HUD Announces $10 Million Competition for White House Initiative

HUD Announces Notice of Funding Availability for the Strong Cities Strong Communities National Resource Network
Approximately $10 Million Available for Competition

On Wednesday, November 28, 2012, HUD announced its Notice of Funding Availability (NOFA) for the Strong Cities Strong Communities National Resource Network (SC2 Network). The NOFA competes out approximately $10 million in funding to be awarded to only one entity or a consortium to manage and implement the SC2 Network. Entities that are eligible to apply are nonprofit organizations, foundations, anchor institutions, for-profit companies, or a consortium of these entities with demonstrated ability to raise philanthropic support. Anchor institutions are defined as entities that represent educational institutions, or regional and national organizations that support economic drivers such as in housing, infrastructure, and/or economic and workforce development.

The SC2 Network is one of four key components of the Obama Administration’s Strong Cities Strong Communities (SC2) initiative which provides capacity support and technical assistance to cities facing long-term economic challenges. The SC2 Network is a capacity building program targeted to assisting the nation’s most distressed cities, and will function as a central portal to connect such places to national and local experts with wide-ranging expertise and skills. This NOFA represents the largest competitive funding announcement under SC2 to date.

The SC2 Network will align federal resources as well as coordinate the separate and wide-ranging pools of technical experts and assistance programs with the needs of each community to help them make more effective investments at the local level. The objectives of the programs are as follows:

• Provide communities facing long-term economic challenges with easily accessible and comprehensive technical assistance that can help retool them for future economic growth;
• Build capacity in distressed communities by connecting them with philanthropic organizations, non profits, public and private sector entities to facilitate long-term partnerships and economic investments;
• Develop a set of best practices and policy recommendations that can be disseminated and shared across all communities facing similar economic challenges; and
• Improve the alignment of federal resources as well as strengthen federal and local partnerships.

For more information on the SC2 Network, as well as information on how to apply, interested applicants should visit: https://apply07.grants.gov/apply/forms_apps_idx.html. At this website, applicants will be prompted to enter an identifier code for the SC2 Network. To get the SC2 Network NOFA, along with the application materials, applicants should enter 14.534 under the heading for “CFDA Number.”