The Resilient Community Impact Funds (RCIFunds)

The Resilient Community Impact Funds (RCIFunds) is an emerging funding platform that brings together public and private partners to secure a resilient future in the cities we live in. With more than half of the world’s population living in urban areas and expected to reach 70 percent by 2050, urgent action is required to ensure our cities can withstand the effects of multiple shocks and stresses.

The RCIFunds will provide cities with the connections and resources to secure that resilient future. The RCIFunds platform is the first of its kind to focus on building holistic, equitable resilience that generates measurable reductions in vulnerability around the world.

The RCIFunds leverages funding from local and global institutions, while engaging city programs and budgets to invest with a return on ”Resilience Value.” Projects are designed to deliver co-benefits that are key to planning and retaining holistic resilience with a focus on equity in urban communities.

It designed to be flexible and provide catalytic grant funding for resilience projects from multiple donors. Under the platform, the sub-funds are aligned with R-Cities priority themes and programs, and can be geographically specific . As partnerships evolve and scale, our impact on the ground will grow.

The initial phase of fundraising and funds disbursement will focus on projects and programs prioritized by Chief Resilience Officers (CROs) and cities themselves, as well as the thematic action areas created by Resilient Cities Network, its Global Steering Committee of CROs, and the RCIFund Advisory Board.

Resilient Cities Network will raise funds for the RCIFund, targeting a minimum fund size of $10 million USD over the next two years, to be put towards prioritized resilience projects. Funding can support project preparation, innovative pilots, small to medium scale projects, as well as act to further leverage and layer funding on the ground for larger projects from key financing and grant making stakeholders.

Click here to learn more about the Resilient Community Impact Funds (RCIFunds)

For more info on Resilient Community Impact Funds and North America Climate Resilience Program, please contact rcifund@resilientcitiesnetwork.org

At R-Cities, we are building partnerships to design, invest and scale urban resilience solutions worldwide to make urban communities thrive in the face of acute shocks and chronic stresses.

The Resilience Prospectus: North America, is a compilation of 52 priority resilience projects submitted by 19 network cities in the United States and Canada. Throughout the Prospectus you will learn about each city’s resilience objectives, project descriptions and the impact of each project, and who to contact for more information.

R-Cities’ Resilient Community Impact Funds (RCIFunds) platform is a funding vehicle established to support investments in projects such as those highlighted in this prospectus – please contact us to learn about other opportunities across the global network as well!

Cities cannot do this work alone. Resilience requires public, private and philanthropic partnerships. Cities are seeking funding and partners to assist with implementing these important initiatives. Together we can increase urban resilience!

If you have interest or questions on any of the projects or the RCIFunds, please reach out at RCIFund@resilientcitiesnetwork.org.

Frequently asked questions:

The Resilient Communities Impact Fund (RCIFund) is a catalytic grant-based platform for members of the Resilient Cities Network, designed for investments in projects that can further leverage funding at the local level from key financing and philanthropic stakeholders while incentivizing enhanced alignment from the cities themselves. It is an avenue for funders interested in investing in pooled funding for innovative projects in cities to contribute together with other like-minded stakeholders.

While the overarching structure is the designated and branded RCIFund platform, it is designed with flexibility for sub-funds. This gives it the potential for highly focused targeting and impact to reinforce funding resilience projects, while allowing for co-funding from a variety of aligned sources. These sub-funds can be programmatically, thematically and geographically defined. There may be partner and funder based sub-funds that are highly targeted and co-branded in same manner.

In the start-up phase, the RCIFund will be administered by a Fund Director operating within Resilient Cities Network and then over time be moved to a partner fund management organization already designated. The Fund Director will work in concert with the designated Advisory Board consisting of staff, former CROs, board of directors liaison, as well as key programmatic and operational staff and funder liaisons.

Based on the potential themes, programs, funders and geographies of a certain sub-pool, cities will be selected to apply or respond to a network request consisting of the specific parameters and grant guidelines in a given round of grantmaking. For at least the first phase, there will be no unsolicited requests for funding.

Cities must be a member of the Resilient Cities Network, have a Chief Resilience Officer, and have a complete city resilience strategy. In some cases there may be matching or co-funding requirements on a given grant round.

The projects receiving grants will vary based on the sub-pool, themes, regions, etc., and we anticipate grants that can fund an entire small project, pilot phase, research, project preparation or planning, as well as larger grants for catalyzing larger, co-funded projects that have been prioritized by the city. At a foundational level the Fund is designed to provide seed money for cities and their partners needed to initiate key projects from their resilience strategies, resulting in action on the ground, thus creating buy-in from local stakeholders, motivating local investment, inspiring community participation, and actualizing co-benefits from these resilience investments.

For the initial phase of the Fund, we anticipate the grants to range from $50,000 USD to $250,000 USD. The projects may be funded in whole or in part by the grants from the Fund, with some grant criteria requiring local partner and/or city match. Larger donations to the RCIFund may increase the range of grants.

Our goal is to be reach at least $10 million USD in the next two years, but we expect that additional demand from the cities, combined with donor interest in reaching project implementation on the ground will drive up the total amount.

At this time potential donors contribute directly to the Fund through Resilient Cities Network. Interested parties should contact RCIFund@resilientcitiesnetwork.org.

The Fund will begin grantmaking in 2022 with a goal of reaching USD $10 million by 2024 and scaling from there.

The goal of the RCIFund is to make catalytic grants, $50,000-$250,000, potentially larger, to prioritized, innovative, small and medium scale resilience projects around the globe. These projects will be selected through a predefined process and criteria, based on the programmatic, thematic and geographic specifics in the various sub-funds and appropriately vetted for the highest possible Resilience Value (R Value).

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The Resilient Community Impact Funds (RCIFunds)

Tags: Program, Resilience

The Resilient Community Impact Funds (RCIFunds)

The Resilient Community Impact Funds (RCIFunds)

The Resilient Community Impact Funds (RCIFunds)

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