Cincinnati committee recommends Cincinnati Children’s‑led coalition for $850,000 Impact Award to address food insecurity and violence

The committee heard details of the Human Services Impact Award and HSAC’s recommendation to fund a Cincinnati Children’s‑led collaborative that links food‑security interventions to neighborhood safety strategies.

The Impact Award is a one‑time competitive prize intended to fund collaborative, systems‑level work. Lauren Mertens, chair of the Human Services Advisory Committee, said the award “is an opportunity to pursue an innovative collaborative and bold strategy,” and that the RFP required multi‑organization proposals with a lead agency and partners serving multiple high‑need neighborhoods and populations experiencing food insecurity.

The recommended awardee is a Cincinnati Children’s‑led effort described in the application as the SAFE Network: Hunger, Healing and Hope (also referred to as the Achieve Food Equity Network in the presentation). The proposal requests a total Impact Award investment of $850,000 and describes a neighborhood hub network that would establish eight community‑designed and resident‑led food and resource hubs, incorporate urban farms, coordinate targeted supports for priority groups (including firearm‑injury survivors, system‑involved youth and public‑school students), and pursue systems‑change activities such as policy advocacy, media narrative work, transit access improvements and a public data dashboard.

The nut graf: HSAC recommended this single recipient for the Impact Award after evaluating six eligible proposals. Reviewers flagged the Children’s proposal for broad partnership, a clear sustainability plan tied to existing funds and leverage, built‑in data and evaluation methods, and explicit links between food‑security work and community safety goals.

Details and oversight: Presenters said the Impact Award required proposals to benefit residents in at least three of the city’s top 10 neighborhoods for gun violence and to include beneficiaries from multiple populations with high food‑security needs. The application described using continuous improvement methods and publicly available dashboards to track metrics ranging from meal‑gap reduction to incidents of gun violence. United Way staff and HSAC members said the recommended award will be asked to present its plan to council after summer recess.

Questions from council members focused on whether non‑award applicants could participate in the network and how the awardee would sustain work after the grant period. United Way said the rival applicants remain eligible to collaborate; changes to the award’s budget or partners would require a formal review. Lauren Mertens and United Way staff said they expected the awardee to leverage additional resources beyond the $850,000 Impact Award to carry out and sustain the proposed activities.

Ending: Committee members welcomed the decision and asked United Way and city violence‑reduction staff to coordinate so the awarded network’s activities align with the city’s Achieving Change Together (ACT) violence‑reduction plan. The committee also requested a future council presentation by the award recipient to explain implementation and evaluation details.