Investing in Community to Grow
What It Takes to Thrive
Lasting change does not come from programs alone. It grows when communities have the relationships, voice, power, and resources to shape their future. Contra Costa Together’s Community Grants reflect that belief by investing in community-rooted organizations and leaders who are growing belonging, strengthening civic muscle, and advancing the Vital Conditions that help people and places thrive. This is part of a broader effort to build a more thriving, connected, and community-led Contra Costa.
Why investing in community matters
Small and mid-sized grants can do more than support individual projects. They can help grow the leadership, connections, and momentum communities need to create lasting change.
- Catalytic investments can go a long way. Even modest funding can help groups try new approaches, deepen partnerships, and build momentum that positions communities for larger opportunities and future investment.
- Community-led work leads to stronger solutions. When residents and community-rooted organizations help shape the work, efforts are more likely to reflect local priorities, build trust, and respond to what matters most in people’s daily lives.
- Investing in community can help shift systems over time. Local organizations are not only addressing immediate needs. They are also building leadership, networks, and community voice that can influence policies, practices, and systems in ways that support longer-term change.
Contra Costa Together Community Grants
Community Grants
Arts Contra Costa County
Youth Arts Connection program at John A. Davis Juvenile Hall in Martinez. To build confidence by strengthening reading, writing, and artistic skills.
Populations of Focus
Youth
Black Girls Mental Health Foundation
To provide therapy to community members who face financial, cultural, or logistical barriers to care, and to train local providers in culturally affirming perinatal mental health care.
Populations of Focus
BIPOC
CoCoKids
This project examines how climate change, particularly extreme heat and poor air quality, is impacting early childhood development and caregiving environments. Through trainings and educational materials reaching 250 childcare sites and over 800 families, it equips Early Care and Education providers with tools to build climate resilience and strengthen community health long term.
Populations of Focus
Children & Families
East Bay Center for Performing Arts
Young Artist Diploma Program’s leadership development pathway for recent graduates – including college preparation, scholarships, and mentorship. Preparing youth as cultural workers, educators, advocates and community leaders.
Populations of Focus
BIPOC Youth
FIERCE Advocates
Community Educational Leadership Institute (CELI) ensures comprehensive support that eliminates barriers for parents and caregivers to engage in public policy and civic involvement.
Populations of Focus
BIPOC Parents & Caregivers
First Five Contra Costa
To implement universal developmental screening using the Ages and Stages Questionnaires for Transitional Kindergarten (TK) students enrolling in public school – providing supports to children with mild-to-moderate learning and behavioral needs.
Populations of Focus
Youth & Families
Hijas del Campo
The Campesinx Committee, organizing and advocating for the issues most important to farmworkers, seeks to strengthen civic engagement, elevate their voices in local decision-making, and build collective power to advance fair and dignified working and living conditions.
Populations of Focus
Spanish-Speaking Families
Love Never Fails
To empower survivors through a range of trauma-informed services including, but not limited to, street outreach, crisis intervention, safe housing, mental health counseling, mentoring, legal advocacy, job skills training, workforce development, case management and reunification services.
Populations of Focus
People of Color with Disabilities
Monument Impact
“Our Roots, Our Home” is an 8-week paid Leadership Training that focuses on power-building by teaching community organizing skills for systems change and offering political education.
Populations of Focus
BIPOC
Urban Tilth
Food for All! Project that delivers fresh, healthy food through our Farmers to Families FREE CSA Program, our FREE Farm Stand Program, as well as supporting culturally relevant nutrition education workshops, cooking demonstrations, and community workshops.
Populations of Focus
Farmers & Residents of Color
Village Community Resource Center
VCRC programs interrupt the cycle of despair, giving families health- and prosperity-building tools so that they and their children can create better futures.
Populations of Focus
Children & Families
YES Nature to Neighborhoods
YES’s Adult Leadership Pathway: Two progressive cohorts – Nurture Your Power (NYP) and Use Your Power (UYP). Together, the cohorts create a pathway of resident leaders equipped to address local challenges, advocate for equitable policies, and advance health and wellbeing in Richmond.
Populations of Focus
Residents
Mini-Grants
Families Empowered and Transformed (F.E.A.T.)
Support for two Fearless Triple P series supporting 24 immigrant and newcomer parents whose children are experiencing anxiety tied to social adjustment and political stressors. The funding covers parent programming, concurrent youth mentoring, and essential supports like translation, childcare, meals, and transportation to ensure full family participation and measurable impact.
Populations of Focus
Immigrant Families
Fresh Lifelines for Youth (FLY)
FLY aims to partner with youth to unlock potential, disrupt the pipeline to prison, and advance justice in California and beyond – connecting youth with their education, avoiding further justice involvement, accessing opportunities for lifelong success, and building positive relationships with their communities.
Populations of Focus
BIPOC Youth
Healthy and Active B4-5
To reach childcare providers, health care providers, health educators, home visitors, and other service providers to disseminate vital information to families, helping guide HAB45’s advocacy work, improve systems and advance health equity policies for Contra Costa families.
Populations of Focus
BIPOC Families
People Who Care Children’s Association
Youth Voices Program is a 10-month civic leadership initiative serving a cohort of 10 high school students. A yearlong journey of learning, advocacy, and community engagement to help them understand local government, find their civic voice, and shape community decisions.
Populations of Focus
Youth of Color
Prison From-the- Inside-Out
The launch of Saving Our Streets (SOS)’s Community Trust-Building Initiative in partnership with Prison From-The-Inside-Out (FTIO) – ensuring that residents have access to safe spaces for collaboration, prevention education, and community leadership development.
Populations of Focus
Youth & Residents of Color
Reimagine Richmond
Civic Muscle Workshop Series to empower and train members to navigate and influence local gov’t systems. Upcoming training will focus on understanding city council agendas, effective public comments, enacting ordinances, the role of the city charter, and how to engage with ballot measures.
Populations of Focus
Latino/a/x, Indigenous, People of Color
Richmond Progressive Alliance
This project directly strengthens the “Belonging and Civic Muscle” by expanding access to voter education, supporting youth-led forums, and providing mentorship from seasoned organizers. The initiative builds individual and collective capacity for sustained civic engagement.
Populations of Focus
Youth, Young Adults of Color
United Latino Voices of Contra Costa County
These funds will enable ULV to expand its hands-on Emerging Leaders Program by adding two community college interns who will work directly with the Concord Immigrant Protection Network, a collaborative of ULV, Monument Impact, and East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy.
Populations of Focus
Immigrant Young Adults
What We’re Learning from Grantees
As grantee partners move their work forward, they are surfacing practical lessons about what it takes to strengthen belonging, build civic muscle, and advance the Vital Conditions in real time. These insights reflect what partners are noticing, testing, and asking for as they work across communities, organizations, and systems.
Belonging and civic muscle are the work:
Power building, co-creation, and shared stewardship are essential to advancing all other vital conditions.
Grantees want clearer pathways to align, collaborate, and act as a true network-of-networks.
Trust-building, truth-telling, and staying in the room together are seen as prerequisites for transformational change.
Participants want platforms, peer learning, and documentation to maintain momentum between convenings.
Engaging young people as leaders—not just participants—is critical to long-term civic power and movement building.
Grantees need support connecting to larger investments to sustain and scale deeper community-led work.
