Richmond human services presents FY24 non‑departmental grants impact report; council calls for more time to review

Tracy DeShazer, deputy chief administrative officer for Human Services, and Dominic Beard, strategic projects and grants advisor, presented the City of Richmond’s FY24 non‑departmental grants annual impact report and described changes to the department’s grantmaking process.

DeShazer said the report covers only “human services administered grants” and that the presentation would focus on eligibility criteria, application review and scoring, monitoring and reporting, and the program timeline. Beard described the grants as “competitive 1 year grants” focused on “critical unmet needs,” and said the program is intended to fund services the city “can't provide or can't provide at scale or in the way that these nonprofit partners can.”

The presenters told the committee that for fiscal year 2024 the program received 96 applications and funded 54 organizations; the median grant award was described as about $96,000. Staff said applications typically open October 1 and close around December 1 (the 2024 deadline fell on Sunday, so it closed December 2), and that each eligible application is scored by two reviewers and reconciled by a subject‑matter review team before…