1999 Grant Opportunities to Support Father Involvement

With generous support from the Annie E. Casey, Ford, and Charles Stewart Mott Foundations, CCFY continues to expand, strengthen, and sustain work begun by its member community foundations and their local partners over the last three years.

1999 Father’s Day Events
In April 1999, CCFY awarded grants to 30 community foundations at $1,000 each to host events around Father’s Day in June. For the fourth consecutive year, these grants engendered positive publicity, good will, and created new or strengthened existing relationships. The hard news stories in print and electronic media generated by these grants would easily cost ten times the amount invested. A summary of grants will be available on this site soon.

Grants to Support Workplace Practices and Public Policies Supportive of Fathers
In the wake of welfare reform, communities are struggling to find resources for current programs for families and are reluctant to start new ones. Father involvement is an issue which offers the opportunity to strengthen existing programs related to the well-being of children, families and neighborhoods.

The goals of Fathers Matter grants are to:

• provide member community foundations with resources to build on the relationships and work began on father-involvement by participating in the Father’s Day Events grants program -- to take your work on fathers to the “next step;” and
  
  
• develop projects and strategies to “infuse” the work of current programs, policymakers, and administrators with information about the benefits of connecting fathers and children.
  

During the second half of 1999, CCFY will award five grants of $10,000 each, to be matched at the local level on a 1:1 basis, up to half of which may be in-kind resources; and eighteen grants of $5,000 each to take "next steps" toward reforms in policies or practices. RFPs and eligibility requirements will be available on this site soon.

Fathers Matter Grants
One of the lessons we have learned is that numerous small grants often produce more significant results than a single large grant. From large community foundations like the Minneapolis Foundation to small foundations like the Virgin Islands, our members have applauded the efficacy of the small grants approach.

During the last half of 1999, CCFY will award eight grants of $5,000 each to community foundations interested in developing projects and strategies to “infuse” father involvement into the work of programs, policymakers and administrators who currently work on children’s issues. We will also make five $10,000 grants to support public policies and workplace practices and policies supportive of fathers. RFPs and eligibility requirements will be available on this site soon.