Once the submission deadline passes, the Next 100 Years Challenge team will conduct administrative review to confirm each submission meets the rules and application requirements before advancing to the Evaluation Panel. Each submission will receive scores and feedback from five Evaluation Panel judges who will use the scoring rubric. All scores will be statistically normalized to ensure fairness.
The Selection Committee will review top-scoring submissions and request additional information as needed to select up to ten winners based on considerations that may include, but are not limited to, Evaluation Panel resulting rank order, organizational capacity, geographic diversity, and feasibility. The Greater New Orleans Foundation will make the final determination of the recipients of the $100,000 awards.
In 2023, the Greater New Orleans Foundation celebrates 100 years of philanthropy, leadership, and action within our thirteen-parish region. To commemorate this achievement and show our continued commitment to the region, we launched the Next 100 Years Challenge to build a stronger, resilient, safer, and more equitable Southeast Louisiana through game-changing, innovative physical infrastructure and hazard mitigation solutions.
The Next 100 Years Challenge will award up to ten $100,000 awards to further develop and refine promising community-centered projects. From launch through the submission deadline on Tuesday, July 18, 2023 at 5:00 PM CT, the Next 100 Years Challenge Team will also provide valuable guidance and technical assistance to any teams interested in improving their applications and strengthening their solutions for further funding.
The Greater New Orleans Foundation is seeking proposals from collaborative teams with projects that have strong potential to secure funding from the State of Louisiana, FEMA, and other funders.
A team may consist of one or more organizations and must show evidence of bona fide government-nonprofit partnership and authentic engagement with the end beneficiaries of the project-based proposal. Applicant teams must include one or more partners who are both located in the benefiting community in one or more of the thirteen eligible parishes in Southeast Louisiana and who show an authentic understanding of local needs and future conditions.
Each team must identify a Lead Organization as the recognized agency in the execution of any proposed project activities associated with the $100,000 award. Applicants located within the United States and its territories are eligible to apply as the Lead Organization. The Lead Organization will assume responsibility for the receipt and management of any of the Next 100 Years Challenge award funds and will maintain those fiduciary duties in close coordination with any partners.
Please see Section 1. Eligibility under the Rules for a full list of eligible Lead Organizations.
Millions of government dollars are available to support physical infrastructure, disaster recovery, and hazard mitigation projects. To date, underserved, disadvantaged communities throughout Southeast Louisiana have yet to fully benefit from this funding.
To help level the playing field, the Next 100 Years Challenge offers guidance and technical assistance to potential applicants willing to conceive ambitious, project-based proposals for infrastructure improvement in our region. We understand a range of technical assistance and support is essential for organizations that may not have the resources or capacity to engage stakeholders, prepare and develop a project, and navigate the many complexities of securing government funding.
The Next 100 Years Challenge seeks innovative ideas brought forth by collaborative teams and will offer support and technical assistance to develop clear, actionable plans and increase opportunities to secure the funding and resources needed to deliver results.
Strong proposals will present sustainable, community-centered, cost-effective projects that protect against and reduce the risks from disasters and natural hazards in underserved, disadvantaged communities located in the thirteen Southeast Louisiana parishes over the next 100 years and beyond. We encourage infrastructure plans at varying stages of development, from early-stage concepts to solutions that are proven effective.
The Greater New Orleans Foundation is pleased to partner with Carrot to design a fair, open, and transparent process (Carrot also powers this website) and with Climate Adaptation Partners to support teams through technical assistance and guidance as they strengthen their proposals.
Complete the readiness quiz and access resources to support your team as you develop and refine your application to the Next 100 Years Challenge.
In order to access the application platform and online forums, register no later than Tuesday, June 20, 2023 at 5:00 PM CT. Registration is required and is a simple two-step process. First, create a username and password then check your inbox to confirm your registration.
Next, complete the online registration form. Once you are registered, submit your application online no later than Tuesday, July 18, 2023 at 5:00 PM CT.
You can only submit one application as the Lead Organization. An organization can also serve as a partner on a team for other applications as long as each of those applications propose a separate, distinct solution. This means each project can only be submitted once, and we leave it up to each team to designate their eligible Lead Organization.
For government entities, regional or location-specific branches of larger organizations, as well as departments, schools, and nonprofits within or based in a college/university: You can each register and submit separately as the Lead Organization on one application as long as the proposed solutions are separate and distinct. We understand that some teams will need the government partner to act as the Lead for these different applications. In these cases, you would need to register separately with a unique email, and when listing the Lead Organization in the registration form, include a signifier like the name of the community partner or government department responsible for that application to help distinguish it from others submitted by the same government entity.
And while we recommend no overlap in team members, we understand this may not be avoided with smaller parishes. Really the intent of this rule is to help ensure that each team is concentrating their best effort into a single application that speaks best to the scoring criteria.
Also a reminder that organizations can serve as a partner for as many applications as needed but again – the goal is to have applications focused on separate and distinct solutions.
Nonprofit-government partnerships are required and essential for this program and will strengthen the application. At this application stage, we are not requiring MOUs or other similar official evidence of partnership/relationship, but this may be required from top-scoring submissions that move on to the final Selection Committee.
If you have it, applicants could include a letter of commitment from your government or nonprofit partner as part of the five-page Project Visual PDF upload but this is not required at this time. The way in which you describe partnership and engagement activities in your responses to the application prompts (such as under Core Capabilities, Team Structure, and Community & Stakeholder Engagement) will be considered as part of evaluation using the scoring rubric.
Yes! Please don’t hesitate to reach out to us for guidance and support as you work on your application. Email us here.
The Next 100 Years Challenge team worked closely with the Governor’s Office of Homeland Security which oversees FEMA and programs like BRIC as well as the State Office of Community Development which runs disaster CDBG programs to better understand the key components of those programs. Our team then used this information to inform the Next 100 Years Challenge application so that we could offer a good first step to help applicants build up to those submissions.
There are some great examples mentioned throughout the webinars we hosted the past couple months. The webinar recordings and materials are located on Resources.
