New Grant Opportunity Supports Job Creation for Low-Income Individuals

A new grant opportunity from the Administration for Children and Families, Office of Community Services seeks to create job opportunities for low-income individuals. Providing up to $16 million in grants to Community Development Corporations (CDCs), the Community Economic Development(CED) fund seeks to support projects that create employment and business opportunities to address the economic needs of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) recipients and other low-income individuals and families.

Under the CED program, all businesses and positions created must support a service area with unemployment and poverty rates that are at or above the State or national levels. The CED program also seeks to fund projects that address the personal and community barriers that must be overcome to help low-income individuals become self-sufficient. In addition, the CED program allows grantees to use funds to create start-up businesses provided that the expenditures result in the creation of positions that can be filled with low-income individuals.

ACF plans to implement a federally sponsored evaluation strategy to assess the success of CED demonstration projects funded through this grant program. The Federal evaluation strategy will include grantee-level documentation of activities, outputs and outcomes. All funded grantees will be required to participate fully in a Federal evaluation(s) and to follow all evaluation protocols established by ACF.

The application due date for this exciting funding opportunity is July 11, 2011.