Grants for Resilience Hubs, Spaces and Blocks

The Oakland Parks and Recreation Foundation is pleased to be coordinating a grants program in collaboration with the City of Oakland’s Office of Sustainability and Resilience, supporting project funding for Oakland-based sites who participated in the 2021 Resilience Hubs Leadership Training Cohort.

Groups may request between $1,000-$5,000, with funding received up front. The mini grant announcement will go out on May 4, 2022, application is due on May 16th, 2022, and final selected grantees to be announced on May 23, 2022. 

Grant funding must be used to strengthen community resilience. Examples of fundable projects may include (but are not limited to):

• Supporting community engagement and outreach
• Resilience-building skill shares, training sessions, neighborhood asset mapping activities and events (such as repair cafes and block parties with resilience themes)
• Skill shares and workshops related to community organizing and capacity building, such as cultural sensitivity and conflict resolution 
• Developing plans or protocols for your resilience hubs/spaces (including emergency plans or facility upgrades such as backup power or upgrading electrical systems)
• Disaster preparedness supplies
• Infrastructure related to energy resilience (solar/battery backup, efficiency, etc.), water conservation and food growing
• Activities/infrastructure related to composting, building soil, carbon sequestration with biochar

GRANT GUIDELINES

Please review the following minimum requirements and information before applying:

• Sites must have been enrolled in the NorCal Resilience Network’s Resilience Hubs Leadership Training Program.
• The project must be located within the City of Oakland limits.
• Your project must be affiliated/have (the start of) a connection with a city facility, such as a park, community garden, library or recreation center. 
• The proposal must be located at a site that has a safe, reliable electricity source, or will provide access to safe, reliable electricity source at a given location.
• Your project must include a project timeline for the project to start by June 1, 2022.
• Applicants will be offered one training session about the grant application, which will include suggestions for potential partnerships with city facilities and support for how sites/individuals can collaborate with each other (especially those who do not initially qualify for the above-mentioned criteria). 

WANT SOME INSPIRATION FOR PROJECT IDEAS? READ BELOW!

This is not an exhaustive list; we welcome all projects, as long as they fit the above-mentioned requirements.

SCORING CRITERIA

Grants will be ranked according to the following suggested criteria:

• Is there an outreach component to the project?
• What is the level of integration/involvement with City-owned facilities? 
• Does the project support people who are medically dependent on electricity (people with disabilities, chronic illness etc)? Please note that this is suggested criteria, and not a requirement. 
• Does the project’s activities target/center other frontline or vulnerable communities? Eg: Black and Latinx living in the most polluted census tracks, low-income and low-wealth individuals, unhoused or curbside communities, people whose jobs require work outside, low-income elders, people with disabilities or mobility challenges, transit-dependent individuals, non-english speakers. Examples of activities include: Improve public facilities and resource distribution in unhoused communities / encampments, including sanitation / handwashing stations, bathrooms, waste pickup / hauling infrastructure, etc; Distribute resources, such as N95 masks, inexpensive box fan filters, or water, to frontline community workers, especially during emergencies
• Does the project address an Equitable Climate Action Plan-defined equity gap? Eg: food (re)distribution facilities & programing; energy resilience measures (e.g. weatherization, efficiency, system upgrades, storage, etc) in facilities serving frontline communities; and urban farming in communities with higher rates of food insecurity.
• Has the community been involved (or will they be involved) in the creation of the project?

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS