We are excited to announce a new funding opportunity designed to grow our partnerships with and invest in the capacity of small nonprofit organizations led by people of color and/or those with lived homelessness experience.
Through these grants, we’re seeking to create a stronger and larger group of organizations working collaboratively to achieve the goals of the 2020-2025 Community Plan to End Homelessness, including preventing and ending homelessness and increasing community engagement and support for the Plan’s strategies.
Lifting Up Lived Expertise
When designing this funding opportunity, we at Destination: Home recognized that structural racism has resulted in people of color – specifically Black, Hispanic/Latino, and Native American people in Santa Clara County – being significantly more likely than their white counterparts to become homeless.
It has also meant that communities of color are more likely to have extremely low incomes (<30% Area Median Income), putting them at greater risk for becoming homeless. COVID-19 has only exacerbated these inequities. The same racist policies and practices have led to the systematic underfunding of nonprofits led by people of color.
We believe that an organization’s performance is greatly enhanced when people with different backgrounds and perspectives – particularly those with relevant lived experience with homelessness – are engaged in an organization’s activities and decision-making processes. As such, we seek to lift up the enormous potential of local organizations that reflect the lived experience and racial and ethnic makeup of the people and geographic areas served, in particular whose executive leadership and governing boards include people of color and those with lived experience with homelessness.
These grants and partnerships are meant to expand organizations’ capacities to fulfill their missions, positively impact lives and communities, and play a stronger and more prominent role in the collaborative effort to prevent and end homelessness in Santa Clara County.
Based on available funding, we anticipate awarding capacity-building grants of up to $300,000 each over three years to 4-6 organizations. Organizations that meet the minimum criteria, but are not selected, may be eligible for future rounds of support.