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Why the Communities Thrive Challenge
At The Rockefeller Foundation and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, we believe in an America where all people can earn enough to support their families, achieve financial security, and provide their children with more opportunities. Every day, local governments, businesses, and nonprofit leaders across the country are working to make this dream possible in their communities.
Yet all too often, these community-driven approaches are missed by those who could invest in them and help them reach more people. This is especially true for efforts in small cities, rural America, and places with high rates of poverty.
That’s why The Rockefeller Foundation and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative - with guidance from community leaders across the country - have created the Communities Thrive Challenge, a $10-million funding opportunity open to organizations that are working to expand economic opportunity for low-income and financially insecure people and communities in the United States.
"We have to build a future where people don’t have to depend on luck to succeed."
Priscilla Chan, co-founder of Chan Zuckerberg Initiative
After two rounds of review, including peer-to-peer evaluation and review by an expert panel, as many as 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. At least 80 applicants will advance to the second round as semi-finalists, 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, we 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. Ultimately, we hope to uncover strategies that could narrow the opportunity gap in the U.S.
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.
"This Challenge is about ensuring more people in America have access to a good job and a secure future."
Dr. Rajiv J. Shah, President of The Rockefeller Foundation
What We're Looking For
We are looking for nonprofit programs; businesses; organizing or advocacy models; technologies; economic development strategies, or other approaches that deliver significant and consistent results in any of the following areas:
Better Work: Improving job quality, pay, and worker benefits, and creating new, well-paying jobs for low-income or otherwise marginalized workers in a rapidly changing economy and labor market. Indicators of success might include: income and number of jobs that pay a living wage and provide benefits.
Skills Development and Opportunity Matching: Connecting low-income people with work and the skills necessary to succeed in a changing labor market, possibly through additional skill development, building career pathways from low-wage to higher-paying jobs, or identifying financing solutions to support the development of new skills and job transitions. Indicators of success might include: job placement, retention and promotion, or training program accessibility and completion.
Financial Security: Enabling underserved and financially insecure workers and their families to better manage unanticipated changes in their income and expenses without experiencing periods of deeper poverty or being forced to rely on predatory debt. This could involve a range of approaches, including improving the design or delivery of social services. Indicators of success might include: financial stability, wealth building, decreased and manageable debt, improved credit scores, access to safety nets or emergency cash.
Economically Vibrant Communities: Building neighborhoods, cities, or towns that foster economic stability and mobility for residents who have historically been excluded or marginalized, and ensuring that their neighborhoods benefit from a region’s economic growth and vibrancy. Indicators of success might include: access to core services, such as child care and responsible financial institutions, a reasonable, affordable commute to gainful employment, as well as an increase in total jobs and/or small businesses owned by people of color, women, LGBTQ individuals, and others who have historically faced extra barriers to business ownership.
To gain better insight into community-driven approaches that are already being implemented across the country, we are teaming up with local United Way chapters across the Country to meet with leaders in roughly a dozen communities, such as Ypsilanti, Michigan; Louisville, Kentucky; and Brownsville, Texas. These will include visits with local government officials, community leaders, organizers, employers, and families in urban, rural, and suburban areas. These conversations, together with the organizations we learn about through the Challenge, will help inform both institutions’ long-term economic opportunity strategies and improve our ability to support work at the local level.
Ultimately, we hope to help funders, policymakers, and other leaders identify and learn about standout approaches that are already making a difference in communities across the U.S. To that end, we will publish a searchable database of all eligible applicants, share the stories of finalists and grantees of the Communities Thrive Challenge, and widely share key themes and lessons learned. |