Deadline: 21-Jun-23
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) is seeking proposals for addressing structural barriers to economic inclusion for children and families.
Economic inclusion for family wellbeing is one of RWJF’s central goals and the heartbeat of the Healthy Children and Families (HCF) theme. At RWJF, they envision a society in which all parents and caregivers are fully integrated into their economy, the barriers to wealth and prosperity are removed, and every child has an array of opportunities that helps them grow up healthy.
Evidence reveals a robust causal link between access to economic resources and opportunity for health and wellbeing. The U.S. economy and many systems that families interact with prioritize production and economic growth, excluding some people—particularly Black, Indigenous and immigrant families—from the nation’s shared prosperity based on factors such as participation in the traditional labor market. HCF’s goal is to disrupt current economic paradigms that value production over wellbeing by addressing the structural factors in economic systems, policies, and decisionmaking.
They seek efforts to bring a new social contract for children and families to life–one that acknowledges their collective interdependence; the need for shared prosperity; and that all families and children have inherent value and dignity. This call for proposals will create a portfolio of grants addressing structural issues that hinder children and families from thriving in their economy. They are interested in frameworks, ideas, models, or approaches that demonstrate an alternative economic vision that positions families at the center–challenging the idea that the value of families can only be understood in connection to work or production.
The focus is on systems change—shifting from programs, policies, and services that fill gaps in families’ resources to the longer-term structural and systemic changes that will ensure all families have the resources they need to raise thriving children. They aim to build evidence for and to elevate promising and innovative models, their connections to current approaches, and how they might help realize a vision that prioritizes child and family health and wellbeing as a core goal of their nation and the infusion of such into the economy.
Through this program, they aim to:
- Support a more expansive or provocative understanding of their economy by accelerating the visibility, uptake, and learning from promising new ideas, frameworks, models, or approaches that target structural racism in the economy and that drive resources to children and families.
- Contribute to an evidence base that expands understanding of what it looks like to have the wellbeing of children and families prioritized in their economic decisions.
- Elevate promising and innovative models, their connections to current approaches, and how they might demonstrate a path forward from incremental improvement toward systems transformation.
Components
- The following are essential components that must be evident and demonstrated in all proposals:
- A clear benefit to families with children grounded in families’ realities and their stated resource needs to raise healthy, thriving children. RWJF is most interested in efforts that redefine success, which is often measured solely in terms of getting families more money, jobs, or access to basic services–but neglects the importance of health, wellbeing, and family dignity in achieving true economic inclusion and some of the structural roots of economic exclusion.
- Potential to shift current economic practices, approaches, and tactics by demonstrating the feasibility and benefit of alternative structural solutions. They know that families have lived with these challenges for generations and sometimes centuries, but there are also communities that have invested in the innovation of their leaders to build a more equitable pathway to economic inclusion. While they hope to better understand the contours of the challenges that families face, they most want to support efforts that directly address the systems and structures that perpetuate exclusion. Specifically, they are looking at areas where there is a clear throughline from historical and current oppression to the resources that families need.
- Understanding of the opportunity to leverage and build from this idea to advance toward transformative change for families versus incremental “fixes” to existing systems that were designed to exclude. This project will also serve to accelerate progress of existing efforts that are designed to disrupt the status quo. They know that the social programs that families access are key to their ability to live–however, many do not address the fundamental structures that leave families without economic support over generations.
Funding Information
- Amount of Award: Each award will be between $250,000 and $750,000.
- Award Duration: Awards will be between 12 and 24 months.
Eligibility Criteria
- Must have organizational infrastructure that demonstrates sufficient capacity and a history to conduct proposed efforts in timely, well-managed capacity that led to desired outcomes.
- Organizations must be based in the United States or its territories.
- 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.
- Two or more organizations may partner to develop and implement this grant program. While each collaborating organization must be described in detail in the proposal, only one organization may represent the collaboration and be the lead contact in the application process and may engage the other organization(s) through a subcontract or grant.
- The Foundation seeks to engage organizations that do not provide—and within the past year have not provided—significant services to clients whose interests conflict, or appear to conflict, with programs of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Such clients include, but are not limited to, those that promote tobacco or firearms of any kind, promote alcohol products irresponsibly, promote the work of trade associations for the tobacco, alcohol or firearms industries, or promote to children food of minimal nutritional value. According to federal regulations, “foods of minimal nutritional value” are foods that provide less than 5 percent of the Recommended Daily Allowance per serving for each of eight key nutrients. They include soft drinks, water ices, chewing gum, and certain candies made largely from sweeteners, such as hard candy and jelly beans.
Selection Criteria
- Applicants will be evaluated on demonstration of each of the following characteristics related to the proposed area of focus in their application:
- A clear benefit to families with children grounded in families’ realities and stated resource needs to raise healthy, thriving children–focused on the structural roots of exclusion and not individual behaviors.
- Potential to shift current economic practices, approaches, and tactics by demonstrating the feasibility and benefit of alternative structural solutions. Clear articulation, with rationale and documentation, for how and why the proposed project will influence the systems and structures that perpetuate exclusion. Specifically, they are looking at areas where there is a clear throughline from historical and current oppression to the resources that families need.
- Opportunity to leverage and build from this idea to advance toward transformative change for families versus incremental “fixes” to existing systems that were designed to exclude. Orientation of the proposed project toward disrupting the status quo–they are looking for projects that will uniquely add value, push on understanding, and/or bridge learning to action.
- Demonstrated organizational experience and infrastructure to fulfill the proposed project, ability to track, synthesize, and disseminate learning, and willingness to work with RWJF grantees and partners to help extract and synthesize learning.
- Organization commitment to equity and addressing structural racism and driving transformative systems change to address these foci. Structural racism refers to a system in which history, public policies, institutional practices, social structures, culture, and other norms reinforce and perpetuate racial and group inequities that systematically benefit White people and disadvantage people of color. The vision and mission of the applicant(s) should be aligned with RWJF’s Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Commitment outlined.
For more information, visit RWJF.