The Connecticut Community Foundation is accepting applications for its Health and Environmental Justice grants.
Donor Name: Connecticut Community Foundation
State: Connecticut
Town: Selected Towns
Type of Grant: Grant
Size of the Grant: 10/16/2023
Size of the Grant: $5,000 -$15,000
Details:
This new grant area combines two of the Foundation’s old grant areas including Healthy Communities and Environment. Within Health and Environmental Justice, it recognizes that your health is influenced by where you are born, live, learn, work, play, worship and age.
- Waterbury has the highest live birth rate and highest infant mortality rate in Connecticut.
- Access to prenatal care varies by community. In Waterbury over 18% of pregnant women received late or no prenatal care, this number increases for Black and Latina mothers.
- Children in Waterbury are disproportionately affected by asthma. Slightly more than 21% have been diagnosed with asthma compared to the 15% in Connecticut and 13.4% in the nation.
- In 2016, out of cities with at least, 100,000 residents, Waterbury had the highest eviction rate in the Northeast and it is the 22nd highest in the nation.
- 43% of residents in the Foundation’s region who make $15,000 or less report not having enough money to buy food for their families
The Foundation approach focuses on:
- Supporting programs, advocacy and system change efforts that address health disparity
- Increasing access to safe and affordable housing
- Improving food systems to ensure access and affordability
- Improving health systems to ensure access, culturally responsive practices, and affordability
- Applying an Environmental Justice lens to projects that seek to clean up land, air and neighborhoods in order to positively impact health
Efforts they support include:
- Collaborations that improve access to basic needs (such as food and housing) and to preventative health care especially for BIPOC residents
- Evidence-based prevention and chronic disease management programs for diabetes, obesity, tobacco use, asthma, mental health first aid, and falls
- Housing advocacy efforts that address high eviction rates, safe housing (lead abatement) and affordability in Waterbury
- Expanding access to behavioral health and substance abuse interventions, especially in multi-lingual and rural communities
- System improvements that support increased access to medical and behavioral health services (such as transportation and telehealth)
- Efforts to advocate for environmental justice in Waterbury and work toward reducing environmental disparities across communities.
Funding Information
The average amount is between $5,000 and $15,000.
Eligibility Criteria
In order to apply for funding, an organization must:
- Be a not-for-profit organization recognized under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, or a municipal entity seeking a grant for public purposes. Organizations may also have a nonprofit fiscal sponsor, if they do not have their own nonprofit status.
- Have a board, representative of the community, of which a majority is neither employees nor relatives of employees.
- Possess a Nonprofit Registration to Solicit Funds (or exemption, if appropriate) from the Connecticut Department of Consumer Protection. This registration must be renewed annually.
For more information, visit Connecticut Community Foundation.
