All right, Madel Clerk, we'll bring this EHS meet into order.

Madam Clerk, can you call the chamber emergency evacuation announcements?

Upon activation of the emergency alarm signal, our persons should immediately exit the building.

Please use the exits to the left or right front of the council chamber or the north or south stale where outside the red doors of the chamber.

Do not use elevators or escalators.

After exiting the building, security would direct everyone down 9th Street to the fence area located between cleanly streets.

Able persons should assist visually in hearing impaired visitors exiting the building.

Individuals wishing to speak during public hearings in the public comment period are generally allowed three minutes to speak.

Persons appearing before the committee are not allowed to.

Campaign for public office, promote private business matches, use language of a personal nature, which insults or demeans any person, including comments directed at public officials or staff members that are not related to the official duties or address our question staff members directly.

All questions are to be directed to the committee chair.

Faye to adhere to the guidelines may result in speakers forfeiting any remaining time and further disciplinary action as necessary, which can include barring from attendance at future meetings of the committee of a for a period of six months.

And Madam Vice Chair, all members are in attendance today with the exception of Ms.

Lynch and you do have a quorum.

Thank you.

Can we do the public comment period?

Public comment is now open.

Is there anyone present who wishes to address this committee regarding items not on today's agenda?

Madam Vice Chair seeing no one.

Public comment period is now closed and back to the committee.

All right, we'll move right on through this.

Approval of the minutes.

The minutes to be approved are for July 9th, 2026 for the education and human services standing committee meeting held at 2 p.m.

If there are no amendments or corrections, then the minute the meeting minutes will stand approved as presented.

Those minutes have been approved.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And we will have uh who's put oh miss okay, Mr.

Dominic Merritt.

Okay.

I'll do my best here.

Let me know if I can't be uh heard.

Good afternoon.

Uh Vice Chair slash acting chair Jones, Councilmember Breton, Dominic Barrett, Senior Policy Advisor with the Office of the DCO for human services.

Um I'm grateful for the invitation to be here today to provide an update on our new grant making process.

Can you all hear me okay if I stand back from the mic a little bit like this?

I don't know if it extends any further.

Um I'm gonna do my best to keep this to ten minutes.

I'm gonna quickly walk through some background to frame things up, but I don't want to dwell on that since we've shared that information with council in a variety of settings and ways, both at presentations and in um emailed memos.

But do want to make sure we're mindful of that context and then spend most of our time on sort of where we are in the process now and what to look forward to in the months ahead.

Uh want to start by just reminding folks where this new grant process sort of sits and lives within the budget and where it exists relative to our other um items within the outside agency budget.

So we have our organizational subsidy category, which is things like GRTC, RBHA, etc.

We have our strategic city-driven initiatives, and these are these critical city identified city directed services with a provider typically identified via a competitive process that's managed by the city.

Um then we have what we're here to talk about today.

Um formerly the non-departmental grant process, now called the Richmond Thrives grant program managed by three outside grantmakers delivering competitive grantmaking process in those four priority areas there.

This new process uh is the product of several years of feedback and engagement with council, the nonprofit community, the administration.

This wasn't designed in a vacuum or overnight.

Um, and it's something that's been discussed with this committee off and on over the years.

Uh we sought to identify a new process that meets this you know, high standard of of stewardship of taxpayer resources and dollars, but also wanting to do it in a way that's expanding access, um, improving the experience for applicants and increasing overall community impact as a key goal.

Ultimately, as I've talked about before, we want a process that's rigorous but but reasonable.

Ultimately, as I've talked about before, we want a process that's rigorous but but reasonable, um, and that's uh both increasing accountability but also increasing accessibility for our nonprofit partners.

Uh as we discussed, the process the new process and the new framework has four priority areas and our uh lengthy RFP process to identify compatibility those grantmakers, really focused on making sure we had grantmakers that had local experience with subject matter expertise and grant making experience in those specific um issue areas, that they could deliver equitable and transparent processes that neither preferenced or disadvantaged organizations based on whether they had or hadn't been funded by the city in the past.

Um we wanted faster turnaround from application period to fund disbursement.

We wanted meaningful community and subject matter uh expert participation in the review process um and then a goal of making sure that all fire all four priority areas could have funds dispersed um within the 2026 calendar year.

Uh this slide tracks our progress, and I think one thing to note is that overall this this transition has been of a bit of a a go slow to go fast model, lots of time um in sort of thinking through the model and managing the RFP process, and then ultimately hitting the ground running as soon as possible.

So when council uh authorized um via ordinance us to move forward with that appropri with those appropriations on the 27th, we then two days later had our kickoff session for nonprofits on the 29th, and then within two weeks, all grantmakers were um opening application processes or hosting their own information sessions and technical assistance uh sessions.

So, where are we now?

We are SmackDab in the middle of those application uh windows that you'll see there in the middle of the slide with our first two priority areas closing um tomorrow.

One thing that doesn't fit on this slide um is all the info sessions and office hours that are each each of our grantmakers offered.

Um with this new approach, we have a much uh more responsive process with quicker round, quicker turnaround time for our grantees between application and decision making.