Title
Resolution to Approve and Appropriate FY 24 Budget and Allocations for 1-Year Mini-Grants as Part of the New Human Service Partnership - $144,904.00 of the $1,207,529.00 Budgeted (General Fund)
Memorandum
In 2021, the Washtenaw Coordinated Funding Partnership ended. In 2022, Washtenaw County, the City of Ann Arbor and the Washtenaw Urban County created the New Human Services Partnership to replace Washtenaw Coordinated Funding.
The Washtenaw County and City of Ann Arbor Leadership team have been integral to the development of the New Human Services Partnership, which is working to integrate equity throughout the process, and shift the focus of human services funding to address issues of poverty, racism, and trauma as the root cause of institutional inequities.
As a reminder, the overall goals of this funding program include:
• Desire to make impact and move the needle for those facing institutional inequities, while also supporting the safety net
• Incorporate Equity throughout the process including:
o Accessibility to the application process
o Community-inclusive review process
o Equity review of applicants prior to award / contracting
o Equity in service delivery
• Focus on addressing institutional racism, poverty, and trauma as root causes of institutional inequity.
• Redevelop strategic framework for investing resources to be focused on an Equitable grant making and process while achieving high impact outcomes.
o Outcomes/goals co-created with experts and community.
o Incorporate lessons learned from COVID-19 response and previous COFU model.
o Accessibility for grantees - allow for under-represented, new, or growing groups to access funding.
o Ease of process - for applicants and staff
o Flexibility in funding/programming to allow for pivots and learning, including emerging needs.
• Partnership continues to allow for shared communication, links to community partners, ongoing need, support in place, etc.
The New Human Services Partnership has added an enhanced evaluation and equity assessment component. A subset of the Leadership team reviewed proposals from evaluators and selected the University of Michigan School of Social Work Program Evaluation Group. The U of M Program Evaluation Group (PEG) will help each grantee conduct an equity self-assessment and will provide feedback and other forms of support to help grantees take steps to create practices that promote equity, such as developing board members and staff that represent the communities being served. All New Human Services Partnership grantees will receive intentional support that allows them to build capacity so that they can sustain the equitable practices they start during the grant period. Additionally, grantees will need to make progress on the DEI goals set in this action plan and improve the equity practices of the organization in order to continue being funded throughout the five-year funding period. This accountability measure helps prevent grantees from neglecting their identified areas of growth and helps ensure that human services in Washtenaw County continually improve at promoting equity.
In addition to the support around equity and DEI, the U of M Program Evaluation Group will be working with all grantees around data collection, outcome creation and regular reporting on data, metrics and evaluations. PEG will also be able to provide capacity building to agencies related to data collection and reporting as well.
Detailed information on the equity framework and overall timeline can be found on the webpage here: https://www.washtenaw.org/3422/New-Human-Services-Partnership-Planning
As part of the process, three different funding rounds were conducted in 2022 and 2023:
• Safety Net Grants:
o 5-year commitments in the range of $200,000.00-250,000.00 per grantee per year (Currently in Year 2 of funding)
• Mini- grants:
o 1-year grants to support trying new ideas, and/or supporting newer agencies up to $40,000.00 (Underway)
• High-Impact grants:
o 5-year commitments with an expectation of positive
o outcomes showing change for households served. Funding at $200,000.00-300,000.00 per grantee per year(Currently in Year 1 of funding)
Several funding sources have been committed for the overall New Human Services Partnership including the following:
- Washtenaw County General Fund (annual) - $1,207,529.00
- City of Ann Arbor General Fund (annual) - $1,207,529.00
- Washtenaw Urban County (annual)- 15% of Annual Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) (estimated at $316,385.00)
- Washtenaw Urban County CDBG-CV (2022) - one time
- City of Ann Arbor ARPA - (2022/2023/2024) - $1,682,630.00
- Ann Arbor Township ARPA - (2023 - one time) - $40,000.00
Mini-Grant Funding Round
The mini-grant funding round is intended to provide smaller organizations who are addressing poverty, systemic racism, and trauma as a root cause of institutional inequity in Washtenaw County an opportunity to receive funding. NSHP leadership want to support smaller organizations who are providing high quality service to community members that may fall through the gaps of larger organizations, such as community members with historically marginalized social identities and community members that are geographically distant from major service providers. The Mini-Grants can be used to sustain or expand existing services, but we are also encouraging organizations to apply with innovative ideas. Organizations with an overall budget of $1 million or less are eligible to apply.
• Total funding round allocation is $400,000.00.
• There are 10 mini-grants available this year at $40,000.00 each for one year.
• Organizations with overall budgets of $1 million or less are eligible to apply.
• Goal for grantees is to have 60% with leaders with underrepresented identities.
• Mini-grants are not exclusively for new agencies, so existing organizations are also eligible.
• Mini-Grants can be used to continue existing programming, to scale up programing, or to pilot a new program.
• The funding round was open to non-profits and community agencies that have a fiscal sponsor even if they are not 501(c)3 non-profits.
• The application form was much simpler than previous cycles and allowed applicants to type into a fillable pdf and sign and submit to the County.
• All grantees had access to the scoring rubric as part of the application materials so could consider the scoring as they developed the application.
Leadership: All 10 funding recommendations are organization who have leadership from underrepresented identities, including:
• 6 women
• 4 people who are part of the LGBTQIA+ community
• 5 people who identify as BIPOC (4 Black, 1 Latinx)
• 1 person who identifies as Jewish
• 2 persons with disabilities
Prior to the Request for proposals opening, OCED staff provided a pre-bid meeting for those groups interested in learning how to apply for funding through the County’s RFP process. Request for Proposals was released on January 12, 2024. The Request for Proposals were due on Friday, February 16, 2024. We received twenty-seven (27) submissions. Twenty-seven (27) were eligible for review.
During this application period OCED recruited and trained members of the community to review applications and provide feedback on which applicants should be awarded funding. Community reviewers were recruited through various channels including existing elected officials, community board members, community organizations, and County residents.
OCED staff reviewed the proposals for basic eligibility; however, OCED staff did not score the proposals. OCED leadership and staff facilitated the community review process, but the final recommendations were made by the community reviewers. All reviewers received training resources, which included review of the New Human Services Partnership, the Mini-grant scoring rubric and training on the biases reviewers may bring to scoring. Reviewers scored proposals, and scores were tallied. Those were followed by discussion sessions to carefully deliberate on the recommendations. The reviewers were incredibly thoughtful in their discussion and consideration, working to bring in equity considerations as well as local knowledge. We want to express our sincere thanks and appreciation for their commitment to this process. Those recommendations are as follows:
(See Attached Spreadsheet)
Staff
Prepared by: Toni Kayumi, Director, Office of Community & Economic Development
Reviewed by: Derek Delacourt, Community Services Area Administrator
Approved by: Milton Dohoney Jr., City Administrator
Body
Whereas, In the past, Ann Arbor City Council has allocated funding to community-based organizations for the purpose of delivering important human services to Ann Arbor and County residents;
Whereas, The Coordinated Funding partnership was the previous means by which this funding was allocated, and this process ended on June 30, 2021, and the New Human Services Partnership was created to fill the gap in collaborative human services funding;
Whereas, There will be three funding rounds for the New Human Services Partnership, and the second, Mini-Grants, represents 12% of combined funding from all partners and sources;
Whereas, The Ann Arbor City Council approved distributing funding based on its previous budgeted allocation of $1,207,529.00 annually for all three funding rounds of the New Human Services Partnership;
Whereas, The New Human Services Partnership is funded by Washtenaw County General Funds, City of Ann Arbor General Funds, City of Ann Arbor American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds, Washtenaw Urban County CDBG and CDBG-CV funds;
Whereas, Of the total funding allocated, the anticipated amount of funding to be used for the Mini-Grants program is $400,000.00 annually;
Whereas, The mini-grant funding round is directed to smaller agencies addressing poverty, racism and trauma in our communities as a root cause of institutional inequity;
Whereas, The New Human Services Partnership leadership team set an intention that 60% of the funding be prioritized to organizations whose leadership have underrepresented identities;
Whereas, The organizations listed below were selected by volunteer community reviewers, who are representative of the diversity of our community; and
Whereas, The Ann Arbor City Council approves the funding recommendation made by the Office of Community and Economic Development based on the community review process for RFP 8586;
RESOLVED, That the Ann Arbor City Council hereby approve the funding recommendations for Aid in Milan, Community Family Life Centers, Educate Youth, Growing Hope, Life After Incarceration, Stand With Trans, Washtenaw Literacy, We the People Opportunity Farm, Youth Arts Alliance, and the Ypsilanti Housing Commission for the New Human Services Partnership Mini-Grant Funding Round to for RFP 8586 mini-grant funding;
RESOLVED, That the Ann Arbor City Council hereby approve funding up to $144,904.00 of the $1,207,529.00 allocated to the New Human Services Partnership for the Mini-grant funding round to the above listed agencies;
RESOLVED, That the Mayor and City Council authorize the City Administrator to direct the Washtenaw County Office of Community & Economic Development to negotiate contractual agreements with the funded entities subject to approval as to substance by the City Administrator, and subject to approval as to form the City Attorney; and
RESOLVED, That these agreements may be achieved through delegation of contracts and administration of funds to Washtenaw County on the City’s behalf.