Thank you for your interest in the Community Opportunities Flexible Fund (COFF). This application is for all-volunteer community groups, individual consultants, and other unincorporated initiatives. 

Applications for 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(6) organizations, fiscally sponsored projects, LLCs/businesses, or other incorporated organizations, can be found here. 

OVERVIEW

The Community Opportunities Flexible Fund (COFF) provides a broad range of stipends, contracts, honoraria, and related expenditures of $2,500–$85,000 to efforts working to advance systems change for Los Angeles children prenatal to 5 and their families.

COFF aims to be accessible, including by people with little or no prior experience applying for funding, or prior relationship with First 5 LA.

For a complete set of funding guidelines, please visit: https://communitypartners.org/ecpaf. 

Unsure if your work is connected to systems change? Our friends at Social Justice Partners LA put together a wonderful guide defining systems change and explaining how it differs from direct service. 

FUNDING

Funding is available to volunteer groups, individual consultants, or other unincorporated entities in the form of contracts, stipends, honoraria, and payment of direct expenses associated with systems change activities. Examples of direct expenses may include, but are not limited to, translation services, transportation, meeting facilitation, planning, training, equipment, space rental, childcare for meetings, catering, and others.

Funds must support First 5 LA’s overarching systems change goal: that public systems most critical to children's development prenatal to 5 advance belonging and justice for communities which experience significant inequities.

Priority for funding will go to initiatives led by people historically excluded from and/or negatively impacted by the systems for which they are advocating change. For example, this includes people who experience poverty and/or other injustices based on racism, anti-Blackness, disability status, immigrant status, anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination, and the like.

 Funds may be used for a wide variety of purposes related to building community connections and voice of people most impacted to change systems affecting children prenatal to 5 and their families in Los Angeles County. Under First 5 LA by-laws, no funds may be used for grassroots lobbying. 

Depending on availability of funds and the nature of the funding, awardees may apply and receive funds multiple times over the four years of this fund. However, funding for each awardee will not exceed $85,000 per fiscal year (July 1 – June 30). 

Please note: any person, organization, or entity receiving funding must submit a W-9 tax form. Please be aware that receiving over $600 may have tax consequences and may impact eligibility for public benefits.

APPLICATION PROCESS

There are no deadlines to apply. The Community Opportunities Flexible Fund operates on a rolling basis between 2023 and 2028, subject to fund availability.

Please complete the fields below to submit your application. After submission, a member of the Community Partners team may follow up to discuss your idea in further detail. 

Depending on the nature and size of the request, we may ask you for additional information before seeking final approval from First 5 LA staff. Funding decisions may take up to 12 weeks following receipt of each application.