Grant Details: Housing Stability

Grant Details and Requirements

Anticipated Investments

  • We anticipate $150,000 in total annual investments​ across 4-5 programs that support people in accessing or maintaining affordable housing
  • This is a three-year grant, with a grant period of July 1, 2022-June 30, 2025. 
  • There is no minimum or maximum award amount; in recent years, the average annual program award has been $30,000-$40,000 
  • A minimum of 20% of total funds allocated will be granted to culturally specific organizations or culturally responsive housing stability programs. 

Eligibility

In order to be considered for a Housing Stability grant, programs must meet the following eligibility criteria:

  • Serve low-income residents of Olmsted County
  • Support people in accessing or maintaining affordable housing
  • Be a program of an eligible nonprofit agency

Eligible nonprofit agencies include:

  • Agencies designated as a 501(c)3
  • Government agencies/units
  • Faith-based organizations, provided they can demonstrate that there will be no explicitly faith-related content included in their programming and that there are no discriminatory restrictions on service recipients
  • Unincorporated community groups, provided they can document their relationship with a proper fiscal sponsor.

Eligible program interventions include:

  • Rent Assistance: Program supports families or individuals currently residing in affordable housing and experiencing financial challenges to pay rent and/or utilities. 
  • Eviction Prevention: Program is designed to help families or individuals avoid eviction and remain in stable, affordable housing. 
  • Rapid Re-housing: Program is designed to help families or individuals quickly exit homelessness and return to permanent housing, typically within 3-24 months. The resources and services provided are typically tailored to the unique needs of the household.
  • Housing Rehabilitation: Program intentionally restores homeowners’ existing affordable housing and/or provides counseling to owners on topics such as simple home repairs and maintenance. 

Funding will NOT be provided for:

  • Individuals
  • For-profit entities
  • Political campaigns, candidates, parties, or partisan activities
  • Programming that includes theological functions or requires religious participation.

Budget

United Way funding is provided for programs, rather than agencies.

Awards are intended to support general program operations and are not restricted to specific line items within a program’s budget (such as an individual staff member, volunteer training, or a capital purchase).

Proposals that advance in the review process will be expected to submit overall program and organization budgets that provide projected income and expense details. We find that budgets help reviewers better understand program operations. Budgets may be submitted in your own preferred format; if you do not have a budget template of your own, a sample can be found on our website (Budget Help Page).

United Way knows that people and operational costs are mission critical. All programs require foundational support for administrative and fundraising functions. We do not use overhead costs to prioritize proposals. Administrative costs, fundraising expenses, and any capacity-building (such as program evaluation systems, equipment, or training) needed to enact or sustain the program should be reflected in the program budget.

Audit/Financial Reports

United Way of Olmsted County policy requires that partners and prospective partners required by state law to conduct an independently prepared financial audit annually maintain the most current audit available on file with United Way of Olmsted County at all times.

Applicants and partners receiving Community Fund awards but not required under Minnesota state law to conduct an annual independent financial audit must meet either requirement A or requirement B below:

A. Provide to UWOC a current financial audit, independently prepared by an outside accounting firm and completed within the past three program agency fiscal periods. During non-independent audit years, partners must submit to UWOC a financial compilation consistent with GAAP format.

B. Provide to UWOC “Agreed Upon Procedures” conducted by an independent firm for each year covered by partnership agreement.


Expectations of Partners

Attend regular partner meetings:

For the length of this award period, representatives of partner organizations will gather regularly with one another and United Way staff to discuss programming, relevant challenges and opportunities, and emerging trends in the field. Meeting schedules and routines will be determined by the group.

Submit annual reports on time:

For the length of the award period, program partners must submit program reports annually. Annual reports will include:

  • Number of individuals served who access services intended to stabilize housing (total count of participants)
  • Number of individuals served who access or maintain stable housing (participants that experience positive outcomes due to programming), disaggregated by race and by income
  • Additional performance measures to be co-developed by program and United Way
  • Brief program narrative, including participant success stories
  • Updated organizational documents including budgets, Board of Directors roster, 990, and financial reports.

Support United Way efforts in the community:

We seek to establish true partnerships that are grounded in trust, open communication, and reciprocity. United Way strives to provide benefits to partner agencies beyond financial support, and we ask that partners likewise support our community change efforts by:

  • Updating your organization’s 211 listing at least annually
  • Making volunteer engagement opportunities available to United Way’s stakeholders, where appropriate
  • Promoting United Way programming, where appropriate (e.g. providing SingleCare prescription discount cards (formerly known as FamilyWize) to program participants)
  • Offering a United Way employee giving campaign.

* A sample partner agreement can be found on our website. 


Equity in Grantmaking

Equity is one of United Way of Olmsted County’s organizational values. We define equity as the fair participation of everyone in a society where all people can participate, prosper, and reach their full potential. Equity occurs when barriers based on race, gender, sexual orientation, and other identities are dismantled. As part of our larger systems change efforts, we strive to implement grantmaking practices that advance our values by investing in communities experiencing systemic inequities. Some of those practices include:

Priority attention to populations experiencing systemic inequity:

United Way of Olmsted County serves primarily low-income households, which we generally define as households earning up to 185% of federal poverty guidelines (United States Census Bureau, Poverty Guidelines for 2021). Due to long-standing structural inequities, some demographic groups in our community are more likely than others to have low incomes and to face barriers to educational attainment and optimal health. As part of our strategy to address these disparities, we will give priority attention to proposals for programs that explicitly and intentionally serve people of color or Indigenous people, immigrants and refugees, people with disabilities, or families with children under 5.

Earmarked funds:

We commit to investing a minimum of 20% of our overall Housing Stability awards in culturally specific organizations and culturally responsive programming. We welcome proposals for programs led by people from the communities they serve. Our goal is to support those agencies and programs that are best situated to understand the cultural norms, beliefs, and traditions of the people they serve; effectively engage community members; interpret and remove barriers that impede access to services; and bridge norms between communities and institutions.

Grant Guides:

United Way of Olmsted County strives to make our proposal and review process accessible for organizations of all sizes. We recognize that small agencies may not have the ability to hire an experienced grant writer, and agencies without a preexisting relationship with United Way of Olmsted County are likely to be less familiar with our practices and expectations. We also know that agencies led by people of color, immigrants and refugees, people with disabilities, and other structurally marginalized communities are less likely to have large budgets or have established relationships with us. We mean to change that. Offering Grant Guides is one of our strategies for equity in grantmaking by supporting these organizations in sharing their story effectively with our reviewers. Agencies are eligible to work with a Grant Guide if they have not received United Way of Olmsted County funding in the past, have annual revenues under $1 million, and do not employ a full-time grant writer. For full details, visit our website (Grant Guides: Technical Assistance).

United Way of Olmsted County strives to cultivate relationships with community partners that are grounded in trust, open communication, and reciprocity. We strive to partner in a spirit of service, and we welcome feedback on our proposal and review process.


Click here to return to the main Housing Stability RFP page.