National Center for Healthy Housing

Notice of Announcement Effective March 23, 2018
The National Center for Healthy Housing (NCHH) plans to award 8-10 mini-grants of up to $7,500 to communities across the country to improve their capacity to build a healthy homes workforce and related services.

This is a competitive grant. Applicants must submit their online application by 5:00 p.m. EDT on April 17, 2018. Awardees will be notified by May 30, 2018. Final reports are due by November 30, 2018.

Organizations may apply to use funding for either a new event or activity or one that that is already in the planning stage. The proposed project may be a single event/activity or a series of related events/activities. The period of performance is June 1, 2018, through October 31, 2018. Scheduled events should occur no sooner than June 1 and no later than October 31, 2018.

Purpose
The purpose of the grants is to expand the healthy homes workforce of professionals who engage in home visiting or who work with families to create home environments that are, according to the Healthy Homes Principles, “dry, clean, pest-free, safe, contaminant-free, ventilated, maintained, and thermally controlled.” Through these grants, communities and decision makers can create strategies to build a well-trained, knowledgeable, and reliable healthy homes workforce. The grants will also support community efforts to promote broader systems changes, including alternative financing strategies or the infrastructure to integrate healthy homes services into the wider health service delivery system. Efforts to expand the role of community health workers (CHWs) will continue to be a priority for these mini-grants, but projects focusing on other members of a healthy homes workforce (e.g., nurses, social workers, health educators, or sanitarians) are eligible.

A community health worker is defined by the American Public Health Association as a “frontline public health worker who is a trusted member of and/or has an unusually close understanding of the community served.” Visit the National Academy for State Health Policy to learn more about how CHWs are defined in your state. Please note that projects focusing on other members of a healthy homes workforce are eligible for this mini-grant.

Who is eligible?
Government, education, public housing, nonprofit, and tribal communities may apply as long as they are based in the United States. For-profit organizations are not eligible to apply for funding.

How much money is available?
Applicants can apply for up to $7,500 in funding for events or activities to support the development of a healthy homes workforce. Eight to 10 awards of $7,500 each will be available in 2018. Funding is made possible through the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.

Can an organization submit more than one application?
An organization may submit more than one application; however, it may not receive more than one award.

What types of activities can the funding support?
Funding should be used to support activities with a clear focus on the development of a well-trained, knowledgeable, credible, and reliable healthy homes workforce, and the systems changes that support this. Communities that clearly demonstrate a need for the funding, provide a specific plan for its use, and identify the anticipated impact of the funding will receive priority consideration. While NCHH may fund applications with a broad focus on healthy homes workforce and systems change, activities that emphasize the role of CHWs in delivering and increasing access to healthy homes services will receive priority consideration.

Examples of activities include but are not limited to:

• Coalition-building meetings;
• Informational workshops to discuss various CHW issues (e.g., defining the roles of CHWs, regulating the CHW workforce, training requirements for CHWs);
• Provision of training for the healthy homes workforce;
• Translation of training materials or home visiting materials into other languages;
• Integration of CHWs into services provided through other programs (e.g., FQHCs, follow-up home visiting services after emergency medicine services); and
• Activities to develop systems or policy changes (e.g., working on a state plan amendment, working to make healthy homes training eligible for continuing education credits).

Note: Applicants may NOT use funds to support attempts to influence legislation through direct or grassroots lobbying. For example, funds cannot be used for signage that endorses pending legislation or an elected official.

How will award beneficiaries be determined?
The Kellogg Healthy Homes Workforce Development Mini-Grant is a competitive award. Applicants must demonstrate the following:

• Need (5 points):
  Does a significant gap in healthy homes services exist in the community? Can this gap be attributed to a lack of trained CHWs or other types of workers to provide healthy homes services? How will the grant impact the CHW or healthy homes workforce or build the infrastructure to support funding for healthy homes services? How will the community be affected if the applicant does not get the award? 
• Work plan (5 points):
  What is the objective of the proposed event/activity? Is the plan reasonable? Does the applicant have experience in successfully hosting similar events or conducting similar activities?
• The potential impact of the event or activities (5 points):
  How will the proposed work impact the community? How will applicants measure the impact? Will it impact a substantial or influential portion of the healthy homes workforce community? What potential does the project have to stimulate follow-up actions that can influence the development of policy, partnerships, funding, or services in the community?
• Relevance to the development of a well-trained, knowledgeable, credible, and reliable healthy homes workforce to provide healthy homes services (5 points):
  Does the applicant have a clear focus on developing or increasing the capacity of a CHW or other workforce to increase access to healthy homes services? Will the event/ activity use or build collaborative partnerships around CHW workforce issues?
• Bonus (1 point):
  Does this project have the potential to be a national model for building the CHW workforce? Do the activities take place in Kellogg priority communities (e.g., Michigan, Mississippi, New Mexico, or New Orleans)?

What information do I need to apply?
NCHH accepts grants through online submission; it does not accept the application in PDF format. Applicants can preview all of the application questions here.

NCHH recommends preparation of the application responses in advance so that the online application can be completed entirely in one session. Save and print a copy of the completed application before submitting it through SurveyMonkey.

Where can I get more information?
For more information about the project, contact Sarah Goodwin or call NCHH at 410.992.0712.

View the 2017 grantees.

When will the grant awards be announced? 
The award announcements are scheduled for the last week of May.

Can I just send you my application as a PDF?
The grant submission is online only. We cannot accept your application in PDF format. You can fill out the application here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/ZJ8FHZ9. There's a button at the bottom of this page to begin your application.

Can we submit letters of support from our partners? 
We don’t have a mechanism for collecting letters of support, since they are not required; however, you may indicate that they're available upon request in your application if you would like the review committee to know that they exist.

Should the proposed project be focused on a single community event, or can the project include a series of events? 
Communities may apply to use funding for either a new event/activity or one that that is already in the planning stage. The proposed project may be a single event/activity or a series of related events/activities. The period of performance is June 1, 2018, through October 31, 2018. Scheduled events should occur no sooner than June 1 and no later than October 31, 2018.

How is "community" defined as it relates to communities submitting more than one application? A large metropolitan area might be served by both a city office and a county office that are completely different agencies and jurisdictions serving the same general area. Would these be considered separate communities? 
We would consider the city and county offices as separate entities; however, if both entities submit separate grant proposals with the respective projects targeting the same or overlapping geographic area(s), they would not be considered individual communities, and the more robust application would be selected. Note also that individual entities may submit more than one proposal, though only one proposal per applicant or community would be selected.

Must we have 501(c)(3) status to apply for a mini-grant?
No. Government, education, public housing, nonprofit, and tribal organizations may apply as long as they are based in the United States. We will not grant funds to individuals or for-profit organizations.

Can any of the healthy homes workforce development mini-grant funds be used toward staff salaries for an event or activity?
Yes, funding can be allocated for staff salaries to support eligible grant activities.

Can we use a community survey as part of this grant to assist our efforts with educational events held with community health providers or policy makers?
A community survey may be eligible, provided that the survey and the results are used to support community-based events/activities that clearly focus on improving capacity to create a healthy homes workforce, including the use of community health workers, or efforts to promote broader systems changes. The latter would include alternative financing strategies or the infrastructure to integrate healthy homes services into the wider health service delivery system. The events themselves must be held by October 31, 2018.

I have an investigator who'll be applying for the mini-grant. Are there any guidelines relating to which costs are allowable or not allowable? Does your organization provide indirect cost? If so, what's the rate?
Allowable costs should be reasonable and justifiable costs for eligible activities. Funding may not be used to support attempts to influence legislation through direct or indirect lobbying. If your organization has an established indirect cost rate (facilities and administration, F&A), you may include that rate. If you do not have an F&A, indirect costs should be itemized.

What training is acceptable?
There are a number of training courses that might apply to your situation, and NCHH doesn't recommend a specific curriculum. However, for clarity, please specify in your application the name of the trainer and training organization you plan to use, the name of the course, and whose curriculum is being used.

I'm having trouble filling in the survey boxes. What should I do?
For issues with SurveyMonkey, review the help page for taking surveys. Most issues seem to be related to a network or firewall that may be blocking some SurveyMonkey domains. You can add SurveyMonkey domains and subdomains to your whitelist so that they aren't blocked.

Question 15 asks to describe how we would use the $7,500. We have reviewed the types of activities the funding can support. In our response, are you asking us to summarize the cost of the proposed event and not to submit a detailed line-item budget?
Yes. Please break out your budget by labor (including approved indirect cost), and other direct costs for materials, space rental, trainers, or other items. The budget should be detailed enough to demonstrate that the costs and reasonable and justified.