National Grant Program
Richmonders Involved in Strengthening Their Communities, RISC
www.thedartcenter.org/RISC.html
Formally started in 2002 by the combined efforts of local clergy and community leaders, RISC congregations are working through congregation-based community organizing efforts to ensure a greater degree of justice for all people of Greater Richmond.
The mission of RISC is to bring together diverse congregations in order to powerfully address the root causes of poverty and injustice in the Greater Richmond area. RISC's member congregations are located throughout the Greater Richmond area and are diverse in their socio-economic, racial, denominational and geographic backgrounds. Congregations in RISC work together to build relationships, listen to common concerns, research community problems, and then to take action to see that systems in the community are held accountable to principles of justice and fairness.
Funds from CCHD would be used to augment staff salary and expenses to support new member recruitment and expansion in low-income areas in Richmond, including Downtown, Church Hill, Southside/Manchester and North Richmond. These funds would also support staff time and related expenses to train leaders from current congregations and new congregations in the basic principles of community organizing.
Interfaith Movement Promoting Action by Congregations Together, IMPACT
Interfaith Movement Promoting Action by Congregations Together (IMPACT) is a grassroots initiative bringing a diverse group of congregations together to live out the inter-religious call for justice in the local community of Charlottesville & Albemarle County, Virginia. Twenty-eight congregations are currently members of this organization, and represent a wide range of religious and community traditions. IMPACT seeks to address problems in the region through the basic organization processes of listening/networking, research and direct action meetings.
IMAPCT's strength in numbers and diversity is the foundation for the organization's ability to create local systemic change. Through its organizing process, IMPACT has had great success in education reform, healthcare funding, affordable housing, fair wages and implementation of community based policy efforts.
CCHD funding will support training expenses for local leaders and the salaries for the two organizers. These leaders will work with the grassroots organization within the areas of healthcare and transportation for the area.
The Clinch Coalition, TCC
The Clinch Coalition (TCC) is a community organizing group working to preserve the environment in the poor rural area of Appalachia in Southwest Virginia. For Catholics, caring for creation is a church teaching to which we are all called. Southwest Virginia is plagued by unemployment, substance and domestic abuse. Many young people flee the area for lives elsewhere. The best wage jobs in the area are found in coal, logging and prisons. This area is also home to some of the most unique plant and animal species found anywhere in the world. Due to persistent logging for lumber and mountain top removal for coal, the environment and biodiversity in Southwestern Virginia is threatened. The folks in Southwest Virginia are passionate about their land and mountains. Persons interested in preserving the environment began The Clinch Coalition (TCC) to keep the government from logging on a mountain known as High Knob and to keep trails for ATVs from being made. TCC has very grassroots beginnings.
TCC is an authentic organic organizing group. They are interested in meeting people where they are and having them join them and they have had success doing this. Their board meetings are public and always have people from the community present. When something happens that has to do with environmental issues in SW Virginia, people go to TCC for help and guidance as they are recognized as a group of local experts.
Funds from CCHD will be used to assist TCC in board and staff development and with efforts to involve more low income individuals as members and organization leaders. Funds will also be used for outreach and organizing efforts in addressing the environmental justice issues of deforestation and strip mining in the Appalachian Mountains of Virginia.
Local Grant Program
Residents of Public Housing in Richmond Against Mass Eviction (Re-PHRAME)
Residents of Public Housing in Richmond Against Mass Eviction (Re-PHRAME) is an alliance of public housing residents, advocates, concerned individuals and community groups devoted to preserving and expanding affordable housing options for low-income Richmonders. In addition to a leadership comprised of public housing residents, RePHRAME partner organizations include CNEED, Jobs With Justice, Legal Aid Justice Center, Legal Aid Client Advisory Council, Richmond NAACP, Richmond Peace Education Center, Richmond Tenants Organization, and the Virginia Organizing Project.
RePHRAME’s vision is for all residents of Richmond to have safe, stable, and affordable housing, with the necessary training and support system in place to eliminate poverty and provide opportunities for individual and community development.
This organization’s mission is to empower public housing residents and low-income residents to advocate for the preservation and expansion of public housing and other affordable housing options, and to build a powerful network, led by low-income residents but including other advocates and allies, to push for fair and humane housing policies in Richmond.
Appalachian Women's Alliance, AWA - Clincho Center in Floyd
The Appalachian Women's Alliance is building an educated and informed constituency of women from low income Appalachian communities who have the skills, confidence, and political analysis necessary to challenge prevailing patriarchy and participate fully in institutions, from the family to the government, that affect their lives. Clinchco, Virginia houses an isolated community of African American Appalachians who settled in the coal fields of far southwestern Virginia during the 'heyday' of the railroads and coal companies. Steeped in generational poverty and illiteracy, this isolated black community opened the Clinchco Center at the mouth of Clinchco's white 'holler' in a unique effort to work with their low income white neighbors to end extreme racism and poverty in our community.
The Appalachian Women's Alliance believes that solutions to poverty and violence in our society must be created from the ground up by those most affected. The organization believes systemic change can be brought about only by realigning what is valued in our society and by changing understandings of power from 'under and over' to 'shared'. The Alliance is organizing and taking action in their communities to create a just, equitable, tolerant, nurturing, 'whole' society in which members are connected and accountable to each other as well as to the greater society and earth of which we are part.
The Clinchco Center is a unique effort by an isolated black community in a defunct coal mining town to work with their low income white neighbors to end extreme racism and poverty in their community. The Clinchco Center has addressed community empowerment and civic participation on a variety of fronts including weekly computer classes, after-school tutoring, summer youth projects, internships, along with black history education, leadership development, skills-building, and race, class and gender education. CCHD funds will be used to continue support to build civic education and engagement work.
Total Action Against Poverty / Virginia CARES
www.tapintohope.org/programs/vacares.html
Total Action Against Poverty’s Virginia CARES (Community
Action Re-Entry System) program helps ex-offenders re-enter
productive, crime-free lives after incarceration through job
training and placement, peer support, remediation, and counseling.
Since 1976, VA CARES has served tens of thousands of ex-offenders,
and, over the past five years, helped 639 disenfranchised
ex-offenders regain the right to vote. In 2003 and 2004, through the
Rights Restoration Empowerment Project, a Catholic Campaign for
Human Development –funded initiative, VA CARES was instrumental in
helping hundreds of disenfranchised felons seek restoration of
rights. In recent years, the demand for rights restoration has
increased: In 2007, VA CARES helped 302 ex-offenders complete
right restoration applications, a 50 percent increase from 2006.
CCHD funding will be used for Virginia CARES’ Rights
Restoration Mentoring project. The project will utilize past
Virginia CARES graduates to create a renewable resource of Rights
Restoration Mentors that will provide current Virginia CARES clients
with information and materials on regaining their rights. The
project follows a strategy of education, organization, and
restoration to educate ex-offenders and the larger community about
rights restoration in
377,847 ex-offenders can not vote in
Giving Individuals Resources & Advocacy For a Fulfilling
Education (G.I.R.A.F.F.E)
This $7,000 CCHD grant is awarded to a group of Parent
Advocates of children with special needs, who serve as resources for
other parents of similar children in the remote, rural areas of Lee,
Wise, Dickenson, Buchanan, Russell, Bland and
Through their brochures, learning packets and their
willingness to host six regional workshops, and two bi-annual
conferences, the parents, all volunteers, provide peer education,
moral support, and motivation to present and future parent advocates
of special needs children.
Although many of the parents are eligible for legal aid
services and Medicaid to assist them with their children, the rural
locations and regional economy, limited local educational services
and funds, all create strong barriers to institutional change.
These parents work with each other and the teachers to bring needed
attention to the special needs realities.
Quality Community Council (QCC) in
Charlottesville
The QCC is a citizen-driven community coalition
dedicated to improving the quality of life in
The $6,000 CCHD grant for their project ‘Cease the Silence, Stop the Violence’ is in response to an increase in the murders within the community. Low income residents and youth are organizing to train young people to speak out against gun violence. Participants will use community organizing techniques as well as resources. The grants will provide support for staff to work with youth on leadership and organizing skills.
Interfaith Movement Promoting Action by Congregations Together in Charlottesville (IMPACT)
http://impactcville.blogspot.com/
Interfaith Movement Promoting Action by Congregations Together (IMPACT) is a grassroots initiative bringing a diverse group of congregations together to live out the inter-religious call for justice in the local community of Charlottesville & Albemarle County, Virginia. Twenty-eight congregations are currently members of this organization, and represent a wide range of religious and community traditions. IMPACT seeks to address problems in the region through the basic organization processes of listening/networking, research and direct action meetings.
IMPACT's strength in numbers and diversity is the foundation for the organization's ability to create local systemic change. Through its organizing process, IMPACT has had great success in education reform, healthcare funding, affordable housing, fair wages and implementation of community based policy efforts.
CCHD funding of $5250 will support their project ‘Latino Out Reach’. It focuses on transportation issues, dental care access and affordable housing that affect low income residents in