Congratulations to each of the multi-year grant awardees! We are thrilled to be investing nearly $1 million this year to 12 organizations across NE Wisconsin. Through 2028, our investments in these projects and initiatives will total $2.63 million. Grantees are leading community-driven systems change projects that are addressing the root causes of complex challenges in early care and education (birth to five), housing access, mental health, or substance use.
$300,000 – ADVOCAP’s Childcare Incubator project focuses on improving the delivery of and access to early care and education in Winnebago, Fond du Lac, and Green Lake Counties, working to shift the childcare system toward a more sustainable model of delivery. The incubator removes financial and logistical barriers for low-income individuals to start licensed childcare businesses, expanding both workforce participation and childcare access.
$300,000 – Casa ALBA Melanie aims to create long-term, systemic change by addressing the need for language access to services in the areas of early care/education and mental health. Without equitable language access, members of our Latino community continue to experience exclusion from essential resources, perpetuating cycles of hardship and inequality. Through collaborative partnerships with the broader Brown County community, we will co-develop new policies and practices to ensure language isn’t a barrier to service. Additionally, we will engage our community to understand gaps in linguistically appropriate mental health services, strengthen partnerships needed to affect change, and establish actionable community-level priorities toward a future where every resident, regardless of language, can thrive.
$225,000 – CASA of the Fox Cities is leading a collaborative initiative to transform how children in foster care are supported in Outagamie County. By embedding the HOPE (Healthy Outcomes from Positive Experiences) framework across courts, schools, and child-serving organizations, the project will reframe child welfare model to one rooted in healing, resilience, and belonging. This effort will strengthen partnerships, center youth and families with lived experience, and ensure every child in care has the tools and opportunity to thrive.
$300,000 – COMSA aims to increase access to affordable housing for refugees and immigrants in Brown County by working together with local nonprofits, agencies, and people with lived experience. This project will build community support, work with decision-makers, and advocate for changes to local policies, ordinances, and regulations that will make housing more accessible and address discriminatory barriers. In addition, our initiative will address the cultural and systemic barriers to accessing mental health support within immigrant and refugee communities by shifting mindsets, addressing barriers to care, and working with providers to offer services in a culturally affirming way.
$300,000 – CORE Treatment Services aims to co-develop and pilot residential treatment services where mothers can bring their children, combining trauma-informed substance use care for women alongside educational and behavioral health support for children. By collaborating with community partners and centering First Nations families, the program ensures culturally responsive healing that strengthens individuals, preserves families, and builds healthier communities.
Fox Cities Habitat for Humanity
$300,000 – Transforming Housing Access in the Fox Cities is a multiyear systems change initiative led by the Fox Cities Habitat for Humanity. This project aims to tackle the root barriers to affordable homeownership like land access, zoning, and long term affordability, while deepening community partnerships, resident engagement, and policy advocacy to ensure that equity is embedded in how housing decisions are made.
$300,000 – NeighborWorks Green Bay is launching the Green Bay Housing Partnership, a Community Land Trust (CLT) to create permanently affordable homeownership opportunities in Green Bay and eventually across northeast Wisconsin. This project will expand awareness of the CLT model, engage residents in shaping its direction, and build the infrastructure needed to steward CLT homes and center community voice in long-term housing solutions.
$300,000 – Leveraging the singular opportunity provided by child-directed, play-based learning, the Building for Kids will work to address the root causes of challenges with outcomes for kids, educators, and families in the regulated childcare system. Through partnerships with local early care and education providers and state-level policymakers, our project will develop, pilot, and evaluate a model that better unlocks the power of child-directed, play-based learning in childcare settings. Learnings will be used to inform regulations and standard practices to affect system change to improve outcomes in the early care and education system throughout Wisconsin.
Wisconsin Partnership for Housing Development
$300,000 – Wisconsin Partnership for Housing Development aims to improve the ability of those at the lowest income levels to be able to access safe, quality, and affordable housing by developing new tools, new resources, strengthening partnerships, and working with decision-makers. The project will equip the broader public to understand the changing nature of homelessness in Winnebago County, in Wisconsin, and across the country. To address the root cuases of homelessness, this project will seek to create new housing units by accessing funding and leveraging resources, and the project will work in partnership with existing landlords and property owners to address the barriers in helping house those facing the greatest need.