway. To streamline scholarship distribution, we are asking Colorado-based public and private institutions of higher education to apply for block grants in the Phase 1 application cycle.
Vital Careers Training SLFRF Grant
Deadline: Jan. 31 | Details here. Colorado Workforce Development Council. The Vital Careers Training SLFRF Grant is now live. Grants from $30,000 and up to $300,000 are available for 501(c)3 organizations, tribal organizations, and trade associations to expand or launch training programs for workforce development.
Other Funding & Technical Assistance Opportunities
Community Heart & Soul Seed Grant Program
Details here. Provides $10,000 in funding for resident-driven groups in small cities and towns to start the Community Heart & Soul model. Grant funding requires a $10,000 cash match from the participating municipality or a partnering organization.
Powering Climate and Infrastructure Careers Challenge
Deadline: Jan. 19 | Details here. This is an initiative of the Families and Workers Fund, a collaborative philanthropic effort to help create at least one million good jobs in the clean energy and infrastructure industries. Funding will be provided in two tracks: the Training and Career Pathways track, focused on scaling models to train, place, support, and retain a diverse workforce that meets the growing labor demand in clean energy, infrastructure, and related industries, and the Government Planning and Implementation track, focused on supporting government agencies and their community partners to plan for and implement good jobs and effective, inclusive workforce development.
Equitable Community-Designed Outdoor Spaces
Deadline: Feb. 15 | Details here. Colorado Health Foundation. This funding opportunity supports planning grants to inform the design and construction of outdoor spaces, such as playgrounds and parks across Colorado that allow children, youth and families to become co-designers of their own reimagined spaces for physical activity while fostering a sense of community, agency and belonging. This funding opportunity prioritizes outdoor spaces that center the needs of communities living on low-income, communities of color and rural communities in Colorado in the pursuit of health equity.
Resources
Roadmap to Colorado's Future: 2026
This month, Governor Polis released a Roadmap to Colorado’s Future: 2026 that highlights a common vision for a Colorado on its 150th birthday that is affordable and has a high quality of life. Recent data from the Census Bureau’s 2018-2022 American Community Survey indicates that Colorado must continue to encourage the creation, preservation, and overall production of affordable and attainable housing for the state’s growing population. This dataset contains population characteristics for census block groups, census tracts, municipalities, counties, and states. It provides a rich picture of Colorado's educational attainment, income, housing, and work location, among other social characteristics.
| 
