rom: <NEEDMOR@aol.com>

Date: Fri, 12 Jun 1998 15:20:42 EDT

Subject: NOTICE OF WELFARE REFORM GRANTMAKING INITIATIVE

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NOTICE OF GRANTMAKING INITIATIVE

NEEDMOR FUND

WELFARE REFORM INITIATIVE

The Needmor Fund announces a three year grantmaking initiative designed to support the working poor and the unemployed poor to engage in state policy debates and decisions concerning the implementation of The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 and to support innovative organizing strategies which hold promise to mitigate the most adverse impacts of the bill.

With this welfare reform initiative, The Needmor Fund hopes to make a measurable difference in the lives of both the employed and unemployed poor and contribute to our mission of building long-term democratic grassroots organizations that address economic inequality and injustice. Potential grantees should meet guidelines for Needmor's usual grantmaking criteria. Needmor's guidelines can be viewed at our website, http://fdncenter.org/grantmaker/needmor/ While understanding that no one project will meet all criteria, for this special granting initiative, The Needmor Fund is looking to fund a pool of organizations that reflect the following qualities:

1. Show both capacity and vision to meet the longer-term challenges that must be faced as time limits expire, funding reserves are exhausted, and the economy slows. We are looking for effective organizations with staying power that are creating new models of organizing where necessary. We are looking for strategic thinking about how to shift the context of the public, political, and policy debate away from punitive reform to refocus on society's obligation to protect and support its most vulnerable members.

2. Deliberate and significant expansion of capacity to meet the challenges required by this organizing. We are looking for organizations that are seeking to add discrete components or make "breakthroughs" in organizing or campaigns and that demonstrate potential for making significant policy impact.

3. Directly organizing recipients, and building relationships between recipients and other constituencies, especially other low-income people. We are looking for organizations that are working to expand their organized base of low-income people and to build new relationships across economic and issue lines. This work should include investment in the training and development of community organizing skills within staff and leadership from very low income and welfare recipient constituencies.

4. Significantly expanding labor's partnership with community organizations around welfare reform. We emphasize this both as a fundamental opportunity and as a need that will become increasingly important as time limits expire and as the economy worsens.

5. Building bridges between policy making and grassroots organizing. We are interested in funding a pool of strong organizations that can experiment with a myriad of policy approaches tailored to the widely varied conditions. We are interested in organizations that work on multi-issue and cross-issue campaigns. We value linking community organizations with allies working in the policy arena. Examples of important policy issues include, but are not necessarily limited to, childcare, education and training, transportation, and public job creation strategies.

6. Making linkages between the working poor and the unemployed poor.

Because we are committed to increasing effectiveness through long-term strategies, we are willing to consider multi-year requests where multi-year strategies exist. Current Needmor grantees involved in the work described above may apply.

GRANT AMOUNT: Up to $30,000 per year. (We expect to make 12-15 grants per year.)

FORMAT: NNG Common Grant Application The application is available on line at

http://fdncenter.org/fundproc/nng.html

Needmor's guidelines can be viewed at http://fdncenter.org/grantmaker/needmor/

DEADLINE FOR APPLICATIONS: July 27, 1998. (For 1999 and 2000, deadlines will correspond to Needmor standard application deadlines.)

All proposals for this initiative should be addressed to: