Reimagine Grants
Reimagine Grants support innovation and seeding of new ideas that result in significant positive social impact and help solve key community challenges in Sonoma Valley.
These grants fill a gap in funding for nonprofits that want to innovate and reimagine how we can solve complex local issues in our community.
The program compliments other local grant funding by supporting complex, unusual, and perhaps risky ideas.
Reimagine Grants include all phases of innovation: research, experimentation, pilots, and partnership development with a focus on:
Efforts that involve critical cooperation and collaboration among key actors who must work together for a solution
Efforts that involve leveraging government resources, or utilizing them better; public-private partnerships
Ideas for new solutions that need to be tested, piloted and designed further (including building an organization’s capabilities to execute the new solution)
Research and convenings to define an emerging or chronic problem and seek solutions that no single organization can address alone.
Examples of outcomes could include:
Increasing the adoption of evidence-based measurement tools, data collection and tracking.
Improving access to government funding sources.
Enhancing shared client outcomes.
Testing a new idea or seizing a new opportunity to create a more united, just and resilient Sonoma Valley
Examples of past Catalyst grants that fit these criteria:
Funding the Boys and Girls Club of Sonoma Valley to pilot mental health services for youth, in collaboration with Petaluma People Services, which has now grown into a permanent, multi-faceted mental health program.
Co-funding, with the City of Sonoma, a homeless services consultant to develop the 3-year coordinated plan to end homelessness for the city and surrounding areas, in collaboration with county and service providers.
Funding the creation of Sonoma Valley Health Collaborative to provide the first public vaccine clinics and ongoing pandemic response coordination.
What Reimagine Grants are not: strategic planning, campaign planning or program expansion (unless part of a larger collaboration or pilot program that strongly fits the overall Reimagine Grants criteria).
Application Process:
Any organization with an idea for a Reimagine Grant must have an initial conversation with the Catalyst Fund grants team about this project before applying online. Contact the grants team at grants@sonomavalleycatalystfund.org.
The objective of the initial conversation is to assess the project’s concept for alignment within the program’s purpose. After the initial conversation, the proposed project concept will be evaluated based on the initial criteria below. A project doesn't need to meet all these criteria, but the more it meets, the better the fit. Items 1 and 2 below are especially fundamental aspects to a Reimagine Grant.
It addresses a key issue/gap at the community level, not just at the organizational level.
It is a collaboration. A collaboration is joint problem solving between two or more entities, not just communication between organizations.
It is a reimagining of what needs to be done or how it could be done or both.
It can be planning or researching a problem; or anything from initiation to execution along the spectrum of innovation.
It creates something new and meets a new need OR addresses an old need in a new way. It is not a program expansion.
It can be anything that measurably impacts the quality of life here for Sonoma residents.
All proposals will need to answer the following questions to further define their project:
What key community-wide challenge or problem will be addressed with this project? Please include why this project should be considered as a Reimagine Grant based on the criteria and how this initiative ties to your mission/strategic plan.
How has your board been supportive of this initiative/project and if so, how?
Describe the project and it’s intended impacts and/or goals (quantitative and qualitative). Include how these goals/the impact will be measured and how will you know you have achieved them.
Please list the other organizations that will collaborate with you on this project, their key contributions and current commitment levels (early stage discussions, MOU, contract, etc.). Will any revenue(s) be shared among the partners and if so, how?
Please attach a project budget and include any explanatory narrative.
How do you plan to sustain or build upon the project's impact beyond the grant period?
Awarded Reimagine Grants
Sonoma Valley Education Foundation
To launch the Sonoma Valley Ready to Learn Collaborative, a coalition of seven youth-serving organizations that will combine and leverage their expertise and assets to support students socially, emotionally, and academically. The pilot project is the Empowerment Academy, an after school program co-piloted by SVEF, Mentoring Alliance and Sonoma Valley Boys and Girls Club. ($100,000).
To launch a new partnership involving City and County staff, Sonoma Valley Collaborative, and several housing organizations from across the North Bay to provide actionable direction about the subset of strategies, programs, and partners that will most improve housing affordability in Sonoma Valley. This effort will set the stage for major interventions to: expand housing services; extend expiring housing subsidies; build housing on land owned by governments, faith communities, and nonprofits; and plan for community engagement for multi-parcel redevelopment projects. ($96,200)
To pilot two bicultural, bilingual ballet class series in collaboration with Sonoma Conservatory of Dance. ($13,000)
To create a shared camping gear lending library among Sonoma environmental education organizations to increase equity and access to immersive, overnight camping programs. The grant was matched by several other funders, such as Sonoma Valley Rotary Club and Community Foundation Sonoma County.($15,000)
UPDATE: The inaugural use of the gear library took place on October 10th, 2024 at Sugarloaf Ridge State Park, during one of SEC’s capstone campouts for 5th and 6th graders in their Watershed Education Program. For many students, this was their first ever camping experience. The gear library will be available to nonprofit partner organizations within the Sonoma Environmental Education Collaborative (SEEC), at no cost.
