Smart Growth America is now accepting applications for the second round of the Community Connectors program, a national initiative helping small and mid-sized cities repair the damage caused by divisive and dangerous roads.
Donor Name: Smart Growth America
State: All States
County: All Counties
Type of Grant: Grant
Deadline: 08/31/2025
Size of the Grant: $10,000 to $100,000
Grant Duration: Grant Duration Not Mentioned
Details:
With support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, this program supports locally led efforts to reconnect communities and improve street safety—particularly in neighborhoods harmed by past infrastructure decisions.
This call for applications will support three teams from small to mid-sized cities (between approximately 50,000 and 500,000 in population) to participate in a yearlong cohort (September 2025 – June 2026) for training and support, culminating in the design and implementation of a temporary street safety pilot project to test out permanent changes to reconnect the community.
The objectives of this program are to:
- Make dangerous streets and roads safer; start repairing damage and division. Learn how demonstration projects are a proven strategy to make dangerous streets safer today, while also making the case for permanent changes tomorrow.
- Develop new skills that can be used on future projects. Create the kind of experience and capacity that can be used on other projects in the future, so that the community can design and implement other safety pilot projects on their own.
- Learn more about Complete Streets. Learn together and from one another about the role that a Complete Streets approach plays in addressing traffic violence and building great places.
- Build trust and lasting partnerships. Help these teams build the trust required to tackle more of these sorts of projects, repair past damage, and address what is often a legacy of harm.
- Bring teams together that include community-based organizations and local governments, but also potentially transit agencies, health advocates, housing non-profits, land trusts, major employers, lenders & others.
- Share lessons with others. Produce a report with case studies, lessons learned and recommendations to support this work more broadly both in experimental quick-builds and more permanent Complete Streets support.
Funding Information
- $25,000 to implement a temporary safety demonstration project,
- Up to $20,000 in expert design support.
Eligibility Criteria
Government agencies (including US territories), tribes, non-profit community-based nonprofit organizations, and academic institutions are eligible. Each team must identify a public and community-based org as co-leads on the application.
For more information, visit Smart Growth America.
