San Francisco Nonprofit Sustainability Initiative

Lease Stabilization Grants

Program Guidelines

Application Period Closed

Table of Contents

About the Nonprofit Sustainability Initiative

Racial Equity Statement

Key Dates

Eligibility Requirements

Priority Criteria

Review Process

Application Information     ||     (Checklist of Required Information)

Reimbursement Requirements

Grant Fund Policies

Apply Now!   

Frequently Asked Questions

Community Vision announces the availability of capital grants for San Francisco nonprofits that are relocating, renewing a lease, or expanding into commercial space. Grants may be used for professional services (architectural, engineering, legal); rent stipend^[1]; lease renewal expenses, moving expenses; tenant improvements^[2]; furnishings, fixtures, and equipment (FF&E)^[3], and staffing expenses^[4] related to the commercial real estate project. In the current funding round, $500,000 will be available for distribution.

• Organizations with leases for 3-4 years may apply for grants up to $50,000 for relocation and renewal expenses (professional services, rent stipend, moving expenses, staff time, and FF&E). Tenant improvements are ineligible.
• Organizations with leases for 5+ years may apply for grants up to $75,000 for relocation and renewal expenses (listed above) and renovation expenses (tenant improvements).
• The Selection Committee reserves the right to make exceptions to these amounts, and it is anticipated most awards will be less than these amounts. Awards are not likely to exceed 50% of the organization’s average operating expenses for the last three years. Applicants can request more than 50% of the three-year average (not to exceed the allowable grant amounts for a given lease term) and provide a rationale to support the need for the full grant request.

Applications must be received by 12 pm PST on Friday, January 28 to be considered for an award. The online application system will shut down at 12 pm PST  on Friday, January 28. Hard copy, postal mailed, emailed, and faxed applications will not be accepted. In fairness to others, we cannot accept late or incomplete applications. An application may be deemed incomplete and ineligible if the individual does not provide the complete set of information in the appropriate format by the deadline. Applicants must select the “submit” button to finalize their application and will receive an automatic email confirmation once it has been submitted.

Community Vision encourages applicants to submit their applications before 12 pm PST on January 28 so that any technical problems that arise can be resolved before the deadline. No deadline extensions will be granted.  There is a Checklist of Required Information available to assist in preparing applications in advance.

About the San Francisco Nonprofit Sustainability Initiative

The San Francisco Nonprofit Sustainability Initiative (NSI) is a multi-agency partnership funded through the Office of Economic and Workforce Development (OEWD), and administered in partnership with the Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development, San Francisco Arts Commission, Community Vision and other key partners.

The NSI complements San Francisco’s funding of nonprofit services and resources for low-income residents and aims to maintain and expand these vital services by deploying financial assistance, professional services, assessment tools and other resources to address key challenges facing the sector, including the high costs of real estate.

Since the first grants were awarded in May 2017, organizations supporting youth, seniors, immigrants, domestic violence survivors, artists and people with disabilities have received funding for lease stabilization, space acquisition and strategic restructuring. In total, Community Vision has awarded $15.4 million in NSI: Acquisition and Lease Stabilization grants to support the acquisition of 178,047 square feet of new, permanent nonprofit-owned space, and to support over 273,272 square feet of high-quality leased facilities.

Racial Equity Statement

Community Vision is dedicated to anti-racist practices and to building an anti-racist organization. We recognize that a history of discriminatory financial practices and intentional disinvestment have contributed to a lack of economic progress in low-income communities and communities of color. We provide capital and technical assistance for low-income communities and communities of color to ensure fairness in opportunities, resources, and rights for everyone.

The Office of Economic and Workforce Development is committed to advancing racial and economic justice by instituting programs and services that focus on equity-driven growth to make San Francisco a better place to live, work, and do business. This requires proactively implementing strategies that reverse the impacts of racially discriminatory policies that have led to generations of disinvestment and economic inequities that have significantly disrupted the economic growth and prosperity of communities of color. We recognize that these funds are only a small part of the solution and we are committed to aligning our work beyond this investment.

Key Dates

The anticipated schedule is as follows:

• Application period opens: Wednesday, December 1, 2021
• Application information webinars:

• Wednesday, December 15, 2021: 11 am Pacific. Register here
• Wednesday, January 19, 2022: 6 pm Pacific. Register here 

• Questions:  Questions submitted after Wednesday, January 19, 2022 may not be answered due to capacity. All answers to questions submitted by Wednesday, January 19, 2022 will be posted online within four (4) business days; answers to questions submitted after January 19, 2022 may not be posted online. You can submit a question by emailing grantmaking@communityvisionca.org.
• Application due date: 12 pm Pacific on Friday, January 28, 2022
• Target date for award notification: Week of March 21, 2022
• Grant disbursement deadline: Tuesday, February 28, 2023

Eligibility Requirements

APPLICANT ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA

To be eligible for a Lease Stabilization Grant, the applicant must meet all of the following criteria:

• The organization and project must be located in San Francisco County^[5].
• The organization must be incorporated, or have a fiscal sponsor that is incorporated, and be in good standing as a tax-exempt public benefit corporation under Internal Revenue Code 501(c)(3).
• The organization must have an established  track record of at least two years providing direct or indirect^[6] services to members of low-income communities^[7].
• Not be in default on any grants or loans from: (1) Community Vision Capital and Consulting; (2) Any City departments (including but not limited to the Department of Children, Youth and Their Families, Office of Economic and Workforce Development, Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development, Grants for the Arts or the San Francisco Arts Commission); (3) Northern California Grantmakers Arts Loan Fund; (4) the Center for Cultural Innovation and/or (5) any other City contractor/re-grantor.

Visit the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) for more details on how eligibility is defined.  If you still don’t find the answer to your question, email grantmaking@communityvisionca.org.

PROJECT ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA

In order to be eligible for a Lease Stabilization Grant, in addition to the above applicant eligibility requirement, projects must meet all of the following criteria:

• Organizations must be facing permanent displacement^[8] or barriers to growth due to real estate constraints.
• Must provide evidence of site control includes a fully executed Letter of Intent with lease terms, lease, or an accepted purchase offer. Leases executed on or after October 1, 2020 are eligible. This program does not allow organizations to switch sites after the application has been submitted. If your organization determines the intended site is no longer viable after the application deadline has passed, we will withdraw your organization’s application from the pool and invite a new application in a future round.
• The property must be located in San Francisco County.
• Lease renewals are eligible if the grant request is for costs determined eligible by these program guidelines.
• Provide evidence of lease terms for a minimum of 3 years^[9].
• The proposed project does not result in evictions or a decline in employees or program activity within San Francisco.
• The requested funds are not supporting startup activities for a new organization.

APPLICANT PRIORITY CRITERIA

Priority will be given to nonprofit organizations that

• Are deeply rooted in low-income communities, communities of color, and historically underserved communities in San Francisco
• Are facing significant financial constraints within the nonprofit sector
• Can demonstrate support for their efforts from multiple sectors
• Clearly identifies how new beneficiaries will be acquired and existing beneficiaries served effectively by the proposed space
• Can demonstrate evidence of planning to identify and mitigate financial risk 

Award recommendations will be based on the program priorities and review criteria described below.  Applications will be reviewed by a racially and ethnically diverse panel of public and private sector leaders in the arts, social services, and philanthropy.

Review Process

After the application period closes, Community Vision will screen applicants to ensure the satisfaction of all basic eligibility requirements. All eligible applicants will be presented to a racially and ethnically diverse panel selected for their knowledge of nonprofit finance and governance as well as their experience working with community-focused nonprofits and on capital projects. The review panel is made up of representatives from the city agency partners, as well as nonprofit leaders and community members with related expertise. Community Vision in partnership with OEWD selects the panelists. If you have a panelist recommendation, please email grantmaking@communityvisionca.org.

In addition to the priority criteria, the review panel considers:

• The degree of project readiness and technical capacity to plan, develop, and operate the proposed project^[10].
• The extent to which the investment will address an urgent need and provide catalytic funding^[11].
• Whether the applicant will offer co-location opportunities. If co-location is a component of the project, provide letters of intent for 60% of the leasable square footage.

Application Information

Please visit the Checklist of Required Information for a detailed list of all narrative questions and file uploads that will be required in the online application.

For more questions about the application or the application process, visit the FAQs.  If you still don’t find the answer to your question, email grantmaking@communityvisionca.org.

Reimbursement Requirements

If awarded funding, grantees will be required to provide the following documentation to request reimbursement:

• Rent Stipend: Organizations who have signed a new lease or renewed their leases at a higher rate since October 1, 2020 may apply for up to six months of a rent stipend to pay the difference between their prior and current rent if the new price-per-square-foot is higher than the prior one^[12]. The three-year financial plan should indicate how the organization will continue paying the higher rent after the stipend has been fully disbursed. The financial plan should demonstrate a plan for achieving operating feasibility over the three-year period.
• Staff Expenses: Organizations seeking reimbursement for staffing expenses related to the real estate project must provide a summary of hours worked by day for each employee including a narrative description of how time was spent. Payroll verification and staff timesheets are required. Organizations will be asked to provide documentation of the hours spent by employees across all City contracts for the pay period that reimbursement is requested.
• Expense Reimbursement: Organizations who have been displaced or expanded since October 1, 2020 must submit documentation of the expenses for which they are requesting reimbursement . An equipment request form must be submitted and approved by Community Vision prior to the purchase of equipment or services in order for the disbursement request to be approved. Reimbursement requests from a vendor that exceed $5,000.00 will be subject to the City’s bidding requirements.  Planned purchases may not be broken up to avoid this requirement. Additional informal or formal bidding requirements will apply for purchases and services over $9,999 and $99,999, respectively.  Community Vision will provide detailed bidding and purchasing guidelines and the equipment request form.  Please contact Community Vision if you have any questions about the City bidding requirements. Information on the bidding requirements is available here.
• Organizations must submit documentation showing lease termination and execution of a new lease.
• Lease Stabilization Grant funds used for public work must follow the State’s prevailing wage requirements.  The City of San Francisco and the State of California have labor protections in place to ensure service-providers receive fair pay. This is called prevailing wage because they are paid the average wage for similar work that prevails in the intended geographic area, which also always meets local minimum wage requirements. To be prevailing-wage-compliant, all service-providers in industries that are subject to prevailing wage requirements AND have publicly-funded contracts over $1,000 must pay prevailing wage and keep payroll records on-hand as backup documentation. Most service-providers subject to prevailing wage are in the construction industry, however some non-construction service-providers are also subject to prevailing wage. For construction-related services, if the contract is for general maintenance and valued over $15,000, the contractor must submit payroll records to the City’s online prevailing wage system, LCPTracker. If the contract is for new construction or rehabilitation and valued over $25,000, the contractor must submit payroll records to LCPTracker.

Complying with prevailing wage is the responsibility of the contractor, not the grantee. Community Vision will work directly with the contractor to determine whether they are subject to prevailing wage compliance, and if so, what level of compliance is required.

 Click here for information on prevailing wage requirements and related costs.

Grant Fund Policies

• Only one grant may be awarded per project for the duration of this program. A prior Lease Stabilization grantee is eligible to apply for a new grant for a different project if the prior Lease Stabilization grant award is fully disbursed.
• Organizations leasing space that was acquired with an Acquisition grant are ineligible to apply for a Lease Stabilization Grant for the same site.
• Organizations with leases of 55+ years in commercial spaces within new, 100% affordable housing developments may either apply to the Acquisition Fund or the Lease Stabilization  Fund, but not both.
• Tenants in Hope SF developments are eligible to apply.
• Organizations moving from a co-working space into an office lease are ineligible to apply for the rent stipend.
• Eligible leases must provide the organization with full access to the premises. Agreements that stipulate hourly usage of the space on specific days are ineligible.
• Grantees must demonstrate 100% Board giving as a pre-disbursement requirement. A template is available here.  
• Grant conditions must be met and the grant must be closed and spent down by February 28, 2023.
• Grant funds will be disbursed on a reimbursement basis. Grantees must provide receipts/paid invoices and obtain spending approval to request grant funds.
• Grant terms and conditions will be determined on a case-by-case basis by the Selection Committee. In the event of non-compliance, the Selection Committee will also outline and decide on appropriate remedies with the understanding that recovery of the grant is a potential remedy.
• Grant funds may not be used for any of the following:

• Ongoing mortgage or other debt payments.
• More than six months of a rental stipend (difference between prior and current rent for displaced square feet).
• Expenses due to temporary displacement.
• Residential or live/work units.
• Expenses submitted for reimbursement under another city-funded program/grant

• Organizations that may be temporarily displaced due to building renovations and have the right to return at their current/affordable lease rate are ineligible to apply.
• Grant award disbursements are contingent on a legally binding lease agreement or purchase and sale agreement.
• Organizations that require membership in a certain religion or advance a particular religious faith are ineligible to apply. Faith-based organizations may be eligible if they welcome and serve all members of the community regardless of religious belief.
• Independent schools are ineligible to apply.

Apply Now!

Applications are available at communityvisionca.org/sfsustainability

Applications must be received by 12 pm PST on Friday, January 28, 2022 to be considered. The online application system will shut down at noon (12 pm Pacific) on Friday, January 28, 2022.

Applications received after 12 pm PST on Friday, January 28, 2022 or deemed to be incomplete will not be accepted.  

Please visit the Checklist of Required Information for a detailed list of all narrative questions and file uploads that will be required in the online application.

For more information, please contact:

Community Vision Grantmaking

Email: grantmaking@communityvisionca.org

Phone: 415.392.8215 x390