New funding opportunities and resources for the S.C. Lowcountry Promise Zone
UPDATE OVERVIEW
In this update, you will find new information and recent news on a variety of topics, including:
RECENT NEWS: A Bamberg County company is expanding, which will create 50 new jobs. The Obama Administration has announced nine more Promise Zones.
NEW FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES: The opportunities with fast-approaching deadlines are from the departments of Housing and Urban Development, Agriculture, and Labor.
OTHER OPPORTUNITIES: Read about three other health-related funding opportunities with deadlines approaching.
RESOURCES: Take a look at links to a dozen reports that range in helpful subject matter from food hubs to rural income inequality.
RECENT NEWS
Bamberg County plant expands
An expansion of the Bamberg County operations of Masonite International will create 50 new jobs over the next year, officials announced this month. The company, one of the world’s leading manufacturers of decorative interior doors and entry door systems, says it expects additional growth in the future.
Obama Administration names final round of Promise Zone communities
The Obama Administration today named the final nine Promise Zones across the country – high poverty areas in select urban, rural and tribal communities. Through the Promise Zone Initiative, the Federal government will work strategically with local leaders to boost economic activity and job growth, improve educational opportunities, reduce crime and leverage private investment to improve the quality of life in these vulnerable areas.
- Atlanta, Georgia
- Nashville, Tennessee
- Evansville, Indiana
- South Los Angeles, California
- San Diego, California
- Southwest Florida Regional Planning Commission
- Spokane Tribe of Indians, Washington
- Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians, Rolette County, North Dakota
- Roosevelt Roads, Puerto Rico
NEW FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES
HUD: FY2016 Community Compass Technical Assistance and Capacity Building Program
Deadline: July 19, 2016
Through this Notice of Funding Availability, HUD is announcing the availability of approximately $58 million for its Community Compass Technical Assistance and Capacity Building Program (Community Compass). HUD’s integrated technical assistance and capacity building initiative. Community Compass is designed to help HUD’s customers navigate complex housing and community development challenges by equipping them with the knowledge, skills, tools, capacity, and systems to implement HUD programs and policies successfully and be more effective stewards of HUD funding. The goal of Community Compass is to empower communities by providing effective technical assistance and capacity building so that successful program implementation is sustained over the long term.
USDA: $10.7 Million Available For Critical Water Research
Deadline: Aug. 4, 2016
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced the availability of $10.7 million in funding for research that could solve critical water problems in rural and agricultural watersheds across the United States. This funding is available through the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI), authorized by the 2014 Farm Bill and administered by USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA). See the request for applications for more information. More information about USDA’s work to mitigate climate change can be found in the Department’s most recent entry on Medium, How Food and Forestry Are Adapting to a Changing Climate.
LABOR: $100M available to expand tuition-free community college education
Deadline: Aug. 25, 2016
The Department of Labor’s (DOL) Employment and Training Administration (ETA) released a federal funding opportunity (FFO) for the America’s Promise Job Driven Grant Program. Announced in May by Vice President Joe Biden, ETA will make up to 40 grants from approximately $100 million in available funding to provide individuals the opportunity to get high-quality, tuition-free education and training that leads to in-demand and industry-recognized credentials and degrees. The grants also will help support the development and growth of regional partnerships between workforce agencies, education, training providers and employers in a variety of industries such as information technology, healthcare, advanced manufacturing, financial services and educational services. Read the FFO…
OTHER OPPORTUNITIES
Community Access to Child Health Seeks Applications for Community Health Programs
Deadline: 7/29/2016
The American Academy of Pediatrics offers grants of up to $10,000 will be awarded to support the planning or implementation of innovative community-based child health initiatives designed to ensure that all children have access to healthcare services not otherwise available in their community. Click the link for more info.
Jim Meeks, PA-C, DFAAPA Memorial AFPPA Student Scholarship
Deadline: Sept. 1, 2016
Association of Family Practice Physician Assistants offers a scholarship to a physician assistant student who displays a commitment to family practice and rural health.
Transforming Clinical Practice Initiative (TCPI)
National Rural Accountable Care Organization Consortium provides technical assistance, education, and support for healthcare providers in rural communities who are preparing for and participating in value-based payment models. Applications accepted on an ongoing basis.
RESOURCES
Racial/ethnic diversity in rural America is increasing
Racial and ethnic minorities made up 21 percent of rural residents in 2014. Hispanics (who may be of any race) and Asians are the fastest growing minority groups in the United States as a whole and in rural areas. Over 2010-14, the rural Hispanic population increased 9.2 percent, and their share of the total rural population rose from 7.5 to 8.2 percent. Asians and Pacific Islanders represent a small share of the rural population—about 1 percent—but their population grew by 18 percent between 2010 and 2014, while rural Native American and Black populations grew at more modest rates. This is in contrast to the rural non-Hispanic White population, which declined by 1.7 percent between 2010 and 2014. Overall rural population loss (which was -0.2 percent for the period) would have been much higher if not for the growth in the rural racial and ethnic minority groups. Rural minorities tend to be younger on average and have larger families than non-Hispanic Whites, and this, along with net migration, is reflected in the varying growth rates.
Income Inequality: A Growing Threat to Eliminating Rural Child Poverty
No child in this country should grow up in poverty. And as a new analysis by USDA’s Economic Research Service (ERS) makes clear, to end that injustice we must do more to tackle growing income inequality. The study found that rising income inequality explains an overwhelming 93 percent of the increase in rural child poverty between 2003 and 2014. As the report notes, income inequality was considerably higher in 2014 than in 2003 in both urban and rural areas. Over the past seven years, USDA and the Obama Administration’s work to bring economic opportunity to rural America has produced concrete results: rural areas are seeing income growth; two-thirds of rural communities have demonstrated job growth; and for the first time in years, rural areas are gaining population rather than losing residents. But this new research on the pervasive effects of income inequality underscores that broader Administration priorities, like raising the minimum wage, must be part of any comprehensive approach to rural poverty.
New Tools Bring Lenders to the Table for Local, Regional Food Enterprises
USDA has joined forces with Wholesome Wave, a national non-profit working to increase affordable access to local produce, to offer free online interactive training to help funders of all stripes better understand what these food businesses have to offer the bottom line. We’ve already begun training USDA staff at all levels, and now we’re making the free online training available to the public so funders and investors everywhere can learn more, on their own time and pace, about this emerging business sector. The online training entitled, What’s the Big Deal? Assessing and Financing Regional Food Enterprises, helps funders and investors better understand and assess regional food businesses by providing an introduction to the food sector and regional food enterprises, a framework for conducting due diligence and a case study exercise to practice assessment. The training also introduces “capital stacking,” by which multiple funders, from private philanthropy, mission-oriented lenders, traditional lenders and public or government programs, use different models and levels of risk-tolerance to meet the capital needs of regional food businesses need.
ULI: Creative Finance for Smaller Communities
The Urban Land Institute provides a series of case studies that illustrate how communities have used P3s and other financing mechanisms to improve the appearance and functionality of their infrastructure.
The CDFA Revolving Loan Fund Resource Center contains lists of federal, state and local RLF programs, as well as detailed information on how to capitalize and operate new RLF programs.
Weighing Economic Incentives in the Location Decision
Today’s market conditions call for a savvier real estate approach, and it is no longer a secret that a solid incentives package can mean the difference between propelling a deal forward and maintaining the status quo.
The data from 2015 National Food Hub Survey is first ongoing national data set of its caliber on food hub operations. This report details findings on topics such as the financial state of food hubs, the numbers and types of farmers and ranchers that they work with, and the types of customers they serve. The findings of this, the second national food hub survey, together with the 2013 National Food Hub survey, are the beginning of a longitudinal data set that tracks what food hubs look like and what impacts they are having across the United States. Overall, the 2015 National Food Hub Survey indicates that the food hub model can be financially successful across a variety of legal structures and geographic or customer markets. As consumer interest in local and regional food grows, the market for food hub services also grows.
Angel Investing: Patience and a Portfolio Required
The latest Angel Resource Institute (ARI) survey of returns for nearly 250 angel investments reveals the number of projects failing to breakeven during their liquidity events is up sharply since before the Great Recession – nearly 35 percent more are losing money for their angels than ARI found in a 2007 survey. In 2007, 52 percent of liquidity events failed to reach 1x, while that figure has grown to 70 percent in 2016. Add to that, angel investors are holding companies in their portfolios 12 months longer on average, 4.5 years in 2016, than they did in the first study. A third strike for the faint of heart might be the internal rate of return dropping five points, down from 27 percent in 2007 to 22 percent in 2016. Do these trends provide insight on how best to advise crowd funding participants? Read more…
Expanding Veterans’ Opportunities to Become Entrepreneurs
Todd Connor, CEO of Bunker Labs, begins his pitch in front of a Startup Week event in Columbus, Ohio with a compelling statistic. In the six years following WWII, 50 percent of returning veterans started their own businesses. Today, only 6 percent of post-9/11 vets do the same, despite surveys showing four times that number would like to do so. What has changed to lead to such a contrast and entrepreneurship gap? Read more…
Americans are consuming less caloric sweeteners, with children leading the way
A recent linking of ERS’s loss-adjusted food availability data with intake surveys from 1994-2008 reveals that American children are doing a better job of cutting down on sugary beverages and other sweetened foods than adults are. In 1994-98, children ages 2 to 19 consumed 94.0 pounds per person per year of caloric sweeteners compared with 81.4 pounds consumed by adults. Over the next decade, per-capita consumption of caloric sweeteners by children fell to 77.4 pounds per year, while adults’ consumption rose before returning to 1994-98 levels. Caloric sweeteners include cane and beet sugar, high fructose corn sweeteners, glucose, dextrose, honey, and edible syrups—common ingredients in sweetened beverages, baked goods, spaghetti sauces, ketchups, and a host of other processed foods. Over 1994-2008, consumption of sweeteners declined across all income and race/ethnicity groups, with Hispanics and other races/ethnicities consuming less caloric sweeteners than non-Hispanic Whites and non-Hispanic Blacks. The data for this chart and similar information on 62 other food commodities can be found in the ERS report, U.S. Food Commodity Consumption Broken Down by Demographics, 1994-2008, March 2016.
Performance Partnership Pilots: An Opportunity to Improve Outcomes for Disconnected Youth
Federal agencies have released a second call for bold proposals to improve education, employment, and other key outcomes for disconnected youth. Over five million 14-to-24-year-olds in the U.S. are out of school and not working. In many cases, they face the additional challenges including being low-income, homeless, in foster care, or involved in the justice system. In response, seven federal agencies are jointly inviting state, local, and tribal communities to apply to become a Performance Partnership Pilot (P3) to test innovative, outcome-focused strategies to achieving better outcomes for these youth, as well as youth at risk of becoming disconnected from critical social institutions and supports.
Study Outlines Billion-Dollar Philanthropic Bets to Address Poverty
Billion-dollar philanthropic investments in key areas could improve social mobility and revive “the American dream” for low-income families, a report from the Bridgespan Group argues. The report, “Billion Dollar Bets” to Create Economic Opportunity for Every American (33 pages, PDF), identified four areas in which investments of $1 billion could dramatically improve the lifetime earnings of low-income Americans — building skills and assets, addressing cultural and structural inhibitors, transforming communities, and building the infrastructure to implement and scale interventions that work. The researchers evaluated proven interventions and promising innovations in the four areas, which they then narrowed to six “big bets” — improving early childhood development, establishing clear and viable pathways to careers, reducing rates of conviction and incarceration, reducing unintended pregnancies, reducing the effects of concentrated poverty on those living in distressed neighborhoods, and improving the performance of public systems that oversee social services….
