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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Fostering Media Connections: The Imprint
$410,000 • Statewide
To conduct investigative reporting and publish stories from across NY that get disseminated to mainstream and other media outlets to drive child welfare reform.
Movement for Family Power
$792,000 • Statewide
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.
Narrow the Front Door to NYC Child Welfare Coalition
$713,000 • NYC
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.
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National Black Harm Reduction Network
$50,000 • Statewide
Develop a strategic plan for advocacy at the intersection of drug policy and child welfare reform in NYS, including the identification of key drug policy and harm reduction allies in support of child welfare reform. This will be through a combination of cross-movement building, political education, and county-level opioid settlement fund advocacy.
$240,000 • Statewide
Expand child welfare reform and movement-building capacity in Albany County and across NYS through a combination of grassroots organizing, peer-to-peer political education, and advocacy and leadership development in Albany, Troy, Schenectady, Newburgh, Poughkeepsie and Brooklyn.
$50,000 • Onondaga County
Supports organizational sustainability, continuation of the Healing Through the Arts program for foster/kinship young people, adults and their families, and development of the R.E.A.L (Restore, Education, Advocate, Lead) fellowship program to build parent leadership and engagement in child welfare policy reform.
Westchester Justice for Families
$15,000 • Westchester
Develop the Family Advocacy and Family Empowerment Program to provide political education to families impacted by the child welfare and family court systems to ensure they know and protect their parental rights and can advocate for systemic change via civic engagement, and collective community research.
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Black Families Love and Unite (BLU)
$35,000 • NYC
Continue to mobilize communities to build a reparations framework for families impacted by CPS interventions. Activities include issuing a reparations report and digital zine, community organizing, monthly reparation teach-ins, and community talk back sessions, and a Somatic Wellness Workshop Series for community organizers and system-impacted families.
Justice For Families
$10,000 • NYC
Deepen the cross-movement organizing of young people and their families to interrupt the impacts of systems on the whole family, including the juvenile justice and child welfare systems. Supports leadership development, strategic partnerships, and advocacy focused on divestment from systems and investment in community-driven resource allocation.
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$25,000 • NYC
Provide resources for a parent-led family support network in Harlem that organizes Parent Power Hours, community organizing, and collective action to amplify and validate parent voices. Supports campaigns to protect parental rights during child welfare involvement and expanding NYC DOE educational funding for youth in the foster system.
“Building for Community Action”
$420,000 • Multiple Regions
​Energize local and statewide advocacy efforts by expanding investment in community education and movement-readiness for nine 2023 RHF “Open Call” partners.
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Make the Road New York • Nassau County
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914United • Westchester County
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Capital District Latinos • Albany County
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Community Rising Project • Rensselaer County
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Troy 4 Black Lives • Rensselaer County
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Saratoga Black Lives Matter • Saratoga County
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Diverse Mosaics • Monroe County
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Flower City Noire Collective • Monroe County
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Refugees Helping Refugees • Monroe County​​​ ​​​​​
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​Children’s Defense Fund | New York (CDF-NY)
$300,000 • Statewide
Supports youth and family research, organizing and policy initiatives that will prevent unnecessary child welfare involvement, limit harm experienced within the system, and protect youth and families' rights, including efforts to establish a Child and Family Wellbeing Fund and a statewide direct cash transfer program for young people with foster care experience.
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Children’s Rights – Mandated Reporting Work Group
$600,000 • Statewide
Continue research, awareness-raising, coalition building, and advocacy efforts focused on transforming mandated reporting laws in New York State and limiting the harm of mandatory reporting practices on children and families. The workgroup will advance strategies and solutions to end unwarranted surveillance and keep families intact through lowering the number of families that experience CPS calls, investigations, or removals.
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$200,000 • Statewide
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.
Schuyler Center for Analysis and Advocacy + Families Together in New York State
$600,000 • Statewide
Support co-leadership of the Child and Family Wellbeing Action Network to advance strategies that address pervasive poverty that leads to child welfare system involvement and intrusive family investigations, including securing public investment in the Child and Family Wellbeing Fund and advocacy for congregate care reform.
$200,000 • Statewide
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.
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Family Cash Transfer Pilot: University of Pennsylvania’s
Center for Guaranteed Income Research & OCFS
$468,000 • Statewide
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.
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Erie County Assigned Counsel Program
$480,000 • Erie County
Continue the pre-petition legal advocacy pilot and engage in advocacy efforts to increase families’ access to timely defense legal services during CPS investigations in Erie County and across the state.
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Fostering Greatness + Partnership for the Public Good
$170,000 • Erie County
Continue co-leadership of advocacy efforts to increase the supports available to young people transitioning from the foster system in Erie County, including securing permanent county funding for a foster transition hub and expanding housing access. Supports the creation of a strategic sustainability and development plan in 2025 to position and strengthen Fostering Greatness as a leading service and advocacy organization working to improve outcomes for young people transitioning from the foster system in Erie County.
Legal Services of the Hudson Valley
$900,000 • Hudson Valley
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.​​​
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New Hour for Women and Children
$200,000 • Long Island
Build organizational capacity across direct service, movement-building/advocacy, and legal representation. In partnership with legal counsel, offer women reentering from incarceration legal assistance to help them reunite with or retain custody of their children. Provide advocacy and leadership training for members, most of whom are dually impacted by the criminal-legal and child welfare systems. Support statewide advocacy focused on narrowing the front door to the child welfare system and improving standards of pre-and postnatal care for incarcerated pregnant and birthing people.
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$50,000 • Monroe County
Expands the capacity of TCA’s parent leadership staff, who organize parents from Monroe County to advocate for policy priorities aimed at improving the health, education, and success of children and families in the county and across the state. Key priorities for 2025 include addressing issues that bring families to the attention of child protective services, including access to childcare, poverty reduction through tax credits, and reduction of school suspensions.
$234,000 • Monroe County
Engage a fellow to lead community-driven engagement seeking to end unnecessary family surveillance and separation.
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$375,000 • NYC
Supports initiatives focused on helping families impacted by child welfare and family court systems, raising awareness about parental rights during investigations and advancing a strategy that will help limit the impact and harm of family court proceedings.
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$375,540 • NYC
Support the Policy and Advocacy Team in leading initiatives focused on raising awareness about parental rights and advancing strategies that will limit impact and harm of reporting, investigation, and prosecution of families.
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$155,000 • NYC
To partner with researchers, parents, advocates, and allies in impacted communities to develop and promote research-driven policy solutions for NYC families.
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Fostering Youth Success Alliance: Children’s Aid
$1,000,000 • NYC, Westchester
Improve higher education outcomes for foster youth through advocacy and implementation for public financial assistance and support services on campuses across the state.​​​​​​​​​​​
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$450,000 • NYC
Supports families impacted by the child welfare system through the Rise and Shine Parent Leadership Program, Parent Peer Care Network, and parent-led participatory action research and advocacy in New York City and across New York State.
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Fair Futures: NYC Youth + Families Forward Fund
$962,833 • NYC
To support Fair Futures and new initiatives to prevent families from unnecessary involvement in the child welfare system.
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$300,000 • Westchester
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. ​​​​​​​​
$804,333 • Duchess
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.
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Children’s Defense Fund | New York (CDF-NY)
$300,000 • Statewide
Supports an intergenerational campaign with statewide stakeholders to develop and advance policy actions to limit the use and impact of congregate foster care placements while advancing strategies for community reinvestment.