Grant Process
We welcome conversations to expand our understanding of the challenges and solutions identified by impacted families and communities; but in an effort to be mindful of your valuable time, we suggest that you thoroughly review the Foundation's mission, strategy, and current grantees to ensure that your organization and proposal are consistent with our strategic direction before contacting us.​ If you believe there is an opportunity for strong partnership, please email info@rhfdn.org to connect.
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Strategy Development and Idea Generation
To broaden our understanding of challenges and solutions in the system, the Foundation staff and/or trustees consult with lived experience experts, researchers, advocates and grassroots organizers, and other leaders. They read articles & research, listen to first-person accounts from impacted families and youth, and they compile and analyze data from communities, academic institutions, and government sources.
Initial Meeting with Prospective Partners
The Foundation staff and/or trustees will hold an initial meeting or phone call with the organization's leadership to learn more about your mission, approach, and programs, and to explore ways we might work together.
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Concept Note
Foundation staff and/or the organization will draft a one-page concept note that briefly describes the organization, program goals and strategy, approach for influencing the wider system, how it fits the Foundation’s goals, and an estimated request.
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Initial Review of New Opportunity
The Parent & Youth Advisory Board members will review new opportunities quarterly. Feedback from the advisory board is shared with the staff and the leadership of the board of trustees to inform next steps. If the opportunity is of interest, the staff, trustee liaison and whenever possible, members of the advisory board will follow up with additional questions and discussion and to schedule a site visit/additional meeting with senior leadership of the organization.
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Proposal
Once an organization reaches the proposal stage, the project design or advocacy initiative under consideration will have received significant attention from the staff, advisory board, and/or trustees. At this point, the organization will receive our proposal template that asks about the organization’s commitment to racial justice and for more detailed plans for program or advocacy execution; evaluation; goals and outcomes, including impact on racial disparities; and multi-year budget and plan for financial health. The board of trustees makes grant decisions quarterly, and successful organizations will be notified soon thereafter.
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Evaluation
The Foundation and the grantee will work together to develop an evaluation procedure and to establish specific objectives and metrics by which to measure progress on projected outcomes.
Grant Proposal Evaluation Criteria
This is the criteria Foundation staff and board members will use to evaluate grant opportunities.
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1. Fit with our mission and strategy.
2. Strength of the leadership and implementation team, including: personal and professional backgrounds (lived experience, activism, leadership roles, similarities to communities we serve); and commitment to racial and family justice.
3. Centering of impacted populations (people and communities) in defining and implementing solution set and strategies.
4. Collaborative and movement-building.
5. Feasibility of plan to meet desired outcomes and reduce disparities.
6. Scalable: cost-effective; power-building; future revenue sources; policy-reform implications; coordination with the system.
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​Black Families Love and Unite (BLU)
GOAL: To fund a symposium co-hosted by BLU’s 10 NYC-based parent organizers and CUNY Law to encourage in-depth exploration and discussions centered on reparations, family policing, and community empowerment.
GRANT TOTAL: $35,000
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GOAL: To launch the Story Lab Series to articulate the lived experiences of family surveillance and offer space to design narrative shifting, advocacy and organizing strategies to keep families together.
GRANT TOTAL: $120,000 over 1 year
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Fostering Media Connections: The Imprint
GOAL: To conduct investigative reporting and publish stories from across NY that get disseminated to mainstream and other media outlets to drive child welfare reform.
GRANT TOTAL: $410,000 over 7 years
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​GOAL: To engage a fellow to lead community-driven engagement seeking to end unnecessary family surveillance and separation.
GRANT TOTAL: $234,000 over 2 years
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GOAL: Support the launch of a movement hub and incubator to provide critical infrastructure support for grassroots campaigns in New York working to address harm by the family regulation system.
GRANT TOTAL: $792,000 over 6 years
Narrow the Front Door to NYC Child Welfare Coalition
GOAL: To JMacforFamilies and the New School’s Center for NYC Affairs to co-lead this citywide coalition of impacted youth and parents, nonprofit leaders, scholars and legal representatives to shrink the surveillance mechanisms of child welfare, and invest in families and communities to provide the healing and restorative support to families in need.
GRANT TOTAL: $713,000 grant over 4 years
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GOAL: To provide resources for a parent-led family support network in Harlem that organizes Parent Power Hours, kid-friendly community events, food drives, and collective action to amplify and validate parent voices.
GRANT TOTAL: $25,000
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GOAL: To advance public interest in the abolition of the child welfare system through research, policy development and the engagement of powerful voices to further narrative change.
GRANT TOTAL: $400,000 grant over 2 years​
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​Open Call Grant Awards: After more than a year of outreach and candid conversations with local leaders, lived experience experts, and advocates across the state, RHF recognized the need for expanding partnerships and access to philanthropic support for grassroots organizations and coalitions working to build the family justice movement, particularly in communities disproportionately affected by child welfare investigations. As a result, RHF issued its first-ever open call for proposals in October 2023 to strengthen and expand efforts to help New York’s children and families heal, remain intact, and thrive.
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Capital District Latinos
GOAL: Culturally competent preventive services, educational programs, empowerment initiatives, events, advocacy and promotion of healthy living to create conditions for success within the Latino community.
GRANT TOTAL: $15,000 COUNTY: Albany
GOAL: Leadership development, community organizing, and movement building for system-impacted lived experience experts.
GRANT TOTAL: $20,000 COUNTY: Rensselaer
Diverse Mosaic
GOAL: Advocacy and support for marginalized and system-impacted families, particularly those challenged by domestic violence, racial discrimination, child welfare, and education issues.
GRANT TOTAL: $20,000 COUNTIES: Monroe, Erie
Flower City Noire Collective
GOAL: Community organizing and support using a holistic approach to elevate women of color and marginalized people to address education, housing, and environmental justice issues.
GRANT TOTAL: $15,000 COUNTY: Monroe
GOAL: Leadership development and restorative justice via the Youth Power Project focused on improving school environments for Black and Latinx students ages 14-24.
GRANT TOTAL: $25,000 COUNTY: Nassau
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Partners in Community Development: BIPOC PEEEEEK
GOAL: Peer support network led by parents and caregivers of BIPOC children with mental illness or behavioral health issues to promote wellness, tolerance, and empowerment in communities of color.
GRANT TOTAL: $25,000 COUNTY: Monroe
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GOAL: Foster growth, self-determination, and self-reliance of the refugee community in Western New York.
GRANT TOTAL: $15,000 COUNTY: Monroe
Saratoga Black Lives Matter
GOAL: Advocacy, education, and community engagement to amplify the voices of Black people, address inequities, and promote social, economic, and political justice.
GRANT TOTAL: $10,000 COUNTY: Albany
GOAL: Multi-racial coalition to increase police accountability and transparency, offering youth mentoring and mutual aid networks.
GRANT TOTAL: $20,000 COUNTY: Rensselaer
We ARE Revolutionary
GOAL: Empower families to actively participate in the political process to disrupt cycles of adversity.
GRANT TOTAL: $10,000 COUNTY: Albany
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914United
GOAL: Social/emotional support for families, formerly incarcerated individuals, and traumatized youth.
GRANT TOTAL: $25,000 COUNTY: Westchester​​​
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AFFCNY (The Adoptive and Foster Family Coalition of New York)
GOAL: To expand the support, information and advocacy for foster and adoptive parents and foster care professionals in New York State.
GRANT TOTAL: $1,025,000 over 10 years
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CHAMPS NY: Schuyler Center and Families Together for NYS
GOAL: To improve state policies to enhance system accountability and reduce residential placements.
GRANT TOTAL: $972,000 over 6 years
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The Children's Defense Fund-New York (CDF-NY)
GOAL: To work on state-wide child welfare legislative and budget advocacy, working in coalition and smaller ad hoc groups to develop new ideas with impacted youth and families, and to advance reform among lawmakers and administrators in NYC and Albany.
GRANT TOTAL: $361,500 over 7 years​
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GOAL: To localize the “Families Over Facilities” report to NY and to educate the public & policymakers to the harm caused by congregate care.
GRANT TOTAL: $100,000 over 2 years
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GOAL: To launch a Family Peer Advocate program in Erie County to support pre-petition CPS-involved families.
GRANT TOTAL: $600,000 over 3 years
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GOAL: To support the launch of the Strategic Appeals Pilot. This initiative will address systemic child welfare issues in New York, focusing on over-surveillance and family separations.
GRANT TOTAL: $200,000 over 2 years
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Fostering Greatness and the Partnership for the Public Good in Erie County
GOAL: Together with a coalition of community stakeholders, the groups will advocate for policy solutions and local county funding to create specialized housing access, pipelines into employment programs, and expand access to desired health and mental wellness services.
GRANT TOTAL: $300,000 over 2 years
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GOAL: To support Children's Rights to research and explore ways to reduce harm and surveillance caused by mandatory reporting in the New York State.
GRANT TOTAL: $127,000 grant over 1 year
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GOAL: To partner with researchers, parents, advocates, and allies in impacted communities to develop and promote research-driven policy solutions for NYC families.
GRANT TOTAL: $155,000 over 4 years
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​​Erie County Assigned Counsel Program
GOAL: To expand their Pre-Petition Legal Advocacy within their Family Defense Unit. Quality legal representation is a key strategy to address racial bias in child welfare, prevent unnecessary child welfare involvement, and address injustices inflicted on families of color by the child welfare system.
GRANT TOTAL: $300,000 over 2 years
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Family Cash Transfer Pilot: University of Pennsylvania’s
Center for Guaranteed Income Research & OCFS
GOAL: To support the cash transfer pilots for families with CPS involvement in 3 NY counties with research on the impact of cash transfers in reducing child welfare system involvement for families.
GRANT TOTAL: $468,000 over 3 years
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Gateway Longview, Children’s Home of Poughkeepsie and BBI
GOAL: Support Building Bridges Initiative (BBI)’s technical assistance to 2 providers to transform their residential services into community-based services.
GRANT TOTAL: $632,333 over 3 years
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Legal Services of the Hudson Valley
GOAL: Launch strategic litigation and support an appellate attorney as part of the multidisciplinary family defense unit practice to provide direct advocacy for families that come into contact with the child welfare system.
GRANT TOTAL: $900,000 over 6 years
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Restore for Life
GOAL: To support therapeutic programming, including healing circles, expressive art therapy, and mentorship to kinship care providers, parents, and youth, with experience in the foster care system.
GRANT TOTAL: $15,000
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GOAL: To support their Peer Care Network, Parents’ Platform, and Rise & Shine program, to expand parent movement-building and peer support in New York City.
GRANT TOTAL: $550,000 over 5 years​
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GOAL: The Center will continue implementing the Families First Adolescent pilot demonstration in Dutchess County to address the overuse and unnecessary reliance on congregate care placements.
GRANT TOTAL: $804,333 over 6 years
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​GOAL: To extend the impact of the truth-telling report Are You Listening: Youth Accounts of Congregate Care Placements in New York State. This grant will support youth-led and community advocacy to advance policies and practices from the report.
GRANT TOTAL: $200,000 over 2 years
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Fair Futures: NYC Youth + Families Forward Fund
GOAL: To support Fair Futures and new initiatives to prevent families from unnecessary involvement in the child welfare system.
GRANT TOTAL: $962,833 over 6 years
Fair Futures: Say Yes to Buffalo
GOAL: To support Fair Futures program launch and implementation in Erie County.
GRANT TOTAL: $450,000 over 3 years
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Fostering Youth Success Alliance: Children’s Aid
GOAL: Improve higher education outcomes for foster youth through advocacy and implementation for public financial assistance and support services on campuses across the state.
GRANT TOTAL: $1,000,000 over 11 years
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IPS Institute: HeartShare St. Vincent's Services
GOAL: To work with Alia to train and coach four provider agencies in the Intensive Permanency Services model, an approach that works with youth in care to heal from their loss and trauma, reconnect with kin relatives, and achieve permanency.
GRANT TOTAL: $888,000 over 7 years
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Keeping Families Together: Technical Assistance with 7 NY counties
GOAL: Expert consultants provide technical assistance to Albany, Monroe, Onondaga, St. Lawrence, Broome, Westchester and Suffolk counties to focus on community-driven prevention planning, CPS reform and decreasing congregate care placements.
GRANT TOTAL: $250,000 over 1 year
GOAL: To provide services to clinicians, families and LGBTQIA+ youth to strengthen affirming family life and prevent child welfare involvement.
GRANT TOTAL: $171,000 over 5 years
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GOAL: To reduce disproportionate minority representation through targeted efforts to divert calls from the SCR, to resource educational personnel to connect families to resources rather than the SCR, and by examining internal decision-making points that are vulnerable to implicit bias.
GRANT TOTAL: $300,000 grant over 2 years ​​​​​​​​​​​