We are now accepting grant applications from nonprofit organizations focused on early care and education.
Our grants will range from $25,000 to $150,000, and we will prioritize programs and initiatives that promote exceptional learning environments, positive adult-child interactions, sustainable workforce development, and advocacy efforts. If your nonprofit provides early care and education and wishes to apply for funding of less than $25,000, please be on the lookout for an announcement this spring about a streamlined, childcare provider-specific grant opportunity.
The final deadline to submit your application is Friday, March 3, 2023.
Key Focus Areas
For children to thrive, they need access to early, high-quality care and educational experiences, as well as families that are supported and engaged.
These factors influence children’s brain development, school readiness, and long-term wellbeing, so we fund projects inthree focus areas:
Provider support & infrastructure for early care and education
Parenting support & engagement
Early childhood policy & advocacy
Eligibility Requirements
Eligible projects and organizations include those that:
Primarily support children and their families during prenatal stages through age 5
Serve community members in Richmond City, Chesterfield, Henrico, and/or Petersburg
Qualify as 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations
Which organizations and projects are not eligible?
Proposals are ineligible for funding if they exclusively focus on:
If your nonprofit received a competitive grant in June 2022, you are eligible to apply again. If you received a competitive grant in September 2022, we request that you wait until our next grant cycle (opening in July) to apply. Any questions about your eligibility can be directed to grants@robinsfdn.org.
We’re eligible! How do I apply?
Please complete these steps in order.
NOTE: If you plan to apply for the same project or initiative Robins Foundation funded in June 2022, you do notneed to submit the pre-application questionnaire and can proceed directly to step 2 below.
If you have any questions, or if you need to remove a contact from your organizational profile, please reach out to us at grants@robinsfdn.org. We wish you the best of luck with your application.
Investments in Early Childhood Education (ECE) have the power to change the trajectory of individual lives and entire families, as well as deliver significant returns for the community. Access to high-quality early childhood experiences sets children and their families up for long-term success by:
Preparing children for school and lifelong learning
Providing support of child development and general well-being
Equipping parents to be their children’s best first teachers
These investments are all the more important as young children recover from pandemic impacts and the Richmond region contends with a widespread lack of affordable, accessible child care. To that end, we are pleased to announce the following grantee partners for our second ECE-focused grant cycle which totaled $780,000:
VPM Media – $50,000 for VPM Early Childhood Education program
“From preschool programs to home visiting to parenting support and education, these organizations work tirelessly to ensure our region’s youngest children get the best start,” shares Robins Foundation President & CEO, Chris Chin. “We’re grateful for their efforts and delighted to support them.”
For children to have the opportunity to thrive, they require access to high-quality early care and educational experiences, as well as supportive families. These factors can deeply influence children’s cognitive and social-emotional development, school readiness, and long-term wellbeing.
Toward the end of last year we shared that Robins Foundation would be investing deeply, and more narrowly, in early childhood education (ECE). Since then we have launched our initial ECE-focused grant cycle, had numerous conversations with our nonprofit partners, and reviewed dozens of proposals aligned with our new strategic framework. We are pleased to announce the following grantee partners for our first ECE-focused grant cycle which totaled almost $900,000:
“All of these organizations have demonstrated a strong commitment to and have an impressive track record in early childhood education,” shares Robins Foundation President & CEO, Chris Chin. “We’re delighted to invest in their efforts to make a significant impact for Richmond families.”
Over the past year and a half, many of us were forced to assume multiple roles. We have been parents and employees, teachers, principals and cafeteria workers, rolled into one. This collision of work, school and home life has been a massive challenge. Families have experienced enormous stress due to seclusion, isolation, disruption and illness. And yet, we can feel the hope of summer. Mask mandates have been relaxed or lifted in some states. We’ve created memes to help us laugh during a traumatic year. Breaks from school are here and it seems relief is close at hand.
But imagine that in addition to the above challenges, you did not have the money or the technology for an internet connection at home this past year. Imagine you had difficulties accessing a computer with which your child could attend school, or that you did not have the money to feed them lunch every day. Imagine helping your child, or someone else’s child, succeed at virtual school under all these circumstances, while more family members and friends than you could count on your two hands became sick or died of COVID-19.
We learned directly from our School System Administrator partners and from families participating in the Richmond Resilience Initiative that many members of our own community navigated these challenges from March 2020 until now. These scenarios highlight why many of our students and educators will be returning to school in September dealing with some level of trauma.
A recent study conducted by our policy partner, The Commonwealth Institute (TCI) found that “[m]any students, particularly those whose parents could not afford private supports, have fallen behind in the virtual learning environment.” Another study cited by TCI “suggests that an additional investment of roughly $10,000 per student in school divisions with high concentrations of students living in poverty, Black and Latinx students, and English Learners is required to make up for lost learning time during the pandemic.”
The lost learning time cited by TCI must be addressed; however, a broader and more far-reaching concern is the social and emotional well-being of our students and educators. Recent studies confirm the depth of the damage caused to mental health across the country because of the pandemic. In fact, damage to mental health is being viewed, and prepared for, as the “next pandemic”.
Hearing directly from community partners, school division leaders and striving families offers a window into the collective trauma experienced over the past year and a half, particularly for communities of color and those living in poverty.
One common theme we hear is the resilience of families in the face of broken support systems. A partner at the YMCA described the humbling experience of working with parents in our community who were forced to choose between keeping their employment and keeping their children in school. Families showed creativity and determination, going to great lengths to keep their children logged-in and learning during the pandemic. For example, in the absence of access to home internet or programs that would help bridge such gaps, a common occurrence in communities of color, several parents of school-aged children came together to rent a motel room where their children could connect to wifi and log on for classes each day.
Another common theme of these collected stories is the pressure put on teachers to manage the mental and emotional wellbeing of their students, even as they are dealing with personal hardship and trauma. One of our school administrator partners lost 18 friends and family members to the pandemic, a level of loss many of our Black, Hispanic or low-income students experienced as well. Both educators and students will be carrying the impact of these losses, and their grief, with them as they reenter school.
We invite our partners and peer funders to join us in reflecting on ways we can address the educational losses created by the pandemic, while reevaluating educational priorities to address the disruption, trauma and stress experienced by our educators, our students and their families over the past 18 months.
As Robins Foundation’s VP of Program and Community Innovation, Robert Dortch, states, “We have to think differently, fund differently, lead differently, act differently, advocate differently, use our power and influence differently if we’re going to change the outcomes for children and families who are suffering.” Whether it is creating more opportunities for social and emotional learning and trauma-informed curriculum, partnering with our local government to create mobile health services, or other solutions, the Robins Foundation will be thinking differently about how to impact and influence educational recovery in our post-pandemic world.
We are learning directly from our School System Administrator partners and from families participating in the Richmond Resilience Initiative that families and children in our community have experienced significant challenges over the past year and a half, including depression, isolation and abuse. Angela Jones, Richmond Public Schools’ Director of Student and Family Services, said “Teachers, parents and students’ writing assignments have identified recurring expressions of depression, grief and anger.”
We have also seen, during this pandemic, that our non-profit partners have been overwhelmed with requests for support and services far beyond their existing programmatic and general operating capacity. As a result of this increasing need, there is opportunity for funders to increase their impact by leveraging our collective resources and expertise to support our region’s children, families and non-profits.
Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Robins Foundation has embarked on a learning journey with several peer funding partners and identified specific ways in which we can collaborate and leverage resources to increase community impact. We are pleased to share that the Bob and Anna Lou Schaberg Foundation, Richmond Memorial Health Foundation and Robins Foundation have created and approved a collaborative Social and Emotional Learning & Behavioral Health General Operating Support Grant.
Our foundations have approved five organizations as recipients of two-year Social and Emotional Learning & Behavioral Health General Operating Support grants for fiscal years 2021 to 2023, with funding from the three foundations totaling $700,000 ($70,000 per organization/year). The grantee organizations were specifically selected because of their ability to meet the unique needs of diverse populations, and because of their connection to social emotional learning. Needs in this area are significant and urgent due to the pandemic, so we prioritized organizations with a proven track record of successfully meeting community needs in partnership with the three collaborating funders. Meet our Social and Emotional Learning & Behavioral Health grantees:
Robert Bolling, CEO of ChildSavers said, “We cannot overstate the exacerbated impact of trauma on children made more manifest by a pandemic, by race and by the social injustices that create more stressors. Now is the time to help! Proper mental health supports enable kids to process trauma and to build resilience as a cornerstone for strength and the ability to thrive. Our partnership with Robins, RMHF and Schaberg Foundation provides crucial, accessible and timely aid for our behavioral health work with children.”
We are proud to join together in supporting these organizations during a time in which behavioral health services and social-emotional learning are critical to the ongoing recovery of our communities individuals, children and families.
We are excited to announce that Housing Families First has been awarded the $500,000 Lora M. and E. Claiborne Robins Community Innovation Grant (CIG) for their project Bringing Families Home.
Housing Families First (HFF) is a primary provider of crisis housing services for Richmond-area families experiencing homelessness. In partnership with the Richmond Public Schools McKinney-Vento Program, Bringing Families Home will provide assistance with housing search, rental applications, lease negotiation, and move-in funds so that unserved students and their families can secure stable housing and end their homelessness. This partnership project will provide the foundation – stable housing – on which students can build improved school attendance, reduced behavioral concerns, and/or improved academic achievement, while also providing parents and non-school-age siblings with the benefits of safety and stability.
“A great deal of effort has been made to ensure that every student succeeds academically, but many students, siblings, and their parents have been left behind when it comes to housing,” said Beth Vann-Turnbull, Housing Family First Executive Director. “Housing Families First is thrilled to partner with Richmond Public Schools to help families experiencing homelessness get back into a home of their own.”
CIG funds will be used by HFF to hire a Community Housing Navigator to provide housing search help, as well as financial assistance for leasing, for students and families prioritized by RPS McKinney-Vento staff.
“Each year as we take this journey through CIG grant process we are given the opportunity to learn more about and be inspired by the many amazing organizations in Richmond that are working to improve the lives of children and families in our community”, said Juliet Shield-Taylor, Robins Foundation Board Chair. “We are so excited to partner with Housing Families First and their collaborating organizations. What the Richmond Region needs is more innovative programs and approaches like Bringing Families Homes that have the capacity to really change lives.”
About Housing Families First
Originally founded in 2001 as Hilliard House, HFF supports families with minor children to access shelter and find permanent housing, then connects them with community resources to keep it. Their mission is to provide families experiencing homelessness with the tools to achieve housing stability. The goal is not only to assist families in finding permanent housing but also to ensure that each family has access to the supportive services necessary to sustain housing in the long run.
About the CIG
The CIG provides a unique opportunity, and a $500,000 award, for Richmond’s non-profits to propose actionable solutions that will have a meaningful and measurable impact on complex issues that our region has been wrestling with for generations, including homelessness, housing instability, education, workforce development, and health.
The CIG cycle started in October 2019 with proposal submissions. Organizations were invited to present ideas to the Robins staff and the CEO of the previous CIG winner. Following those presentations, ten non-profit proposals were invited to host site visits to bring their proposals to life. A committee of the Robins Foundation Board then met the top five to determine the top two finalists before announcing the recipient today.
Please take some time to view the videos from our Top 5 finalists for this year’s Lora M. and E. Claiborne Robins Community Innovation Grant.
Help Me Help You – “Reentry Navigation and Continuum of Care”
Housing Families First – “Bringing Families Home!”
Housing Opportunities Made Equal of Virginia (HOME) – “Eviction Diversion Program”
Latinos in Virginia Empowerment Center (LIVE) – “LIVE Center”
YMCA of Great Richmond – “Newcomer Welcome Center”
We are excited to announce the Top 5 finalists for the 2020 Lora M. and E. Claiborne Robins Community Innovation Grant.
Help Me Help You Foundation
Housing Families First
Housing Opportunities Made Equal
Latinos in Virginia Empowerment
YMCA of Greater Richmond
“This dynamic group of finalists embodies the spirit of the CIG,” said Robert Dortch, Robins’ VP of Program and Community Innovation. “They are driven to collaboratively find solutions to help address our community’s unmet needs. It’s been exciting to take a deep dive with each of them and see how committed they are to serving children and families in our community through these transformative ideas.”
Each finalist is committed to finding unique approaches, offering fresh perspectives and using visionary creativity to find innovative, long-term, sustainable solutions to the issues our region has been facing for decades.
For Robins, the CIG presents an opportunity to help organizations make an impact in the community by partnering and collaborating with them over the course of several years to build the innovation, implement it in the community, give the community and opportunity to embrace it, and then measure and report the results.
We asked each of our 2020 applicants to describe their innovative idea and project and its impact in the community and tell us what will be different in the lives of the target population as a result. We also requested they specify the project’s intended change and how funds provided by Robins will be used. Here is what each had to say.
Organization: Help Me Help You Foundation Project Title: HMHY Reentry Navigation Continuum of Care Response: 89% of lived experience expert’s (LEE’s) who participated in the Richmond Family Reentry CoC planning process expressed the desire for their most basic needs to make a difference in their lives. Adequately responding to intergenerational poverty and justice inequities requires funded programs built on the individual and collective strengths of LEE’s and, their institutional knowledge and skills to most effectively assist peers returning to the local Richmond Community.
CIG funding will help provide:
Navigational support and clinical case management for 50 unique Richmond families over a two-year period. Integrated evidenced-based practices and equitable barrier-free access will ensure families are directly connected to appropriate service interventions based on their own needs surrounding family reunification and restoration.
Six weekly intensive in-home counseling services to the entire family to reinforce parenting program lessons and the family’s ability to strengthen communication, build healthy connections, and overcome difficulties.
Support for a local feasibility study to explore the development of a formal data exchange network, systemwide community-based risk need assessment tool that addresses the intersecting needs of returning citizens and their families. This public safety strategy will ensure the target population has equitable opportunities for family reunification and reintegration success, as defined by them and rule of law.
Organization: Housing Families First Project Title: Bringing Families Home Response: Housing Families First (HFF) is a primary provider of crisis housing services for Richmond-area families experiencing homelessness. Originally founded in 2001 as Hilliard House, HFF supports families with minor children in accessing shelter and finding permanent housing, then connecting them with community resources to keep it.
In partnership with the Richmond Public Schools McKinney-Vento Program, HFF proposes a project to provide assistance with housing search, rental applications, lease negotiation, and move-in funds so that unserved students and their families can secure stable housing and end their homelessness.
This partnership project will provide the foundation of stable housing on which students can build improved school attendance, reduced behavioral concerns, and/or improved academic achievement, while also providing parents and non-school-age siblings with the benefits of safety and stability.
Organization: Housing Opportunities Made Equal Project Title: Eviction Diversion Program Response: Many people who are facing eviction have fallen behind on paying their rent due to an unexpected circumstance or unforeseen event. In an effort to prevent a temporary hardship from devastating a family, HOME will reduce the number of children destabilized by eviction, and will intervene in the eviction process and help 450 people annually maintain their existing housing. The program utilizes volunteer legal conciliation, negotiating a payment plan to reconcile the past-due amount owed and a financial empowerment course. Once accomplished, these efforts may enable families to avoid the inevitable anxiety and stress that often accompanies an eviction. contributing to a more stable physical and psychological environment for students and their families to thrive.
Organization: Latinos in Virginia Empowerment Project Title: Latinos Empowerment Center Response: Latinos In Virginia Empowerment Center (The LIVE Center) was established with the belief that members of the Latino/Hispanic Community have the cultural knowledge and language proficiency to best work with and engage Spanish-speaking victims through services.
This project will impact this community by creating a coordinated, consistent, reliable, accessible, affordable, comprehensive, and most importantly, a culturally appropriate approach that ensures access to timely and accurate information about victims’ rights and available services.
Latinos Empowerment Center is a peer model that aims to tap into the abilities of individuals to share critical information and resources, as well as empower the community and promote healthy relationships with other community members.
Organization: YMCA of Greater Richmond Project Title: Newcomer Welcome Center (NWC) Response: An innovative, collaborative effort, the NWC will reduce barriers and increase immigrants’ access to critical health and social needs services. Robins’ support will help launch the YMCA’s NWC, which will serve the immigrant community through tailored programs delivered in conjunction with community partners including schools, nonprofits, houses of faith, and local government, and referrals to a wide variety of other programs and services.
The NWC will promote equity in the Richmond region by engaging newcomers in culturally competent programs and services with the goal of addressing the community’s most pressing needs in accessible location(s).
About the CIG
The CIG provides a unique opportunity for Richmond’s non-profits to propose actionable solutions that will have a meaningful and measurable impact on complex issues that our region has been wrestling with for generations, including homelessness, housing instability, education, workforce development and health. For more information on this year’s CIG, visit https://legacy.robinsfdn.org/cig-2020/.
Robins Foundation Approved $6,385,725 in Grants for 2019
At Robins Foundation we are committed to a deep focus on education with the expectation that a focus on an “education continuum” or pipeline, could lead to better outcomes and reduce some of the challenges vexing this region. We continually look for innovative ways to keep making both incremental and transformational improvements in education policy and programmatic, nonprofit practice affecting children and families.
In support of this commitment, the Robins Foundation Board approved $6,385,725 in grants in 2019, including Community Focus Grants, Strategic Partnerships, the Lora M. and E. Claiborne Robins Community Innovation Grants, Northside Proceed Grants, and Director Initiated Grants.
Community Focus Grants, awarded two times per year, are for organizations and programs seeking funding along the education continuum. The board agrees that every level on the education continuum is critical to long term regional growth and success. We want to partner with organizations working to make the Richmond region the best place for children to learn, grow and thrive. We collaborate with neighborhoods, schools, nonprofits, and peers to move our region to a point where every child is bolstered by a well-coordinated education system. This year, $2,655,000 in Community Focus Grants were approved by the board.
For Strategic Partnerships, funding provides multi-year support for organizational growth in critical operations areas: Governance, Management, Finance, Fundraising/Development (Relationship Building) and Program. We use a number of tools to support leadership development, collaboration and the strengthening of resources “from the inside out” of an organization. The strategic partnership cohort includes Richmond City, Henrico County, Chesterfield County and Petersburg City public schools. Funding for Strategic Partnerships totals $505,000 for 2019.
The Lora M. and E. Claiborne Robins Community Innovation Grant (CIG) is awarded annually and funds proposals that celebrate the imaginative, cooperative spirit of Greater Richmond. The award is designed to support a project that addresses unmet community needs or issues in emerging neighborhoods. Successful proposals for the CIG demonstrate an innovative approach to solving the need, strategic collaboration, and the potential for a wider, long-term impact on the affected audience. CIGs totaled $1,310,000 in 2019.
In support of their commitment to children and families in Richmond’s Northside, Robins invested proceeds from the March 2019 sale of the Lora M. Robins Family Learning Center to help build the capacity of anchor organizations and support programs in Richmond’s Northside. The Northside Proceed Grants total $781,865 in 2019.
Each member of our Board of Directors has the opportunity to sponsor a limited number of Director Initiated Grants to organizations they consider deserving of support. These recommendations are strictly at the discretion of individual Board members and they may not be solicited for these funds. This year, the board funded $1,000,000 in Director Initiated Grants.
We strongly believe that serving the community isn’t just about funding. It’s about time, energy and ideas. Our staff welcomes the opportunity to align and strengthen our community by learning how to best support our nonprofit partners and their activities and initiatives. We are delighted to meet with organizations and engage in thoughtful dialogue that fosters innovation and drives transformation.
Let’s have a conversation about community, together.
Courtney Rice, Director of Inclusion and Community Impact, co-authored an article for Philanthropy Journal News about diversity, equity and inclusion, and how to move community forward from theory to practice. She addresses how this has worked within our own organization, in particular as it relates to our Community Innovation Grant, which is open for submission now through October 4th. Read more HERE.
Organization: Help Me Help You Foundation
Organization: Housing Families First
Organization: Housing Opportunities Made Equal
Organization: Latinos in Virginia Empowerment
Organization: YMCA of Greater Richmond
This grant opportunity has been created to assist small, women- and minority-owned businesses financially impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The MBL Small Business Recovery Fund grant application is now available. Apply today!
Application Closing Date: Friday, May 29, 2020 at 5:00 PM EST.
Visit https://lnkd.in/dmwaBsp, for more information on The Metropolitan Business League Small Business Recovery Fund Grant.