April 2018

Compiled and published monthly by Rural Local Initiatives Support Corporation
1825 K Street, NW, Suite 1100, Washington, DC 20006. Phone: 202.739.9294; Fax 202.785.4850
Website: www.lisc.org/rural

Arts and Culture

BLOOMBERG PHILANTHROPIES Public Art Challenge will support innovative temporary public art projects that enhance the vibrancy of cities. It encourages mayors to partner with artists, elevating the value of including the creative sector when developing solutions to significant urban issues. Cities with a population of 30,000 or more are eligible to apply. Only three cities will be selected to receive up to $1 million each over two years. Deadline: 4/19/2018. Click here for more information on this opportunity and to apply.

SOUTH ARTS Creative Placemaking Leadership Summit was held mid-March in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and organizations that attended are invited to apply for a Southern Creative Places grant from South Arts. Grants will support creative placemaking planning or project implementation, and awards can range from $1,500 to $5,000 and must be matched. The deadline to apply is: 4/30/2018. Click here to review application guidelines.

THE INSTITUTE OF MUSEUM AND LIBRARY SERVICES has announced the availability of funding through the Activating Community Opportunities Using Museums/Libraries as Assets program. Grants of up to $150,000 are offered to support projects that address significant challenges and opportunities facing the library, archive, and museum (LAM) fields and that have the potential to advance theory and practice. Libraries, museums, institutions of higher education and community organizations that support these entities are eligible to apply. Deadline: 5/14/2018. Click here for more information and to apply.  

Community

RURAL LISC (Local Initiatives Support Corporation) created the Community Facilities Fund to provide capital to help develop and improve essential community facilities in rural areas. Rural LISC utilizes this fund to provide permanent and construction-to- permanent financing for rural community facilities, including health care centers, hospitals, educational facilities, and other nonprofit and public facilities in rural communities with populations under 20,000. Deadline: ongoing. Click here for more information.

THE APPALACHIAN COMMUNITY FUND (ACF) encourages grassroots social change in Central Appalachia (eastern Tennessee, eastern Kentucky, southwest Virginia and all of West Virginia). ACF provides support to community-based organizations working for social, economic, racial, and environmental justice. ACF’s General Fund provides operating support and project grants of up to $3,000 to grassroots organizations that are addressing the underlying causes of poverty and oppression in the region. The focus is on organizations with budgets less than $200,000 that have limited access to traditional funding sources. Deadline: 4/12/2018. Visit ACF’s website here to download the General Fund guidelines.  

AETNA FOUNDATION is offering grants to nonprofit organizations, government agencies, and federally recognized Indian tribes for programs that focus on activities that align with at least one of the following five domains: Healthy Behaviors, Community Safety, Built Environment, Social/Economic Factors, and Environmental Exposures. Applicants can request from $50,000 to $100,000 for projects lasting between 18 and 24 months. Organizations with annual operating budgets below $250,000 are not eligible to apply. Deadlines: Stage 1 application deadline is 4/18/2018; Stage 2 applications are due 6/15/2018. Visit the Foundation’s website here to download the request for proposals.

THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE is offering funding through The Innovations in Community-Based Crime Reduction Program. The program supports efforts in persistently distressed neighborhoods that face significant violent and serious crime challenges. Deadline: 4/29/2018. Click here for application guidelines.  

THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE is offering grants through The Second Chance Act Comprehensive Community-Based Adult Reentry Program to nonprofits for community programs to help people who are reentering communities from incarceration. Deadline: 5/1/2018. For more information, click here.  

Native Americans

ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN INDIAN PHYSICIANS is offering funding through the National Native American Youth Initiative (NNAYI). The initiative features a summer program designed to prepare American Indian and Alaska Native high school students to pursue careers in healthcare or biomedical research. Deadline to apply: 4/30/2018. Click here to review program guidelines.  

Other Opportunities

FOUNDATION FOR FINANCIAL PLANNING is offering grants to nonprofit organizations nationwide to support the delivery of pro bono financial planning to populations who could not otherwise afford or access financial planning services. Grants ranging from $5,000 to $40,000 support programs helping many diverse groups, including active military members and wounded veterans, people with cancer, seniors and family caregivers, domestic violence survivors, general low-income families, etc. Deadline: online applications must be submitted by 4/30/2018. Grant guidelines and application information are available on the Foundation’s website here.

USDA is offering grants for projects that assist in the development, improvement, and expansion of domestic farmers markets, roadside stands, community‐supported agriculture programs, agritourism activities, and other direct producer‐to‐consumer market opportunities. Deadline: 5/7/2018. Click here to review application guidelines.  

USDA Rural Utilities Service has announced the availability of funding through the Community Connect Broadband Grant Program which provides grants for communities without broadband service to provide residential and business broadband services and connect facilities via broadband facilities such as police and fire stations, healthcare, libraries, and schools. Deadline: 5/14/2018. Click here to review application guidelines.

CHARLES A. FRUEAUFF FOUNDATION awards grants in the areas of education, human services, and health. Specific project initiatives include food and hunger; economic development; daycare programs; hospital and healthcare agencies; health screenings; health education; AIDS/HIV prevention and education; and equipment for healthcare facilities. Deadline: 7/1/2018. Click here for an application and funding guidelines.  

Veterans

DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS is offering grants to nonprofit and other organizations for programs to support adaptive sports activities for veterans within their home communities, as well as more advanced Paralympic and adaptive sports programs at the regional and national levels. Deadline: 5/2/2018. Click here to review funding guidelines.  

The National Housing Conference will host an April Restoring Neighborhoods Task Force webinar to discuss naturally occurring affordable housing, the importance of preserving this valuable housing stock, and how affordable housing developers can engage in this work. The webinar will take place April 4, 2:00-3:30 PM EDT. Click here for more information on the event and to register.

Rural Development Initiatives is offering training for leaders at the North Central Oregon Rural Skill Builder on Saturday, April 7, 2018 in Hood River, Oregon. Cost to attend: $25.00 with the promo code Rural25. Click here for more information and to register.  

Raphael Bostic, President and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, will mark the 50th Anniversary of the Fair Housing Act on Tuesday, April 10, 2018 when he delivers the 18th Annual John T. Dunlop Lecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. The lecture, which starts at 6:30 PM EDT, is free and open to the public, but registration is required to attend in person.  No registration is required to watch the live webcast. Click here to register to attend in person; click here to register to attend via the live webcast.  

On Friday, April 13, the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies will offer a discussion of affordable housing with people involved with the design, development, financing, construction, and public oversight of housing. Participants will find answers to the question, “How Could Innovation in Design, Construction, and Regulation Reduce the Cost of Housing?” The event is open to practitioners, scholars, students, and others, and is also being webcast live.  It will be held from 1:00 to 6:30 PM EDT at the Harvard Graduate School of Design in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and will include a reception featuring innovative research and work being done by students at Harvard. You can register for this free event here. No registration is required to watch the live webcast.  You can join the conversation on Twitter with #ReframingHousing.

The National Housing Conference will host a workshop "Communicating with data: The multiplier effect.” Speakers will discuss effective ways to use data to get your message across and gain support for your work. The workshop will be held at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. April 17, 2018. The cost is $125 for members, $155 for non-members, and $75 for students. Click here to register and for details about this event.

National Low Income Housing Coalition will host "Our Homes, Our Voices, a National Housing Week of Action," May 1-8, 2018 in Washington, D.C.  Click here for more information and to register.

Novogradac’s Annual Affordable Housing Conference will be held in San Francisco, May 17-18, 2018. For more information and to register, click here.  

Rural Development Initiatives will host the 2018 Regards to Rural conference, "Bridges Between Rural and Urban,” May 19-20, 2018. The conference will be held at the Red Lion Hotel Jantzen Beach in Portland, Oregon. Participants will hear discussions on rural priorities, explore innovative economic models, share success stories, obtain tools to make changes in their communities, and will be inspired to help pave the way to rural vitality. Click here to register.  

2018 National Rural Assembly will take place May 21-23, 2018 in Durham, North Carolina. The focus of this meeting will be how to build a more inclusive nation, viewed through a lens of civic courage. Click here for more information and to register.

The Democracy Collaborative is joining the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the Baltimore Integration Partnership, the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond–Baltimore Branch, and the Funders’ Network, for Smart Growth and Livable Communities to host the Anchor Collaborative Convening, June 11-12, 2018 in Baltimore, Maryland. The convening will bring together leaders from across the country, representing a diverse array of initiatives and networks that are focused on leveraging anchor institution resources to catalyze inclusive, economic development. For more information, click here.  

National Housing Coalition's Housing Visionary Award Gala will take place June 14, 2018 in Washington, D.C.

“Building Momentum: The Future of Aging Well” is a joint conference sponsored by the National Association of Nutrition and Aging Services Programs (NANASP) and the National Council on Aging’s (NCOA) National Institute of Senior Centers (NISC).  The conference will be held June 6-8, 2018 at the Charleston Marriott in Charleston, South Carolina.

Healthy Aging Summit will be held in Washington, D.C., July 16-17, 2018. The event is offered by the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion and the Office on Women’s Health within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, along with the American College of Preventive Medicine.

The 2018 Prosperity Summit will be held September 5-7, 2018 at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center near Washington, D.C.

Appalachian Regional Commission, and the NORC Walsh Center for Rural Health Analysis have published a report “Drug Overdose Deaths in Appalachia.” The report features an interactive map that highlights drug overdose deaths in Appalachia by county, and features demographic information such as race/ethnicity, educational attainment, and disability status, as well as economic factors such as poverty rate, unemployment rate, and accident-prone employment, among others. Get the report here.

“Communities Over Commodities” is a new report from the Homes for All Campaign of the Right to the City Alliance that offers a vision for permanently affordable and democratic housing grounded in community control, affordability, inclusivity, permanence, and health. Highlighting solutions such as Limited Equity Cooperatives and Community Land Trusts, the report identifies policies to advance these approaches including public bank financing, increased tenant protections, and inclusionary zoning. Read the full report here.

In The Times recently published an article about how the Minneapolis-based Association for Black Economic Power helped launch the Village Trust Financial Cooperative, a black-owned credit union that will provide accessible banking options while reinvesting in local communities. Read the article here.

An item in Shelterforce magazine reports on a newly launched housing funding collaborative, Funders for Housing and Opportunity, that involves some of the nation’s largest grantmakers. Shelterforce spoke with Funders for Housing and Opportunity's program manager, Jeanne Fekade-Sellassie, to find out more about how it will work, and how it sees its role in fighting the housing crisis. Read the article here.  

Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) NYC has released “Communities for Healthy Food Toolkit,” which provides an in-depth look at LISC’s Communities for Healthy Food program, and offers practical advice for community organizations, funders, and evaluators interested in leading and supporting initiatives to improve access to healthy food in low income communities. Access the toolkit here.  

HUD released “Understanding Whom the LIHTC Serves: Data on Tenants in LIHTC Units as of December 31, 2015.” The report summarizes data received from the state housing finance agencies that administer the Low Income Housing Tax Credit and includes data on race, ethnicity, family composition, age, income, use of rental assistance, disability status, and monthly rental payments for LIHTC tenants. Get the report here.

An article in the Daily Yonder “Rural Counties Add 150,000 Jobs Over Last Year,” reports that rural counties close to cities showed most of the nonmetropolitan job growth from January 2017 to January 2018. Read the article here.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have published a policy brief focused on preventing rural opioid overdoses and reducing overdose deaths in rural areas. The brief identifies policy options and includes three brief case studies. Get the brief here.

“Integrating Economic Resilience in Performance-based Transportation Planning” is a report from the National Association of Development Organizations on community transportation planning that is based on economic performance. The report details measures to factor in when communities are in the process of transportation planning, and features several rural examples. Get the report here.  

The National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals® and the Hispanic Wealth Project™ recently released the 2017 “State of Hispanic Homeownership Report.” According to the report, 7,472,000 Hispanics owned a home in 2017, an increase of 167,000 from 2016 numbers. Get the report here.

The Opportunity Zones program was established by the bipartisan Investing in Opportunity Act as an innovative approach to spur long-term private sector investments in low-income urban and rural communities. New Markets Support Company (NMSC), the National Equity Fund (NEF), and parent company Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) are working with a number of organizations towards the successful implementation of the new Opportunity Zones program, providing guidance through its inaugural stages and access to resources and tools. Take a short survey about the materials your organization would find most helpful, and receive Opportunity Zones Updates. Click here for the survey.

The Better Buildings Challenge Multifamily team at HUD has created a new Multifamily Energy and Water Efficiency Resources page on the HUD Exchange. The resources are categorized by topic and cover everything from Retrofit Planning to Resident Engagement. Review the page here.

New data recently released by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) and the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) offer a picture of the impact the arts have on the nation’s economy. The arts contribute $763.6 billion to the U.S. economy, more than agriculture, transportation, or warehousing. The arts employ 4.9 million workers across the country with earnings of over $370 billion. Read more here.

ArtPlace released its latest cross-sector field scan: “Farther, Faster, Together: How Arts and Culture Can Accelerate Environmental Progress.” Researched and written by Helicon Collaborative, it lays out a framework for understanding how place-based arts and cultural interventions, or creative placemaking, are advancing sustainability outcomes in communities. Download the document here.

“In Rural Pennsylvania, Poverty Creates Barriers to Healthy Food Access and Federal Assistance” a report from PublicSource, highlights barriers related to food security in a rural Pennsylvania county, including poverty and transportation issues. In this county, 16 percent of residents and 27 percent of children are food insecure. There are also many elderly residents on fixed incomes who rely on the food bank featured in the report. Click here to get the report.

NeighborWorks America has developed a new suite of user-friendly measurement tools to help evaluate and document the health-related outcomes of a range of affordable housing, neighborhood revitalization, supportive service and community engagement programs. The Success Measures Health Outcome Tools focus on changes in health status, attitudes, behaviors, and beliefs at both the individual and community levels-as well as the quality and cultural sensitivity of health-care providers and practices. Download the tools publication here.  A free webinar on using the health tools and how organizations in the field are working with them now to learn about the health outcomes of community programs will be offered April 10, 2018 at 1:30 PM EDT. Register for the webinar here.

National Low-Income Housing Coalition released “The Gap: A Shortage of Affordable Homes,” which finds a shortage of 7.2 million affordable and available rental homes for extremely low income (ELI) renter households, those with incomes at or below the poverty level or 30 percent of their area median income. The report calls for increasing investments in affordable housing programs for the lowest income households like the national Housing Trust Fund, Housing Choice Vouchers, and public housing, and for expanding and improving the Low Income Housing Tax Credit so it serves more ELI households. Get the report here.

“Design, innovation, and rural creative places: Are the arts the cherry on top, or the secret sauce?” was published in PLOS One. This article was produced by a partnership between the Economic Research Services, USDA, and the NEA’s Office of Research & Analysis. The study identifies the local factors associated with a strong design orientation, and estimates the impact that a strong design orientation has on the local economy. Get the report here.

National Endowment for the Arts has published a data profile on rural arts, a research report and a series of research briefs based on a collaboration with the Economic Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture. Although the focus is on “rural arts, design, and innovation,” some of the findings pertain to performing arts organizations in rural communities. Get the report here. 

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Rural LISC works with 86 partner organizations creating sustainable rural communities across 44 states. Visit our website here and sign up for the Rural LISC RSS feed here. If this email was forwarded to you and you would like to sign up to receive the Rural e-News each month, click here.