Deadline: 21-Sep-20
Communities of Opportunity (COO) is a cross-sector, collaborative initiative founded by King County and Seattle Foundation in 2014. With underlying commitments to racial equity and social justice, COO is driven by community-led strategies and solutions through community partnerships, systems and policy change, and shared learning.
The intention for these funds is to provide an opportunity to both illustrate positive community resilience in response to COVID-19 in Black, Indigenous, people of color (BIPOC) communities as well as work to illuminate where inequities still exist within structures to inform new policies and systems that work to dismantle racism and oppression that leads to inequities.
These funds provide an opportunity for groups to tell the stories of the intersections of the pandemic in lowincome/communities of color/immigrant-refugee communities by collecting and analyzing data related to the health/social and economic impacts of COVID-19 and to develop communications materials in order to share these stories with broader audiences.
Funding Information
- The maximum amount available for 2020-21 in this announcement is $400,000.
- The number of awards and award amounts will depend on the number of eligible proposals received.
- Each project budget is not to exceed $100,000 per applicant. Funds must be spent by December 31, 2021.
Project Scope
Projects should begin with a clear research question and proposed community-based methodology.
This methodology may include activities in the following areas:
- Plan, Monitor and Evaluate – This should include engagement with community to develop a research plan and methods, monitor progress and evaluate outcomes.
- Empower and learn – This should include data collection led by COO communities using participatory methods which may include but not be limited to group discussions of personal experience, interviews, photovoice, surveys, and analysis of public documents
- Collect Data and Analyze – This should document community-driven findings related to COO result areas and priorities of health, safe & affordable housing, economic opportunity or community connection.
- Communicate – This should include the development of tools and materials to share findings with a broader diverse audience including but not limited to broader community, policy makers, and institutional leaders. This may include: video, audio or other digital materials.
This is a proposed framework that you may use as a basis for developing your proposed scope. If you have another way would like to engage your community to collect data and develop stories, please feel free to outline the approach in your application.
Deliverables
- Project plan – within 60 days of contract execution grantee shall develop a project timeline including roles and responsibilities of staff and participants.
- Community Engagement – grantee to connect with community participants to deepen meaning of research question, develop methods for research, develop methods for sharing data and stories and identify networks for data collection and communication.
- Methods Development – grantee to co-create with community methods for collecting data, as well as training for participant collectors.
- Data Collection – grantee to lead data collection process within community – targets for amount of data should be identified in project plan.
- Data Summary – grantee shall conduct data analysis internally as well as provide opportunities for community data collectors to provide feedback on analysis. From this analysis grantee shall provide a data summary to COO and community data collector group.
- Communications Materials – grantee shall work with community participants to develop at minimum 2 materials to share information or knowledge gained from data collection. This may include but is not limited to: video, podcast, social media campaign, article, art installation.
- Sharing Data and Stories – grantee shall share their communications materials with broader audiences such as community at large, policy makers, institutional leadership, etc.
Eligibility Criteria
- This announcement is open to not-for-profit organizations, community-based organizations, coalitions, tribes and tribal organizations, or faith-based organizations serving communities in King County. Proposals from organizations or coalitions that are led by and for the community in which the proposed data collection takes place will be prioritized.
- To be eligible proposers should:
- Be uniquely situated within the community
- Have a clear research question and plan for engaging community at the time of application.
- Identify a lead staff person who will support the successful completion of this project.
- Qualifications:
- Be uniquely situated within community – applicants must represent and have deep relationships within the communities in which the data will be collected in order to expedite the participatory aspects of this project.
- Organizational Capacity – applicants must show that this project will fit into the larger scope of their organization and that they have the staff and project management expertise to complete the project in the allotted time frame.
- Data Analysis Expertise – applicants must also have experience with data analysis or access to partners with enough data analysis expertise to support this project.
For more information, visit https://www.kingcounty.gov/depts/health/partnerships/funding/COVID-19-stories.aspx