Health Grant Cycle 2023

Funding Priorities:

Through this grant opportunity, Communities Foundation of Texas aims to support North Texan youth and young adults to live long and healthy lives by addressing unmet mental health needs. While the prevalence of mental health disorders in children and adolescents has been increasing in recent years, the disruption of daily life caused by COVID-19 further added to the psychological distress of adolescents. In 2021, the American Academy of Pediatrics, American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Children’s Hospital Association jointly declared the state of mental health among youth as a national emergency, due to increases in anxiety, depression, and rising suicide rates for youth between the ages of 10 and 24. 

Communities Foundation of Texas seeks to support the mental health needs of these youth and emerging adults, ages 10-24 years old, by investing in organizations with programs and services that are aimed at identifying, responding and preventing suicide.

CFT is seeking applications from organizations in the following funding priority areas: 

• Programs that provide affordable, evidence-based mental health therapies and interventions, such as cognitive-behavioral therapy or dialectical behavior therapy, targeted at youth and young adults 
• Programming that helps identify and respond to mental health crisis in youth or provides care to schools and similar settings in the immediately following a suicide or suicide attempt, such as programs that train and empower caring adults and peers to identify and respond to signs of crisis 
• Programs that provide accessible and youth-centered support groups and referral services 
• Programs that include assistance for parents and caregivers of youth who have committed or attempted suicide, such as programs that include loss/grief support, as well as support in navigating care and treatment for their child as well as supporting the caregiver’s mental health

Funding Levels:

Organizations can request a one-year grant for up to $50,000. An average grant from this cycle will be between $25,000 – $30,000.

Funding Priorities:

The Social Services LOI targets organizations that address the following:

Community-Driven Approaches to Public Safety

Nonprofit organizations that focus on reducing crime and improving community life play a critical role in increasing public safety (Sharkey, Torrats-Espinosa, Takyar, 2017). CFT is seeking applications focused on accelerating community-based collaboratives that are working towards transformational change at the neighborhood level using resources from the social and private sector.  The lead applicant must be a nonprofit that works within a defined neighborhood boundary that has been marked by higher crime, including those where the City of Dallas is targeting crime reduction strategies (or be adjacent).  

The proposed project must be accomplished in partnership with (at a minimum) a public institution such as a hospital, school, or police department, and/or a private business. Preference will be given to organizations that actively engage and empower residents recognizing their critical role in sustaining positive community change. Projects can be focused on youth as well as adults.

Initiatives to Break the Cycle of Incarceration

About 65,000 Texans are released from imprisonment each year. These formerly incarcerated individuals join the almost 1/3 of adults who have a criminal record, and who face multiple barriers to full participation in society. The goal of this funding priority is to support the successful reintegration of justice-involved individuals through employment and training programs that build lasting economic security. These programs must be designed with justice-involved individuals in mind and demonstrate how they meet the multifaceted needs of participants during the program while working with employers to find job placements at completion. We also encourage applications from organizations that provide legal services and advocacy to cancel or reduce court-related fines and fees since they can be a significant economic burden to the formerly incarcerated.  

Applicants need to demonstrate that 80% or more of their clients served annually are recently or formerly incarcerated. Programs can focus on justice-involved youth as well as adults.

Funding Levels

To provide adequate time to observe meaningful change, funding requests for up to $1M for up to five (5) years will be considered.  This funding limit covers the entire grant period and is not an annual amount. Applicants may also apply for amounts less than the $1M up to five (5) year maximum, according to what is needed.

For each proposal, grantees must provide: (1) a project budget, and (2) a corresponding budget narrative that clearly outlines and describes the total costs.

CFT permits grantees to request funding for direct costs associated with the project, as well as for reasonable indirect costs. Institutions of higher education, including community colleges and universities, may receive an indirect cost rate of 10% of total direct project costs. Full-time employees at institutions of higher education whose salaries are covered by the institution may not include salary support in the project budget without a detailed justification.

This effort will initially focus on Dallas County and may expand into other communities in future cycles.

Health Application – Word Document