City Offers $10,000 Grants to ‘Engage Cincy’

CINCINNATI – Put on your thinking caps, Cincinnati. The City wants you to come up with innovative ways to promote positive community engagement, social interaction and participation.

The 2016 Engage Cincy Challenge Grant program is a unique community building competition that gives participants a chance to win one of five grants of up to $10,000. The prize money will go toward the development, launch and promotion of plans that offer cutting-edge ideas for bettering a specific place, or all of Cincinnati.

Applications are due by Dec. 1, 2015. (APPLY HERE)

"The best way to invigorate a community is to engage the people who live there and keep them interested," said City Manager Harry Black, who proposed the idea for Engage Cincy Grants, which was supported and approved by the Mayor and City Council. "Here, we're giving community members a say but also the money, resources and support needed to think, and act, outside the box."

The competition is open to individual residents, groups of engaged residents, local businesses and organizations with Cincinnati ties. Everyone is encouraged to submit their best, most innovative project ideas and plans.

The City is looking for people and organizations that have big ideas but don’t have the resources to pull them off. The grant funds are intended to help dreamers realize their vision. That could mean using the funds to complete a project in full, or subsidizing the completion of an existing plan.

An Engage Cincy selection committee consisting of members of the local business community, community/nonprofit leaders and City employees will vet the applications and interview finalists. They’ll then make recommendations to the City Manager who will select the winners.

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