We Raise Foundation Awards Two $100,000 GrantsPlus Grants

We Raise Foundation recently awarded two $100,000 grants that will assist Christian organizations working to build healthier communities through education, workforce development, or criminal justice programs. GrantsPlus grants support new and innovative projects in Chicago, St. Louis, Milwaukee, and Oakland/San Francisco working at the intersection of poverty, violence, and inequality.

In addition to the grant award, We Raise also provides critical capacity building services in the area of resource development to help strengthen and sustain the programs we fund. For each grantee, we conduct a resource development assessment, incentivized crowdfunding campaign, and research. GrantsPlus recipients also participate in webinars, convening events, and workshops.

The two new grant recipients are:

Farming Hope Impact Expansion
Farming Hope
San Francisco, Calif.
Grant Amount – $100,000

Farming Hope is addressing the Bay Area’s most pressing crisis: homelessness. Through its farm-to-table paid job training program and partner network, Farming Hope is helping people facing barriers to employment feel empowered and become self-sufficient by learning culinary skills and being given post-training job opportunities.

Following a nationally-recognized curriculum from the Catalyst Kitchens network, Farming Hope runs three 12-week Culinary Apprentice Program sessions a year for people from extremely low income populations in the San Francisco neighborhoods of the Mission, Tenderloin, and Mid-Market, which are neighborhoods with high populations of individuals experiencing homelessness. As part of the Culinary Apprentice Program, participants will receive paid, hands-on training (24 total hours in horticulture job training and 290 hours in culinary career training) in a social enterprise and social justice-oriented restaurant, Manny’s, located in the Mission District.

Improving Academic Success Through School-Centered Mental Health
Lutheran Social Services of Wisconsin and Upper Michigan
Milwaukee, Wis.
Grant Amount – $100,000

Lutheran Social Services of Wisconsin and Upper Michigan (LSS) is addressing children’s mental health needs both at school and in the home for Milwaukee’s south side community. LSS provides therapists and family coaches to work with families of students who are receiving mental health services at United Community Center’s (UCC’s) two on-site charter schools. Children from Bruce-Guadalupe Community School (K3-8) and Acosta Middle School (Grades 6-8) are referred to the program by the school’s counselor. The LSS therapist works with children one-on-one and in the classroom and the family coach makes in-home visits. The school-centered mental health team works collaboratively to provide resources, promote parent skill development, and educate UCC staff on mental health stressors and trauma associated with unemployment, domestic, violence, addiction, homelessness, poverty, etc. Fourteen children and their families participated during the school’s 2018/2019 pilot year. LSS has doubled the number of clients and families this year with plans for continued growth at UCC and other nearby schools. Integrating mental health services into a students’ home life reduces the need for foster care, lowers truancy rates and school violence, and improves academic achievement, according to LSS.

About We Raise Foundation
Motivated by the belief that freedom is grace in action (Galatians 5:1a), We Raise Foundation partners with Christian nonprofit organizations and emerging leaders working at the intersection of poverty, violence, and inequality. We have a preference for funding solutions within the areas of education, workforce development, and criminal justice and employ a unique approach to our investing by coupling program funding with a variety of robust value-added services that empower our grantees to grow their solutions. As a result of these value-add services, every $1 that donors invest through We Raise multiplies into more than double the benefit to the organizations we support. To learn more, please visit weraise.org. You can also find We Raise on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.