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Call for Proposals: Addressing Childhood Obesity and Health Inequities in US

Deadline: 27-Jun-2024

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) is seeking projects with the potential to support, sustain, and evolve the field in promoting systems-level change to prevent childhood obesity, address structural racism, and advance health equity.

Through this call for proposals (CFP), they are interested in advancing efforts that will support, sustain, and evolve the work of organizations and communities that have been at the forefront of equity-oriented childhood obesity prevention.

Purpose
  • They are especially interested in projects that aim to:
    • Address structural racism and other systems that perpetuate health inequities.
    • Respond to gaps in evidence or action identified by the field.
    • Engage with communities most impacted by childhood obesity and nutrition insecurity and organizations focused on people of color.
    • Leverage and complement existing field assets (RWJF’s and others’).
  • Within those broad goals, the four strategies below are intended to serve as suggestions, not boundaries, for potential projects. They encourage ideas and innovation from applicants that cut across these areas, and even go beyond them:
    • Influence Policy and Systems Change: Work in this area may include, but is not limited to, projects that:
      • help government, communities, organizations, and coalitions advance stronger government rules, enforcement, and capacities to address structural racism and change systems that perpetuate health inequities, including the disparities in childhood obesity prevalence.
      • monitor, enforce, and support implementation of existing policies, regulations, and programs that have demonstrated positive impact on child nutrition and wellbeing at the local, state, and national level.
      • strengthen the impact and reach of federally funded food and nutrition programs (e.g., SNAP, WIC, School Meals).
      • help to shape and advance action that addresses the commercial determinants of health (e.g., regulations, analysis of issues and opportunities, legal strategies).
      • fill gaps in data, knowledge, and analysis that lawmakers, regulators, advocates, clinicians, and community leaders need for advocacy, enforcement, activism, policymaking, and systems transformation.
    • Produce and Disseminate Actionable Evidence and Data: Work in this area can help, but is not limited to, projects that:
      • ensure ongoing access to and continued development of research, data, and surveillance at the intersection of childhood obesity and health and racial equity.
      • generate qualitative and quantitative evidence and information for decisionmakers.
      • fill gaps in the research and data on racism within the food system and its impact on communities of color.
    • Catalyze Investment in Communities: Work in this area can help, but is not limited to, projects that:
      • center historically marginalized communities, create economic opportunities, and build community assets and power via community-anchored food projects.
      • build and strengthen infrastructure that supports equitable community conditions as they relate to child health and obesity prevention.
    • Change Narratives: Work in this area will elevate community voices and help to shift public narratives away from those that create harm to those that foster belonging, health equity, and shared solutions, including projects that:
      • continue to move the popular narrative on childhood obesity away from a narrative of personal responsibility and toward a systems narrative.
      • ensure state, local, and regional policymakers, and others who build, govern, and finance communities understand the connection between place, race, and health and, in this case, its connection to food ecosystems, with the ultimate goal of encouraging community decisionmakers to rethink the way they design, plan, and implement food systems.
Funding Information
  • The program will distribute up to $20 million in funding. The number of awards will depend on the budgets of selected projects; they anticipate making up to six awards of varying sizes.
  • Each award will be a minimum of $1,000,000. Applicants should request the amount of funding they will need to complete the proposed project.
  • Funding will be awarded for projects that can be 12 months to 48 months in duration.
Types of Projects and Funding Mechanisms
  • Funded projects may support a wide range of activities and generate outputs that include but are not limited to data, resources, enhanced surveillance systems, mapping and monitoring approaches, program implementation, advocacy and community power-building, coalition and partnerships, strengthened infrastructure for community engagement and activism, and/or storytelling. Innovative ideas and approaches and new partners in this work are welcome and encouraged.
  • They envision this ecosystem of funded diverse projects to be an important learning opportunity as well. As such, RWJF will provide support and resources to strengthen the community of practice that emerges from the constellation of projects funded through this CFP. The details will be worked out in collaboration with the grantees, based upon interests and needs.
Eligibility Criteria
  • Eligible applicants must have the organizational infrastructure that demonstrates sufficient capacity and history to conduct proposed efforts in a timely, well-managed way that leads to desired outcomes.
  • Eligible applicants must be based in the United States or its territories.
  • Awards will be made to organizations, not individuals.
  • Applicants may include but are not limited to nonprofit, private sector, and government organizations; local or state-based philanthropy and intermediary/backbone organizations; academia; professional membership organizations; and community-based state, and national advocacy organizations or coalitions. The Foundation may require additional documentation to confirm that eligibility requirements have been met.
  • They  encourage projects that engage and center communities most impacted by structural racism and other systems of oppression; partnerships spanning state and community-level organizations; and entities that have not applied or been awarded a grant from RWJF previously.
  • They encourage partnerships and collaborations. Two or more organizations may partner to develop and implement a concept/proposal. While each collaborating organization must be described in detail in the proposal, only one organization can be the lead contact in the application process and may engage the other organization(s) through a subcontract or grant.
  • They encourage applicant organizations that are led by or that reflect the leadership of Black or African American; American Indian, Alaska Native, or Indigenous; Hispanic, Latinx/e, or Latin American; Middle Eastern or North African; Asian or Asian American; and/or Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander communities and those from Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Hispanic-serving Institutions, Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCUs), Alaska Native-Serving Institutions, Native Hawaiian-Serving Institutions, and Asian American Native American Pacific Islander-Serving Institutions (AANAPISIs).
  • Preference will be given to applicants that are either public entities or nonprofit organizations that are tax-exempt under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code and are not private foundations or Type III supporting organizations. The Foundation may require additional documentation.

For more information, visit RWJF.