Equitable Community-Designed Outdoor Spaces Grant

The Equitable Community-Designed Outdoor Spaces Grant, offered by the Colorado Health Foundation, supports planning grants for designing and constructing inclusive outdoor spaces like parks and playgrounds in Colorado. This initiative emphasizes community engagement, allowing families and youth, particularly from low-income and communities of color, to co-design their recreational areas, fostering health equity and belonging. Grants range from $25,000 to $50,000 and prioritize projects that address historical disparities in access to safe outdoor amenities.

NOTE: We are here to talk through your ideas and encourage you to connect with us before applying for funding. If you are not already connected with a program officer, please reach out to us. At the conclusion of planning grants and by invitation-only, projects will be considered for capital grant support for construction of shovel-ready projects.
Our Cornerstones
We serve Coloradans who have less power, privilege and income, and prioritize Coloradans of color. We are informed by the community and those we exist to serve.We do everything with the intent of creating health equity.
Priority Area: Thriving Young People- Equitable Community-Designed Outdoor Spaces - Planning Grants
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.
Race is a central consideration for the development of healthy communities. Effective strategies that engage all youth, especially youth of color, must recognize race and place barriers that impact opportunities to create lifelong physical activity practices. Limited recreation space coupled with safety concerns restricts the physical activity opportunities of communities of color. Families in rural communities also lack outdoor amenities and safe places to play. Often, the areas with the least access to public play spaces are the most stressed. Rarely are spaces provided for intergenerational physical activity and cohesion in rural communities.
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.
This funding opportunity differs from previous opportunities as it emphasizes a more dynamic planning process for how communities are engaged in designing outdoor spaces. Applicants must undertake a planning process that includes deep community engagement bringing community members together to actively co-design spaces that reflect the community’s needs, history and culture, and encourages positive physical activity and psychological safety. Projects may utilize the Community Engagement Spectrum, Equity-Centered Community Design, or another relevant model to support the planning and design process. We invite you to work with a program officer to determine the right process for your community project.
Planning funds in the range of $25,000 - $50,000 can be used to support community engagement and co-design activities. Planning grants may include personnel costs, meeting space needs, stipends for community members, administrative costs, meeting materials, translation and interpretation costs, among other needs. Landscape architects selected by the Foundation will provide technical assistance to support communities through the design process, as needed. Costs for this technical assistance will be covered by the Foundation separately from the planning grant.
Proposed projects must reflect the Foundation’s cornerstones. These outline who we serve, how our work is informed and our intent to create health equity.

Eligibility

Generally, we make grants to the following types of organizations:Colorado organizations classified as tax-exempt under section 501(c)(3)New or emerging organizations without 501(c)(3) status are permitted to apply through a tax-exempt organization acting as fiscal sponsor.Colorado public agencies, including state and local governmentsApplicants must meet the following funding criteria:Applicant organizations must demonstrate commitment to undertake a comprehensive planning process that includes deep community engagement that leads to a community-owned or community-driven outdoor project co-designed with the community.Planned design and construction of outdoor spaces in high-need areas that serve individuals of all ages and create access for intergenerational activities that encourage physical activity and strengthen community, agency and belonging.Projects may include age-specific segments, with considerations for those living with physical and/or developmental disabilities in their design as appropriate, such as playground if on school grounds, the space must be open to the general public during non-school hours.Applicants will be asked to estimate how many individuals will use the outdoor space and to indicate how their work will increase the number of Coloradans who have convenient access to recreational physical activity.

Ineligibility

We do not award grants to organizations that willfully discriminate against a particular class of individuals. To be eligible for funding organizations must abide by all applicable local, state, and federal anti-discrimination laws in hiring, employment practices and when providing services.Generally, the Foundation does not make grants to or for the following:IndividualsPrograms that require membership in a certain religion or advance a particular religious faith (faith-based organizations may be eligible for funding if they welcome and serve all members of the community regardless of religious faith, and provided that they do not require participation in activities that are specifically religious)For-profit organizations or programs operated by, or for the benefit of, for-profit organizationsDebt retirementFundraising eventsEndowments