These 5 local orgs just received over $500,000—meet the BOLD grant winners

Mayor Woodfin emphasized that the celebrations this year will include all Birminghamians. Photo by Libby Foster for Bham Now.
The BOLD grants total over $500,000. (Libby Foster / Bham Now)

The BOLD (Building Opportunities for Lasting Development) program has given five local organizations something to smile about. Learn more about how over $500,000 has just been invested into solving community issues.

Discover the BOLD program

The BOLD program is led by the city of Birmingham’s Department of Innovation and Economic Opportunity (IEO). Their main goal is to show our Birmingham community organizations and agencies a little love.

Specifically, they provide financial support to those that are taking creative, evidence-based approaches to tackling issues across our community. And they just unveiled a major gift—over $500,000 headed straight to the pockets of local organizations.

When allocating funding, they considered these four categories:

  1. Job accessibility
  2. Recovery and adaptation technical assistance for minority-owned, women-owned and disadvantaged businesses
  3. Scale-up technical assistance for minority-owned, women-owned and disadvantaged businesses
  4. Social innovation to address a pressing community problem

Meet the winners

ed farm learn
It’s great news for Ed Farm. (Madison Croxson / Bham Now)

After a rigorous application process and review from a carefully selected committee, the city has just announced the five lucky winners. They are:

“We are excited about the work that our BOLD recipients will do for our communities this cycle. Each program is laser focused on building a resilient and inclusive economy in Birmingham with workforce development, small business support and place-based development programs. We are also excited that each organization is minority and/or women led.”

—Coreata Houser, deputy director, IEO

How will the BOLD money be spent?

From technology skills training to mental health services, each winner will spend the money in a different way to benefit the Birmingham community.

Ed Farm, for example, will bring the Pathways program to 50 residents. It’s a 14-week coding bootcamp that teaches digital skills while providing exposure to resources, including iPads.

Community Care Development Network will continue to help their clients transition from one stage of life to another—whether that be from high school to adulthood, prison to society or unemployment/underemployment to a new career path.

For full details on the BOLD grant program and where we will see the money invested back into our community, visit their website.

For local news like this delivered straight to your inbox, subscribe to our FREE daily newsletter.

Madison Croxson
Madison Croxson
Articles: 160