Before developing your proposal, we recommend these first steps:

• Make sure the Neighborhood Matching Fund is the right match for your project. Click here to download the guidelines.

How do I know which Project Manager to contact?

All of our project managers are highly experienced with the Neighborhood Matching Fund.

• Allynn Ruth, 684-0301 or at allynn.ruth@seattle.gov
• Garry Owens, 684-0718 or at garry.owens@seattle.gov
• Laurie Ames, 684-0320 or at laurie.ames@seattle.gov
• Karen Selander, 733-9256 or at karen.selander@seattle.gov
• Patricia Lopez, Supervisor, 684-0713 or at patricia.lopez@seattle.gov

If you believe your event or project will take place partially or fully on property managed by the City of Seattle, you can search for more information on the City’s Real Property Finder.

How do we find out which district our project located is in?

The city is divided into 13 Districts. Click here to see a map of the city and the outline of each district.

The Department of Planning and Development has a great website that compiles many neighborhood-level reports drawn from Census 2000 data. New and updated data will be analyzed and disseminated after the 2010 Census. This process typically takes several months to over a year after the census data collection period ends.

There are at least three things shared by nearly all cultures around the world that do not require language to exchange freely: food, music, and dance. An initial community gathering that includes one of these three will likely help connect you to your neighbors.

If translation and interpretation services are needed for your project, don’t forget to factor in those services and costs into your NMF proposed budget. Think flyers, community meetings, report summaries, mission-critical information, and more.

There is a simple search tool on our NMF website. It will help you find projects by districts or by keyword.

Human and social services are critical to helping our community and neighborhoods thrive. There are countless non-profit organizations in Seattle doing effective, and often very low-cost, programming with overwhelmingly positive community results.

That being said, NMF fills a unique niche for Seattle-based grassroots groups of neighbors and residents to come together to design, build, and implement their own neighborhood and community improvement project ideas. Unlike with most other funding sources, NMF projects do not have to be proposed by formal organizations and agencies. In many cases, NMF is the only institutional funding source that a community-based grassroots project qualifies for.

A group can apply multiple times for NMF funding. Some community projects happen in stages: planning, construction, renovations, etc. NMF strives to support groups, whenever possible and when aligned with NMF guidelines, through any phase of a community-building project. An open NMF project must be completed and the contract closed before another contract can be executed. A project seeking NMF funding for multiple phases should take into consideration the time it takes to implement each project phase, the proposal deadlines for NMF funds, and plan accordingly.

In addition, there is a two-year period in which a previously funded group that did not successfully complete a NMF-funded project must wait before being eligible for future NMF funds.

Yes, your group may apply for future NMF funding even if you have a current open NMF project. Two conditions apply:

• The open project contract must be complete and closed before a new NMF contract can be executed.
• The project must have been successfully completed.

Most NMF-funded projects are successfully completed and demonstrate a positive partnership between the community and the City of Seattle. The project ideas were happened as proposed (with some flexibility for changing conditions), followed the NMF contract, and the projects raised the minimum match required.

One group cannot apply for two projects simultaneously. A community member, however, can be involved with two or more NMF-funded projects at the same time – if the projects are organized by different groups.

There are two key components to a strong outreach plan: stakeholders and methods. The outreach plan is intended to show how your group seeks to engage – in various ways - all the stakeholders that would be impacted by your project idea.

Stakeholders: Depending on the size and scope of your project, stakeholders will include your neighbors, your neighborhood district council, other neighborhood-based community groups, neighborhood schools, and relevant city departments and/or public agencies. Partnerships with other community groups or non-profits working on similar projects may be beneficial. In some cases, engaging the people who work in the neighborhood may also be appropriate.

A strong outreach plan should reflect efforts to reach out to all the different groups that could be impacted or benefit from your project. These groups may include youth, seniors, renters, homeowners, refugees and immigrants, limited English-speaking residents, and people with disabilities.

Outreach methods: Traditional methods of outreach have included community meetings, flyers, door-to-door knocking, paper surveys, and articles in community newspapers. More recent methods of outreach have a technological bent: online newspapers, blogs, listservs, and online surveys (Zoomerang.com and SurveyMonkey.com are two). A good outreach plan will incorporate a mixture of methods.

A strong outreach plan should reflect outreach methods that are appropriate for different groups of stakeholders. For example, using online neighborhood blogs in English may not be the best way to reach older or residents with limited English proficiency. In these cases, door-to-door knocking or community meetings with translation services may be better.

For Small Sparks and Small and Simple Fund, all applications are reviewed by Neighborhood Matching Fund program staff.

For Large Projects Fund, all letters of intent are reviewed by Neighborhood Matching Fund program staff.

All full proposal applications are reviewed as follows:

• Neighborhood-based proposals are reviewed by two sets of community volunteers: the District Council relevant to the identified neighborhood; and the Citywide Review Team.
• Applicants must make a presentation to both groups.
• Based on the written proposal and on the Open House presentation, the District Council and Citywide Review Team will then each contribute 50% of the review score.

Other relevant City of Seattle departments additionally review applications, as appropriate. For projects involving improvements to property owned by public entities, property owner approval is required in order for the project to receive funding.

Neighborhood Matching Fund is a competitive fund. In most rounds, we receive more requested funding than is available. We do our best to fund all strong and eligible proposals as possible; at times, this means reducing project requested amounts to accommodate more proposals.

Yes, if your group is eligible under the NMF guidelines, you can reapply for a future cycle. You may choose to revise and strengthen your current project idea, or you may try a different idea. Work with your NMF project manager for suggestions on how to strengthen your project proposal.

For a project idea that involves the Parks Department, please review the Parks criteria for NMF projects which clearly outlines which Parks projects are suitable for NMF funding. In addition, please contact Pamela Kliment (Parks NMF Coordinator) and a NMF project manager, who will assist you in navigating Parks Department rules and guidelines for projects that occur on Parks property.

• Pamela Kliment, 206-684-7556 or Pamela.kliment@seattle.gov

For a project idea that involves Seattle Department of Transportation, please review the SDOT criteria for NMF projects which clearly outlines which SDOT projects are suitable for NMF funding. In addition, please contact Luke Korpi in SDOT and a NMF project manager, who will assist you in navigating rules and guidelines, including applying for appropriate SDOT permits, for projects that occur on SDOT property and street right-of-ways.

• Luke Korpi, 684-5069 or luke.korpi

A NMF project that involves Seattle Public Schools (SPS) typically falls under the school district’s Self Help Program, and requires an additional application.

Please contact Gretchen DeDecker (SPS Self-Help Coordinator) in addition to a NMF project manager. She will assist you in navigating SPS rules and guidelines, in addition to helping you complete the Self-Help application.

• Gretchen DeDecker, 206-252-0637

The applicant organization is the group that organizes, plans, and implements the project idea. An application organization can be its own fiscal sponsor if it has its own tax identification number and has the capacity to fiscally manage its own project.

The fiscal sponsor is an organization or business that agrees to act as the trustee of funds provided by the City and assumes the financial responsibilities related to the completion of a Neighborhood Matching Fund project. The fiscal sponsor handles and is accountable for all of the project’s funds whether public or private funds, donations from neighbors, etc. It must have a tax identification number.

The applicant organization chooses and works with a fiscal sponsor to help successfully complete a project.

No. You do not need to identify a fiscal sponsor at the application stage. This happens at the contracting stage.

If your group is awarded and the NMF project award is under $600, you will not need a fiscal sponsor to contract with the City of Seattle. If the award exceeds $600 and your group does not have its own tax identification number or does not have the capacity to act as the fiscal trustee of NMF funds, you will need a fiscal sponsor to contract with the City of Seattle.

Department of Neighborhoods does not formally endorse any fiscal sponsors. However, there are a number of organizations that have effectively served as fiscal sponsors for NMF projects and are familiar with the contractual, accounting and reporting requirements for NMF projects. These include:

Delridge Neighborhood Development Association (DNDA)
Groundswell NW
Non-Profit Assistance Center (NAC)
P-Patch Trust
Phinney Neighborhood Association (PNA)
Seattle Neighborhood Group (SNG)
Seattle Parks Foundation
SouthEast Effective Development (SEED)
Urban Sparks
White Center Community Development Association (WCCDA)

Most fiscal sponsors request a fee, typically range from 3-15%, to fiscally manage a project, depending on the level and scope of the support. The preferred range of NMF support for fiscal sponsors is 3-10%. These fees can be factored into your NMF project budget. And yes, you can negotiate the fiscal sponsor fee.

Small Sparks	Small and Simple	Large Projects
With the City one month from award notification date.	With the City one month from award notification date.	With the City one to four months from award notification date.

Once all award conditions have been met, the following steps are needed to fully execute the contract:

• Department of Neighborhoods (DON) will produce unsigned copies of the contract.
• The awarded group and fiscal sponsor will sign and return the contract to DON within one week.
• Once we receive your signed contract, our Department Director signs the contract. This can typically take up to five (5) business days.
• A copy of the final signed contract will be provided to you.
• You may begin your project and make expenses as outlined in the contract.