Community Catalyst Awards

UC END DISPARITIES Community Catalyst Award 2023

 

Request for Applications (RFA): Community Catalyst Awards 2023

UCLA and UC Irvine’s UC END DISPARITIES Center seeks to improve health outcomes in local communities. Funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Center is a community-academic partnership to increase prevention and improve outcomes in cardiometabolic conditions to promote health equity, such as high blood pressure, stroke, and diabetes. We are awarding 2 Community Catalyst Awards of $20,000 total costs (direct + indirect) each to support community organizations working in this area. 

 

ELIGIBILITY/ REQUIREMENTS 

Who is eligible to apply? 

  • 501c3 community-based organizations that provide services to at-risk communities in Los Angeles County or Orange County, California who are disproportionately affected by cardiometabolic conditions. Groups without  501(c)3 status can apply with a fiscal sponsor.

 

What are the project requirements? 

  • Awardees will be asked to share their work at the annual UC END DISPARITIES retreat (date TBD) 
  • Funds may be used to support adaptations or scaling up of ongoing projects and/or new projects related to community capacity building that promotes cardiometabolic health 
  • Awardees will need to complete and submit all appropriate paperwork to disburse funds (e.g., University of California, National Institutes of Health). UC END-DISPARITIES will work with organizations to identify and address any questions about the forms needed to process awards.
  • Awardees will have approximately one year to spend the funds 

 

What are reviewers looking for in a successful application? 

The reviewers will include trained community and academic reviewers. They will be looking for the following: 

  • Projects with goals to address prevention and improve outcomes in cardiometabolic conditions (e.g., high blood pressure, diabetes, chronic kidney disease, stroke, liver disease etc.), especially among communities that are most disproportionately impacted by these conditions 
  • Projects that focus on increasing community capacity to prevent and/or address cardiometabolic outcomes or directly impact prevention/outcomes in the community (e.g., community engagement, needs assessment, training in best practices)
  • Projects that include measures of success as they relate to the proposed programmatic, assessment, planning, and/or evaluation activities (e.g., number of people served through a particular program; number of focus group discussions held; number of meetings; developing and disseminating a newsletter; improving a particular health behavior or health outcome such as physical activity, HbA1c, or blood pressure). This list of examples is not exhaustive, as we recognize that applicants will know best what measures of success to include for the proposed activities. 

 

 

Application Submission Portal

CLICK HERE

Important dates

  1. Release of Request For Application (RFA): January 17, 2023
  2. Office hours: January 25, 2023; 12-1pm & February 15, 2023; 12-1pm 
  3. Application due date: March 13, 2023 at or before 11:59am
  4. Award notifications sent out on April 25, 2023
  5. Project start date: June 1, 2023

 

 

Applications will be scored using the below criteria:

 

Applications will be scored using the below criteria:
Criteria Questions High Impact Medium Impact Low Impact
Community engagement Does this project benefit under-resourced local LA or OC communities that experience higher burden of cardiometabolic health disparities? Proposed activities have a clear connection between activities and eventual benefits in an LA and/or OC community Activities address a need but there's an unclear benefit in an under-resourced community Activities do not appear to eventually benefit an under-resourced community
Community engagement Does this application describe previous experience working with this (or these) community/communities? Activities are based upon experience working with the community/ communities that experience cardiometabolic needs There is an unclear or weak connection between the proposed activities and previous engagement with the community Proposal does not describe any experience working with the specific communit(ies)
Community capacity and/or Cardiometabolic outcomes Does the project impact organizational and/or community capacity to improve cardiometabolic health for the communities of focus? Clear description of training or power-building with clear impact on staff and/or community members Unclear description of efforts to train or build power among staff and/or community members; or clear description of organizational and/or community capacity building, though the anticipated impact is nominal No description of any training or power-building activities or no described impact among staff and/or community members
Community capacity and/or Cardiometabolic outcomes Does this project impact cardiometabolic outcomes (or prevention)? For example, outcomes could include changes in health behaviors (diet or physical activity), number of conversations with community members about health issues or social factors or features of the built environment that shape health, blood pressures within range, measures of air quality, food insecurity. Has a measurable outcome that is clearly linked to cardiometabolic prevention or disease; measures baseline and change in outcome; proposal has a meaningful comparator group; presents a feasible goal for impact cardiometabolic outcomes and has a significant impact (or the potential for) Measures outcomes that are linked to cardiometabolic prevention or disease; the proposal does not have a clear comparator group; the project has a goal for impact on cardiometabolic outcomes that needs more detail Does not describe outcome measures clearly (or outcome is not clearly linked to cardiometabolic disease or prevention); does not have a clear or feasible goal for impact on cardiometabolic related outcomes and the impact is nominal
Feasibility Are the project description/goals as described reasonable given the budget for staff and resources? Description/goals are feasible for the budget; details are sufficiently described, including staff &/or resources for community members Description/goals are moderately ambitious or under-scaled for the budget; some budget details need to be fleshed out Description/goals are very ambitious or seem insufficient for the budget; limited details in the budget that address feasibility
Feasibility Are the project description/goals as described reasonable given the timeline? Reasonable timeline to conduct project activities & achieve goals Timeline is moderately ambitious or under-developed for the project activities and goals Timeline is very ambitious or insufficient to conduct project activities and achieve goals
Community impact Will this project have an impact on cardiometabolic disparities in the local community? Describes cardiometabolic disparities and also how this project will have an impact on those disparities Unclear description, or nominal predicted impacts, between project activities and cardiometabolic change Does not describe any impact on cardiometabolic disparities