With grants up to $750,000 over two years and nine months, this funding opportunity will support community-based organizations, Tribal organizations and county behavioral health agencies throughout California to pilot and evaluate innovative practices in youth-led activism, peer support and mentoring in communities disproportionately impacted by the War on Drugs.
Donor Name: Elevate Youth California
State: California
County: All Counties
Type of Grant: Grant
Type of Entities: Community-based Organizations, Tribal Organizations and County Behavioral Health Agencies
Deadline (mm/dd/yyyy): 01/06/2022
Size of the Grant: $500,000 – $750,000
Grant Duration: 33 months (2 years, 9 months)
Details:
The Innovation Track opportunity will be implemented for 33 months replicating the proposed innovative strategy or new promising program. At the end of the second year, funded partners will be required to participate in an evaluation using the appreciative inquiry method led by a third-party evaluator contracted by The Center. Appreciative inquiry is a participatory approach to evaluation that seeks to identify and build on what works well.
Eligible applicants including community-based organizations, Tribal organizations and county behavioral health prevention programs are expected to:
- Pilot and evaluate innovative practices in youth-led activism, peer support and mentoring in communities disproportionately impacted by the War on Drugs
- Reflect the communities disproportionately impacted by the War on Drugs
- Develop and implement culturally and linguistically appropriate social justice youth development, peer-to-peer support and mentoring programs that are healing-centered, trauma-informed and focused on youth ages 12-26
- Utilize an intersectional approach to health equity through policy, systems and environmental change
- Intend to incorporate evaluation approaches to build upon the learnings from these new and innovative approaches to substance use prevention
- Utilize best practices in prevention and apply them in new domains (geographic: community, municipality, neighborhood, etc.; sectors: business, local agencies, etc.)
- Prioritize harm reduction and public health solutions that focus on positive messages to prevent substance use disorder
- Connect across various levels of the socio-ecological model to address the individual, relationship, community and societal factors that lead to substance use
- Pilot community-driven, culturally responsive solutions
- Engage non-traditional partners in prevention
For county behavioral health agencies applying as lead applicants, the applicant agency must be the primary service provider for program implementation and evaluative activities. While community-based partnerships are encouraged, public agencies applying are required to operate the proposed programming. Pass-through funding is prohibited for county behavioral health agencies.
In addition to youth activism, applicants must support youth and young adults through mentoring and/or peer-to-peer support to educate communities, change social and community norms around substance use, and prevent harms and risks associated with substance use.
Funding Information
$500,000 – $750,000 for 33 months (2 years, 9 months) for 501(c)(3) community-based organizations, Tribal organizations, County Behavioral Health Departments, and coalitions/collaboratives.
Eligibility Criteria
Organizations must meet the following minimum requirements:
- Must have an office located in California.
- Provide services in California.
- Are a 501(c)3 community-based organization, Tribal organization, or a County Behavioral Health Department with established and trusted community relationships. Also open to coalitions of organizations and collaboratives, as long as the backbone organization is an eligible applicant.
- Applicant organization must not have an active Elevate Youth California grant. Fiscal sponsors are the exception and are allowed to submit for a new fiscally sponsored project that was not awarded a previous Elevate Youth California grant.
- Have demonstrated experience partnering with young people of color and other marginalized communities disproportionately impacted by the War on Drugs.
- Applicant organizations and collaborative partners must deeply engage and reflect the proposed communities served that are disproportionately impacted by the War on Drugs.8 Grantee partners should have a history of working with impacted communities, including representation on the board and staff, organizational leadership, clients served and neighborhoods served.
- Applicant organizations and their partners must have demonstrated evidence of inclusivity and shall not discriminate based on race, color, religion (creed), gender, gender expression, age, national origin (ancestry), disability, marital status, sexual orientation or military status in any of its activities or operations.
- Applicant organizations must take innovative approaches to program implementation and commit to participating in the appreciative inquiry described above.
For more information, visit Elevate Youth California.
