Workforce Development Pilot Initiative
Application Guidelines
Project Background
With funding from Cedars-Sinai, the Black Equity Collective is leading the grant making process for a pilot project to enhance equity in the healthcare workforce. This project seeks to expand workforce development strategies that result in more Black residents in SPA 6 and Inglewood, CA gaining access to sustainable, living wage career pathways in healthcare, allied health, behavioral health, community and public health, oral health, biomedical science or medical research, and/or the intersection of climate and health.
Project Scope
This project will provide funding for one-year to organizations focused on developing and implementing effective pipeline and recruitment strategies that result in job connection and upward mobility into high quality healthcare pathways that provide a livable and sustainable wage for Black populations. Healthcare pathways include but are not limited to: birth workers and birth equity, reproductive justice, community health workers and educators, home health care professionals, mental health, oral health and other social determinants of health, including factors contributing to COVID-disparities such as environmental health, public health, and disease prevention.
Funded activities may include but are not limited to:
●Healthcare Workforce Development
○ Actively recruiting, training, and supporting Black residents to pursue or advance
careers in healthcare.
○ Pipeline recruitment into Community-Based Healthcare Services i.e., community
clinics, mobile health units, or telehealth services.
○Career technical training, career technical education and/or job mobility (Aiding in
the upward movement in which employees advance in pay grade, upskilling
incumbent workers)
○Paid apprenticeship/internship opportunities. (i.e., On the job training and/or
supports that allow applicants to access on-the-job-training opportunities)
○Job placement assistance (i.e., interview prep, soft skills; resume building;
sponsorships)
●Practice and System Change:
○Efforts to address unique challenges and reduce systemic barriers that result in
racial and ethnic disparities in health access, care and support by targeting career
pathway success as early as secondary education and through post-secondary
education.
○Addressing social determinants of health interventions that offer integrated
approaches to improve these determinants and overall community well-being will
be prioritized.
Focus Geographies:
Funding is limited to organizations that have a history and footprint working in SPA 6 and Inglewood, CA. Organizations outside of the focus geography will not be considered for funding.
Populations for Focus:
This pilot is specifically geared towards Black-led, Black-empowering and/or Black-serving organizations within the focus geographies serving one or more of the following sub-workforce populations:
● Low Income Communities (Foster, First Generation, etc.)
● High School students (Seniors)
● Community College Students (Currently Enrolled, Stop-Out Students)
● Displaced, Dislocated or Returning workers.
● Incumbent Workers (Entry level, Intermediate Level, Veterans, Prior Learning Credit)
● Persons or individuals with prior justice system involvement (Previously incarcerated, Family members of justice involved persons)
● Individuals with disabilities and/or single parents, including single pregnant women.
● Communities with high health-risk factors that may face employment discrimination (mental health illness, chronic disease or illness)
Grant Amount and Grant Period:
There will be 5-7 awards totaling up to $110,000 per award for 12 months. Grantees will be expected to attend (3) required learning sessions and will receive an additional participation stipend to attend.
Expected Outcomes
Applicants should be prepared to discuss how they will measure and track success against their stated project goals using various data sources and be clear about what they can accomplish within the one-year pilot period.
Eligibility:
1) Organization type: Collaborative Partnerships where there is a lead agency with an identified program partner (confirmed through MOU that articulates each partner’s role and capacity to meet its stated deliverables); or Independent 501(c)3 organizations in good standing with the IRS. This includes fiscally sponsored organizations.
2) Organization profile: Organizations vested in long-term results within the community; and have a track record of providing quality culturally relevant training to Black residents in the Black community with evidence of producing long-term results.
3) Geographic Focus: See above.
4) Population Focus: See above.
5) Bonus Eligibility: CBOs with no prior grant funding from Cedars Sinai may rank higher in priority in the application review process. CBOs that are current grantees of Cedars Sinai will not be excluded but be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.
Application Tips:
For Healthcare Workforce Development projects:
● Articulate a clear project plan that includes what you expect to accomplish within the 12-month grant period.
● Demonstrate the connection between your methods and long-term job retention of your target population (greater than six months) and how you track that data.
● Articulate how your training and placement programs provide livable wage opportunities within the geographic focus area for one or more of the healthcare fields listed in the scope, including the new rates determined. Detail how your organization arrives at a livable wage rate.
For Practice and System Change projects
● Articulate a clear problem statement, the systemic changes required to address the problem and how your project addresses them.
● Outline how you will track and measure success relative to your proposed project plan.
Application Timeline & Review
1. Grant Deadline is Tuesday, October 31, 2023, at 11:59pm
2. An Online Application with supporting documents must be submitted. Application link here.
3. Funding decisions will be announced by mid-December 2023
Applications will be screened for eligibility and completeness by an independent Community Review Committee selected by the Black Equity Collective. The Community Review Committee will evaluate eligible applications and will make grant recommendations. Staff of the Black Equity Collective do not participate in the selection process.
For more information on grant requests, please send an email with subject titled “Questions” to eboney@socialgoodsolutions.com
Application Questions
Provide a brief overview about your organization, your work and your constituency or specifically, Black communities you serve: (Limit to 200 - 500 characters)
Complete Demographic % of Black people:
a. ____ Currently Serving on Board b. ____ Executive Leadership c. ____ Staff d. ____ Volunteers e. ____ Constituency/Clients/Members served f. Communities Served ___SPA6 ____ Inglewood ___ Both Cities
3. What is your organization’s annual operating budget?
4. Please respond to narrative questions for either Healthcare Workforce
Development or Practice & Systems Change Project in no more than 3 to 5 pages, 12
pt font, single spaced.
5. Prepare a project budget. The following budget template can be used.
Key Definitions
Black Led - Black leaders are in a position of influence within the organization. A majority of the Board is Black, AND Brown. The Executive Director is Black, or the Executive Leadership/Organizational Lead is majority Black.
Black Empowering - The organization demonstrates an institutional commitment to justice and liberation for Black people, evidenced by one or more of the following: 1. Developing a constituent base working to advance structural and systemic changes that improves the material conditions for Black life, 2. Embedding Black voice and the lived experiences of Black people as critical expertise that guides the fabric of the organization’s mission, vision, values, and core work; and develops both individual agency and community capacity to advocate for conditions that enable Black people to thrive.
Black Serving - Organizations that are committed to serving and empowering Black people as evidenced by:
1. Programmatic services that prioritizes and targets the needs of Black people. 2. Has a history of serving Black people.
Career Pathway - A mapped series of manageable education and training steps toward industry-aligned skills, credentials, and career advancement.
Career Technical Education - Competency-based and academically integrated career training in an industry.
Job Mobility -The movement of employees across positions or pay grades, an upward movement in which employees advance.
Partnership - A formal arrangement between the CBO and an entity to manage or provide a service(s) and share its resources in efforts of fulfilling their mission. Commonly with a memorandum of understanding (MOU).
Placement - The process of connecting the selected person and the employer in order to establish an ongoing employment relationship.
Preferred career pathways - are occupations that can lead to career progression enabling an individual to increase their income and or receive a promotion with title change.
Social Determinants of Health - The conditions where people are born, live, learn, work, play, worship, and age that affect a wide range of health, functioning, and quality-of-life outcomes. (i.e., poverty, unequal access to health care, lack of education, stigma, and racism are underlying, contributing factors of health inequities.)
Targeted career pathways - Are high-mobility and high-job quality pathways that do not require a bachelor’s degree.
About the Funder
Cedars-Sinai’s institutional mission has long encompassed improving the health of the community through the patient care and philanthropic support of community partners. With a strategic focus on three priority areas – improving access to care, addressing social determinants of health, and enhancing civic engagement – Cedars-Sinai grantmaking works to reduce health disparities, build the capacity of nonprofit organizations serving vulnerable populations, and break down the barriers that affect hundreds of thousands of people within the local healthcare safety net.
About the Black Equity Collective
The Black Equity Collective is an ecosystem of funders and communities joined as partners in strengthening the long-term sustainability of Black-led and Black-empowering organizations in Southern California. We believe in the power of Black possibilities and in a vision rooted in Black permanency. We know that our vision of healthy, joyous, thriving Black communities cannot happen without investing in the long-term sustainability of Black-led and Black-empowering organizations, who often serve as our community's first responders. Social Good Solutions manages the full operations of the Black Equity Collective.