RWJF Community Power: Increasing Understanding of Base-Building Methods

Deadline: Tuesday, September 24, 2019
Amount: $200,000 – $250,000
Link to RFA

Purpose

This CFP will support research projects to build an understanding of the range of methods applied in innovative and effective community base-building that result in changes to community-level social, economic, and physical conditions that we know influence health and equity. We are seeking to fund research projects designed to retrospectively examine various methods resulting in innovative and effective community base-building. Base-building is a set of strategies and activities used by residents, workers, consumers, and other constituencies to build collective strength and power to address a variety of inequitable conditions in communities. Base-building has been utilized for generations by grassroots-led organizations and institutions to build power specifically in historically excluded or underrepresented populations.

We are seeking research proposals whose project teams will participate alongside other field and research experts in the RWJF Lead Local program, which is exploring the question: How does community power catalyze, create and sustain conditions for healthy communities? We are aware that community base-building methods vary across geographic areas and across racial, ethnic, and other demographic groups. We seek to understand community-identified innovations that lead to meaningful and effective community base-building. The proposed research projects are not intended to build understanding of methodologies applied to other critical approaches to achieve systems change, including policy advocacy, coalition-building, communications, or organizational development.

Eligibility and Selection Criteria

We encourage proposals from applicants who represent a wide range of organizations and disciplines—both within and outside the public health sector.
Applicants may include nonprofit organizations and nongovernmental organizations as members of the proposed collaboration between grassroots-led organization(s) and researcher(s).
Preference will be given to applicants that are either public entities or nonprofit organizations that are tax-exempt under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code and are not private foundations or Type III supporting organizations. RWJF may require additional documentation.
Awards will be made to organizations, not individuals.
Applicant organizations must be based in the United States or its territories.