Smart Growth America: Community Connectors Grant Program

Smart Growth America: Community Connectors Grant Program

Status: ACTIVE
Funder: Smart Growth America
Amount: Up to US $25,000
Last Updated: January 21, 2026

Summary

The Smart Growth America Community Connectors Grant Program supports small and mid-sized cities in addressing divisive infrastructure caused by dangerous roads. With funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, this program aims to reconnect communities through temporary street safety projects while fostering skills and partnerships. Eligible teams must represent populations of 50,000 to 500,000 and include both government and community-based organizations. Priority will be given to projects benefiting low-income communities historically affected by disinvestment.

Overview

Background Helping small and mid-sized communities repair the damage of divisive infrastructure. . With support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Smart Growth America is continuing the Community Connectors program to help advance locally driven projects to reconnect communities separated or harmed by transportation infrastructure. In this round, the program will be narrowly focused on communities with divisive or dangerous arterial roads or streets in need of changes to improve safety or reconnect divided neighborhoods. 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. Smart Growth America’s ongoing Community Connectors program seeks to equip small and mid-sized communities to identify, remove, or repair the damage of divisive infrastructure. Because Congress has moved to essentially kill the popular Reconnecting Communities program by rescinding and taking back more than $2.4 billion for these projects—much of that already awarded to local communities—one of the best available sources of dedicated funding for these types of projects has disappeared overnight. Program Objectives The overall 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.

Eligibility

You can learn more about this opportunity by visiting the funder's website. Community size: Teams representing cities between ~50,000 and ~500,000 in population.Eligible entities: Government agencies (including US territories), tribes, non-profit community-based nonprofit organizations, and academic institutions. Each team must identify a public and community-based org as co-leads on the application.Joint applications and team composition: All applications must be a joint endeavor between a local government unit and a community-based organization or similar organization that represents the affected residents or neighborhood(s). Teams consisting only of local government will not be considered.Demonstration project requirement: Selected communities must commit to designing and installing a temporary street safety demonstration project for a minimum of one month. In-person convening:Teams are required to be able to participate in an in-person training in Oct-Nov, 2025 in one of the three selected cities. We will also be looking for a host city, which can be noted on the application.Travel and hotel costs will be covered for a subset of each team (~5-6 people) traveling to the location. (All members of the host team would be expected to participate.)Eligible funding uses: Up to $25,000 will be given to each community for the demonstration project and their time. A portion of this money (at least $5,000) is reserved to compensate the CBO co-lead for their time. Geographic diversity:Smart Growth America will attempt to select projects that span the country and a range of population sizes within the stated eligibility.

Ineligibility

According to Robert Wood Johnson Foundation policy, funds may not be used:to support clinical trials of unapproved drugs or devicesto construct or renovate facilities, for (permanent) capital costs of any kind, for lobbying-related activities and expenses, for political activities, or as a substitute for funds currently being used to support similar activities.