Special Solicitation Eligible and Ineligible Items

Eligible and Ineligible Budget Items

Grant funds may be used for direct project expenses such as project staff salaries, consultant fees, data collection and analysis, meetings, supplies, and project-related travel. Grant funds may be used for contracts related specifically to implementation of the project.

Items that are eligible for matching funds from RWJF include:

Personnel
Other direct costs, such as, but not limited to:

Office operations
Communications/marketing
Software
Computer time
Meeting costs
Travel

Equipment (only in limited amounts)
Consultant/contractual agreements
Indirect costs (RWJF allows 12%)

Grant funds may not be used for general operating funds, organizational capacity building or capital expenditures, re-granting, fundraising, endowments or scholarships. Research studies and community assessments will not be funded through this program.

In keeping with RWJF policy, grant funds may not be used to subsidize individuals for the costs of their health care; to pay for medication, eyeglasses or personal care items; to support clinical trials of unapproved drugs or devices; to construct or renovate facilities or for lobbying.

Items that are ineligible for matching funds from RWJF include:

Ongoing operational support or deficits
Items eligible for third-party reimbursement
Endowment - Capital Cost - Renovation
Basic biomedical research
Equipment (except in limited amounts)
Drug therapies

Over the duration of the grant (up to three years maximum), RWJF encourages multiple donors and funders to work together to help the project grow and to invest resources in the community to be served.

All matching funds must represent new funding specifically designated to support the proposed project.
In-kind services may be used to match up to twenty-five percent of the award under this special solicitation.
Funds raised for capital costs, renovations or endowment are not eligible as matching funds.

The nominating funder must represent a diversity-focused fund that is principally concerned with the population to be served. Please note: additional funding partners may come from other grantmaking organizations such as independent and private foundations, family and community foundations, corporate foundations and other philanthropies.

City, county or state funds may be considered as an additional source of matching dollars along with philanthropic support. In that situation, applicants must clearly document that these are new public funds, designated solely for this project.

So that proposals will reflect the priorities of the designated community, there is great latitude in the definition of violence. For example, programs may relate to the impact of intentional or unintentional violent behavior in homes, schools, work sites, neighborhoods or other public or private settings. Such programs may address threats or actions resulting in emotional, psychological or physical harm including intimate partner violence, child or elder abuse, gang activity or post-war trauma. They may concern violence between family members or strangers, individuals or groups.

We are especially interested in projects that look realistically at underlying causes of violence for a particular group; then address those systems and issues in a culturally appropriate way considering how language skills, significant cultural differences, education, income and discrimination affect health outcomes.

This special solicitation is open to projects that address behaviors that cause emotional or physical harm. Project examples include the following:

Eligible projects may relate to interpersonal or public violence, to the behavior of gangs or individuals, or to the experience of war or of family violence.
Projects may serve any age, from the youngest children to the most senior members of a community.
Prevention programs are eligible as are projects designed to help people affected as victims, witnesses or perpetrators.
Projects may address hate crimes, bias or abuse in the workplace or in public, nonprofit or private agencies.
Projects may address threats or endangerment from strangers or from persons well known to the victim, as well as sexual violence or intimate partner violence.
Projects that deal creatively with conflict and anger, that strengthen communities by identifying risk and protective factors, and that create immediate, practical solutions to improve health and quality of life are also eligible.

Programs that provide access to medical care—such as the start-up of community health centers and clinics, mobile vans and school-based health centers—are not likely to be competitive, nor are proposals that focus on a single health condition, illness or disability. If a project falls under a topic that is comprehensively addressed by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation through another team—such as childhood obesity or health insurance coverage--it will not be considered for an LFP grant.