Applications Open for Communities Thrive Challenge to support Low Income and Financially Insecure People!

Deadline: 12 June 2018

Does your organisation have a track record of expanding economic opportunity for low income and financially insecure people in your community? If so then register for the Communities Thrive Challenge. The Challenge takes place over a six-month period and includes two review rounds and site visits for Finalists. The Challenge is sponsored by The Rockefeller Foundation and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, LLC, with platform support provided by RAMPIT.

After two rounds of review, 10 organizations will receive a $1 million grant, as well as best-in-class technical assistance and an opportunity to share their stories on a national stage. All 80 applicants who advance to the second round will receive an honorable mention, and 20 will be chosen as finalists. Each finalist that does not become a grantee will receive $5,000 in recognition of their great work.

Through the Communities Thrive Challenge, both organisations hope to:

Fund, strengthen and scale community-driven approaches across the country that help low-income and financially insecure people find and retain well-paid and meaningful work, achieve financial security, or build economically vibrant neighborhoods
Lift up the stories of successful community efforts and share them with other funders, leaders, and the broader country. Strategies from small-to-midsize cities, rural communities, in both thriving and distressed areas are of particular interest; we also seek organizations led by people who represent the communities they serve.
Learn directly from community leaders across the country about the ideas and needs that should influence long-term, larger-scale strategies to increase opportunity.

Eligibility Criteria

The Rockefeller Foundation and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative welcome applications from organizations or entities that have a recognized legal existence and structure under applicable law (State, Federal or Country) and that are in good standing in the jurisdiction under which they are organized.
The legal form of an eligible organization may include a “c” corporation, benefit or flexible purpose corporation (or similar “hybrid” corporation permitted under State law), limited liability company, LC3 entity, or limited partnership.
Organizations must be based in the United States or its territories and must serve communities in the United States or its territories.
Organizations in the following categories are eligible organizations and may submit proposals:
- An organization recognized as a 501(c)(3) public charity by the Internal Revenue Service under the United States Tax Code.
- An organization recognized as a 501(c)(4) social welfare corporation by the Internal Revenue Service under the United States Internal Revenue Code.
- An organization recognized as a 501(c)(6) business league, or associated fiscal sponsor, by the Internal Revenue Service under the United States Internal Revenue Code.
- An organization that is not a charitable organization (including for profit organizations) but whose proposal has as its primary purpose the accomplishment of a charitable purpose under the law or regulations of the United States Code and with respect to which no private interests will receive more than an incidental private benefit.
Local organizations associated with national networks may apply so long as any award fund will go to the local affiliate.
Post-secondary educational institutions.
(NOTE: Programs that work in one of the issue areas are eligible to apply; programs focused on research are not eligible.)
Ineligible Persons or Entities
- Organizations that have received a grant/investment from The Rockefeller Foundation or the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative DAF, an advised fund of the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, in the last ten years are not eligible to apply.
- Organizations with an annual operating budget of less than $200,000 in FY2018 and FY 2017 are not eligible to apply.
- Individuals are not eligible to apply.
- Government agencies are not eligible to apply. If you work for a government agency and would like to participate as part of a team, please encourage one or more eligible, non-government organizations to register.
- United Nations agencies are considered government entities for purposes of this Challenge and are not be eligible to apply.
- Individuals who submit applications on behalf of an eligible organization and are also government officials or employees will be responsible for ensuring that their participation in the Challenge is permitted by the rules and regulations relevant to their position and that they have obtained any authorization that may be required by virtue of their government position.
- Directors, officers, and employees of The Rockefeller Foundation, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, RAMPIT, The Common Pool, LLC, and any of their subsidiaries and affiliates, and Immediate Family (spouse, parent, child, sibling and their respective spouses, regardless of where they live) or persons living in the same households of such employees, are not eligible.