City of Austin's Office of Equity and Inclusion Newsletter Archive - Re-Entry Services Announcement Email Copy

Equity Mini-Grant and Immigrant Integration Funding Applications Now Open!

The City of Austin Equity Office is excited to announce the opening of two grant funds, the 4th iteration of the 'Equity Mini-Grant Fund' and the first-ever offering of 'Immigrant Integration' grants! See more information on each below, and get additional details including application link on this Grant Dashboard.

Equity Mini-Grant Fund

In the past, the Equity Mini-Grant fund has been a flexible funding opportunity intended for grassroots community organizations working to address major quality of life disparities in our community. Last year, the fund was pivoted to focus on community-led efforts to respond and recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, in recognition that was the largest challenge facing our community.

Given the continuing work in community and in the City of Austin to reimagine how we are ensuring safety for all of our communities, the Equity Mini-Grant fund seeks to fund projects that help us pilot community-centered solutions to public safety.

In late 2020, the Equity Office provided Reimagining Public Safety Grants. These grants were designed to fund organizations piloting solutions and engaging communities most impacted by state and interpersonal violence on what safety means. These grants will be a continuation of that work.

We do not presume to limit the creativity and resilience of communities that continue to be harmed by state violence and harassment. If the work of an organization is building from the leadership of community most directly impacted, it is work eligible for award in this grant.

Building from this, projects aligning with the values of the Reimagining Public Safety Task Force will be strongly considered for award, and projects that are working to pilot or implement recommendations made by the Task Force will be emphasized in the evaluation process.

Project awards of up to $50,000 will be considered.

Immigrant Integration Grants

In 2019, the City of Austin conducted a review of peer cities and the function of Immigrant Affairs Offices. This review determined we were one of the cities with the largest immigrant* communities without a central office to plan programming and services. As a result of this report, the City Council directed the creation of an Immigrant Affairs Office, and budgeted for an initial Immigrant Affairs Manager. In March of 2020, this position was hired, and the City began its journey to staff and build out its Immigrant Affairs Office.

A small pool of funding has been identified to establish an Immigrant Integration Mini-Grant Fund. The Fund provides flexible resources for local, grassroots efforts to seed projects that are focused on eliminating structural barriers and/or improving the quality of life for the City’s various immigrant* communities in order to increase their sense of welcoming and belonging. We are interested in supporting creative projects that can help bring diverse communities together in the spirit of collaboration.

This is the first application window for the Immigrant Integration Mini-Grant Fund, and project awards of up to $10,000 will be considered.

*For our purposes, the term “immigrant” is broad and includes people who are undocumented, refugees, asylees, and asylum-seekers.