First 5 LA Early Childhood Policy Advocacy Fund - Community Opportunities Flexible Fund - FY 26-27
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Thank you for your interest in the Community Opportunities Flexible Fund (COFF). Los Angeles-serving nonprofit organizations, fiscally sponsored projects, and social-benefit businesses are invited to apply. Applicants must have total annual budget under $6 million and be involved in systems change initiatives affecting children ages prenatal to 5 and their families.
OVERVIEW
The Community Opportunities Flexible Fund (COFF) provides grants of up to $70,000. Funding supports systems change efforts aligned with Goal 1 of First 5 LA’s strategic plan: that children prenatal to age 5 and their families have their basic needs met. This includes reducing infant mortality, reducing rates of poverty, and/or reducing housing insecurity for Los Angeles children prenatal to five. Upcoming deadline: Monday, August 3, 2026.
COFF aims to be accessible. We encourage applications from organizations that have never received foundation or government grants, or other forms of funding in the past. No prior relationship with First 5 LA is required.
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
The Community Opportunities Flexible Fund will distribute grants of up to $70,000. Specifically, funded activities should support changing systems so that children prenatal to age 5 and their families have their basic needs met. This includes:
- Reducing infant mortality
- Reducing poverty
- Reducing housing insecurity.
Activities must be aligned with one of three strategies to impact children prenatal to age 5 and their families:
- Public policy efforts at the local, state, and federal levels
- Advocating to strengthen public systems, services, and supports
- Growing a social movement to elevate their needs
Applicants should also consider how their activities will be sustained beyond First 5 LA funding. Although grant funds may be spent primarily to support staffing, this one-time grant may not be used to support more than 30% of the salary of each individual staff member.
Under First 5 LA by-laws, no funds may be used for grassroots lobbying.
For a complete set of funding guidelines, please visit: https://communitypartners.org/ecpaf.
APPLICATION PROCESS
Upcoming deadline: Monday, August 3, 2026
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.
Use of AI: We discourage using ChatGPT or other generative AI writing tools, as they tend to produce narratives that are broad and generic, with almost identical formatting and language usage. Please know that buzzwords and jargon do not always strengthen proposals. Instead, we encourage you to tell us about your organization and how you plan to use these grant funds in your own voice!
Depending on the nature and size of the request, we may ask for additional information before seeking final approval from First 5 LA staff. Funding decisions may take up to 8 weeks following the application due date.