Development department requests $10.8 million for human‑services programming, highlights Elevate grants and a conditional‑cash pilot

The Columbus Department of Development asked the Council committee to support a proposed 2025 human‑services general fund of $10.8 million, split between staffing costs and direct grants to nonprofit partners.

Deputy Director Hannah Jones said the proposal includes about $811,000 for staff costs and roughly $10,000,000 for direct human‑services programming. The department plans to continue Elevate — a multi‑year organizational capacity grant aligned with the mayor’s Opportunity Rising initiative — and fund the final year of Elevate 2, serving 64 agencies. Jones said 111 organizations in prior cohorts reached about 10,000 residents and that the city awarded $4.2 million annually to agencies providing homelessness and housing‑stability services and $2.9 million to additional supportive service agencies.

Economic Mobility Accelerator: Jones outlined a two‑year Economic Mobility Accelerator, a conditional cash‑transfer pilot the mayor announced with council. The department expects to finalize program design with six partner agencies and aims to begin payments to participants by late in the first quarter of 2025. The program includes a community of practice with local partners (Motherful, Ohio State University, Rise Together Innovation Institute, Nationwide Children’s Hospital) to evaluate replication and sustainment of direct‑cash approaches.

Program flexibility and capacity building: Jones said Elevate funds are intended for organizational capacity, not for a narrow program line, and the department plans a new competitive Elevate All process for funding starting in 2026. She described smaller, responsive grants for innovation and administrative supports for nonprofits through partnerships with the Human Services Chamber.

Council members asked how the city responds to acute housing crises (Colonial Village, Sawyer Towers). Jones said responses are typically “over and above” the base budget and described a relocation assistance code fund created this year that can be used for immediate stabilization when vacates occur; that fund is replenished if landlords do not cover relocation costs.