United Way of the CSRA Grants

The Purpose

United Way of the CSRA is requesting Letters of Intent (LOI) for the Leading Families Forward Initiative for Program Year 2023-2024. Under the Leading Families Forward initiative, we seek to fund coordinated services specifically to families struggling to overcome barriers to success. Working in collaborative partnerships, agencies seeking funding should support a multi-generational service model that provides education to parents, encourages parental involvement in the education of their children, and invests in children becoming more productive adults in the future.

Agencies should demonstrate how they work collectively on issues most strongly affecting under-resourced children and families, target specific issues in a holistic approach, and convene volunteers, community leaders, and key stakeholders in an effort to raise awareness and advocate for more economic mobility opportunities across the region.

In order to truly lead families out of the situation of being the “working poor” or living below the poverty line, we must break the cycle of poverty by working with young children to get them ready to learn, to work with youth to maintain a level of engagement that leads to self-sufficiency, and to support working parents by removing barriers that prevent them from obtaining gainful employment and further education. This new model will focus on a targeted population within four main areas of services.

• Childhood Success (ages 0-11)
• Youth Success (ages 12-24)
• Workforce Development
• Access to Resources (including healthcare, food, and other basic needs)

Our funded partners will align with a set of strategic community outcomes, demonstrating an array of services designed to measure indicators that are specific to this set of common outcomes. And while not all programs will select all of the outcomes, they will be asked to specify which outcomes are being impacted by their services. They will also be encouraged to work collaboratively with other partners in order to provide a more holistic set of services to families. These strategic community outcomes include the following.

• Children experience age-appropriate learning from birth.
• Youth are educated and career-ready.
• Youth experience positive and engaged adults.
• Families are able to support themselves through work.
• Adults and children live a healthy lifestyle.
• Children are born healthy.
• Adults and children have access to mental health services.
• Families in crisis easily access the resources they need.

Eligibility

_You can learn more about this opportunity by visiting the funder's website._

• Agencies must be designated as a 501c(3) nonprofit by the IRS.
• If applying as a collaboration of agencies, they will identify the primary 501c(3) agency for the purpose of submitting the application and future reporting.
• Not every agency within the collaboration is required to be designated as a 501c(3).
• Agencies must maintain an established and voluntary board of directors that meets regularly.
• Agencies must be established and functional for a minimum of two (2) years.
• Agencies must provide services that contribute to the health and welfare of individuals and families residing within at least one of the twelve (12) counties that are a part of United Way of the CSRA's service area. Those counties include: in Georgia, Burke, Columbia, Glascock, Jefferson, Lincoln, McDuffie, Richmond, Taliaferro, Warren, and Wilkes; and in South Carolina, Aiken and McCormick.
• United Way will only fund program expenses.
• This may include salaries directly related to the program.

Ineligibility

• No funds may be used for capital projects.