The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) has launched a call for proposals to enhance and support new and novel efforts by data creators and/or data users to effectively communicate, using data, how conditions of place are shaped by structural racism in ways that negatively impact community health.
Donor Name: Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF)
State: All States
Counties: All Counties
U.S. Territories: American Samoa, Guam, U.S. Virgin Islands, Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands
Type of Grant: Grant
Deadline: 06/02/2023
Size of the Grant: $100,000 to $250,000
Grant Duration: 1 year
Details:
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) and its grantees and partners have demonstrated the impact of using data as a communications tool to increase the understanding of how the conditions of place influence health and health equity.
The purpose of this CFP is to provide grants to up to eight interdisciplinary teams that each consist of researchers/data producers, data scientists, communications experts, designers, and national social change networks/alliances or national-level social change organizations. The teams will create data visualizations or data visualization tools that have national coverage and can be disaggregated down to smaller geographies as a tool to create easy-to-understand visualizations of structural racism’s impact on place, health, and wellbeing.
Collaboration is needed across organizations that address different sectors such as academia, design, media, policy, public health, social services. Organizations in individual sectors may struggle on their own with communicating an effective and nuanced understanding of the impact of structural racism to diverse audiences, such as policymakers, advocates, funders and investors, or the media. While the primary deliverables of this project will be data visualization tools and other methods of communicating using data, we anticipate that the deliverables will inform and support advocacy campaigns and should center the experience and needs of communities most affected by structural racism.
Structural racism can affect community conditions including but not limited to the built environment, community safety and policing, employment, environmental conditions, food insecurity, housing, racial segregation, and transportation. One purpose of the CFP is to understand the legacy of racism beyond the current visualizations of place we have now, which are often based on redlining maps.
Funding will support the creation of data visualizations as tools for national social change networks, alliances or national-level social change organizations to apply to their communications work and that of local partners or affiliates. Each overall partnership should demonstrate the unique potential of combining national coverage data with the perspective of impacted communities on indicators of structural racism. Determining research questions based on community needs, deciding which measures to use, and sharing a compelling story are some of the challenges of designing solutions to improve population health. Often national-level organizations/networks, researchers/data producers, data scientists, and communications experts hold parts of this information, but each field or discipline offers different strengths and encounters varying barriers.
Funding Information
- The total funding available for grants is $2,000,000 under this CFP.
- Individual grants will typically range from $100,000 to $250,000; however, higher requests will be considered. Therefore, they recommend you request the amount you will need to complete your proposed project. The size of the budget will be weighed in relation to the proposed activities and the likely contribution of the proposed project.
- The Foundation expect to fund a diverse range of projects with varying budgets.
Project Duration
- One year with no further commitments planned at this time.
Use of Funds
- Award funds should cover actual costs of the project including personnel and other direct costs. If the grantee is a public charity, grant funds will also cover indirect costs to support the applicant organization’s general operations. In keeping with RWJF policy, funds may not be used to support clinical trials of unapproved drugs or devices, to construct or renovate facilities, and for lobbying or political activities. Additional budget guidelines are provided in the online application materials
Eligibility & Selection Criteria
- A collaboration of multiple organizations or parties is required. The collaboration must include at least one individual or organization in each of the following sectors: researcher/data producer; communications expert (e.g., generalist, creative lead, or graphic designer); and national-level social change organization, network, or alliance committed to advancing racial and health equity, who have relationships and/or reach to engage aligned community organizations or affiliates.
- While each collaborating organization must be described in detail in the proposal, only one organization may represent the collaboration and be the lead contact in the application process.
- Awards will be made to organizations, not individuals.
- Lead organizations may only submit one proposal.
- Preference will be given to applicants that are either public entities or nonprofit organizations that are tax-exempt under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code and are not private foundations or Type III supporting organizations. The Foundation may require additional documentation. Members of the collaboration can be from for-profit organizations.
- Applicant organizations must be based in the United States or its territories.
- Data resources with national coverage and the ability to scale down to smaller units of analysis, like county, city, and/or census tract and that can provide disaggregated data will be preferred. However, data resources that have wide coverage of multiple cities, rural areas, or regions will also be considered. Single state, county, or city datasets do not qualify.
For more information, visit RWJF.
