Deadline: 10-Jul-20
Reinvestment Fund, in its capacity as National Fund Manager for the Healthy Food Financing Initiative at USDA Rural Business-Cooperative Service, requests applications for America’s Healthy Food Financing Initiative Targeted Small Grants Program (HFFI TSG Program) for 2020.
The purpose of America’s Healthy Food Financing Initiative (HFFI) is to improve access to healthy food in underserved areas, to create and preserve quality jobs, and to revitalize low-income communities by providing financial and technical assistance to eligible fresh, healthy food retailers and enterprises to overcome the higher costs and initial barriers to entry in underserved areas.
This Request for Applications (RFA) is for a Targeted Small Grants (TSG) program. The TSG program offers financial assistance in the form of grants to eligible fresh, healthy food retailers and enterprises.
The TSG program supports innovative fresh food retail and food system enterprises that seek to improve access to healthy food in underserved areas through food retail. Grants could assist projects with a variety of aspects of project development, renovation, and/or expansion.
Grants are designed to be one-time investments of capital into a food retail or food enterprise project in order to address higher costs and initial barriers to entry in underserved rural and urban areas. Grant funds should unlock additional sources of capital, catalyze project sustainability, meet financing gaps, and/or enable deeper impact or project reach.
Funding Information
The amount available for grants in 2020 is $3,000,000.
The TSG program will provide grants to eligible organizations in eligible Underserved Areas to implement a project that is designed to improve access to fresh, Healthy Food through food retail. The program will support projects aiming to strengthen, expand, and innovate within the food retail supply chain. The program could assist a variety of organizations, business models, and capital needs of ventures that process, distribute, aggregate, market, and sell healthy, fresh, and affordable foods to underserved communities and markets.
Eligibility Criteria
- For-profit business enterprises (including a corporation, limited liability company, sole proprietor, public benefit corporation)
- Cooperatively-owned businesses
- Tax-exempt nonprofit corporations
- Institutions of higher education
- State and local governments and governmental agencies, authorities, commissions and food policy councils
- Tribal governments and tribal governmental agencies, authorities, and food policy councils Individuals are not eligible.
For more information, visit https://www.investinginfood.com/apply/
