The Purpose of the Community Marriage Initiatives Fund is to improve child well-being by encouraging, promoting, and supporting community-wide implementation of Marriage Ministries and Programs as a way to strengthen marriages and families which, when done at scale. leads to the measurable result of reductions in county-wide divorce rates.
Background
Dennis Stoica is the Founder of the Community Marriage Initiatives Fund (CMI Fund). He has been active in the field of Community Marriage Initiatives since 2002, when he founded the Orange County Marriage Resource Center in California. In 2005 he, along with Patty Howell, started the California Healthy Marriages Coalition (CHMC), which is now known as Healthy Relationships California (HRC). Between 2002 and 2007, Dennis and Patty and members of their team developed a model for Community Marriage Initiatives which was described in the 2008 Smart Marriages annual conference keynote presentation titled The California Campaign. That presentation described how the implementation of that model in Orange and Fresno Counties had led to a significant reduction in the divorce rate in those counties over the previous five years. From 2016 to 2018, Live the Life Ministries, a Florida-based organization, replicated that model in Jacksonville, Florida (Duval County) under Dennis’ leadership and through private funding from the Philanthropy Roundtable’s Culture of Freedom Initiative (COFI) project. The results were an impressive 24% reduction in Duval County’s divorce rate from 2015 to 2018, a result which was studied and reported on by researchers from Florida State University, University of Virginia, and Brigham Young University. The main components of this approach are:
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Empower local churches to implement highly effective, self-sustaining marriage ministries - balanced across the three areas of Vision, Skills and Support - across all the ages and stages of the marital life cycle.
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Implement the 3-part model of: Increase Supply, Increase Demand, and a Community Marriage Resource Center website using USMarriage.org
3. Be funded at a significant level – ideally at the rate of one dollar per person living in the community.
7&7 Project
Based upon the success of this model in those initial three communities – Orange County CA, Fresno CA and Jacksonville, FL – in early 2021 the CMI Fund partnered with Live the Life Ministries on a 5-year project to attempt to replicate this same model on a larger scale. The two organizations identified the 14 highest divorce rate counties in Florida having populations of fewer than 700,000 and divided these counties into two groups – 7 in which they would implement the model by investing at the rate of $1 per person per year and 7 which they would ignore. It was hypothesized that, over the five years of this project, the divorce rates from the 7 Intervention Counties would fall at a faster rate than would occur in the 7 Comparison Counties. It was expected that, if this were to occur, these results would provide compelling evidence that this approach is both replicable and scalable – which would set the stage for other funders to want to invest in these same types of projects. Initial results are highly encouraging! During the first three years of the project, the average reduction of divorce rates in the 7 Intervention Counties was nearly twice as large as those in the 7 Comparison Counties – with average reductions of 14.6% and 7.8% respectively.
GRANT OPPORTUNITIES
Sixth Round Grant Opportunity – Applications Due September 15, 2025 - Results to be announced October 15, 2024
Based upon the results of these four experiments – in Orange County CA, Fresno CA, Jacksonville FL and the initial results of the 7&7 Project - the CMI Fund, in partnership with the Marriage Initiative Network (MIN) and in alliance with the National Alliance for Relationship and Marriage Education (NARME), is pleased to release this Request For Proposals (RFP) for its sixth round of funding of up to $100,000 per organization across three years to further replication of this specific model in communities across the U.S. The purpose of this grant opportunity is to fund non-profit organizations who already have some track record of assisting churches implement marriage ministries, who want to expand that work, who want to replicate one specific model, and who have a goal to drive down their county’s divorce rate. This is a capacity-building grant, designed to equip, empower and position these organizations to be able to raise additional funding in the future once they have a critical mass of programs in their community.
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Eligible Applicants: Non-profit organizations within the United States
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Amount of Funding and Project Period: An organization is eligible to receive a maximum grant allocation from the CMI Fund up to $100,000 to fund a project that will span three years, with expected funding levels of up to $30,000 in Year 1, $45,000 in Year 2 and $25,000 in Year 3.
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Number and Timing of Grant Awards. Since 2022, the CMI Fund has offered six rounds of grants, and awarded grants to sixteen organizations, all of whose projects are currently underway. The deadline for the seventh (and potentially final) round is 11:59 pm ET on:
Application Grant Period
Round # Due Date Begins
7 9/15/2025 10/16/202
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​Application Process. The first step in the application process is to download and read the 6-page Request For Proposal (RFP), by
clicking here.
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Application Contents: As described in the RFP, the application will consist of two parts:
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Part #1 consists of Narrative Descriptions, with a maximum of 6 pages, single spaced
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Part #2 consists of a set of filled-out Forms, available here:
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Table A2- Breakout by Denominations/Religions
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Table A3 – Information about Historical Divorce Rates
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Form E1 – Church Assessments for Marriage and Relationship Ministries
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Form E2 – Sample Letter of Support for Churches
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Table E3 – Compilation of Church Assessments
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Form F1 – 1-page Bio of Key Team Members
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Form F2 – 1/3 page Bio of other Team Members
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Description of the Model to be Replicated
The RFP refers to a specific model that has been shown to be effective in driving down county-wide divorce rates in the four consecutive situations in which it has been implemented at scale:
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In Orange County, California from 2003 to 2007
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In Fresno, California from 2007 to 2011
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In Jacksonville, Florida, from 2015 to 2018
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In Live the Life’s “7&7” project in North Florida starting in 2021
This model and its results have been the subject of plenary (keynote) presentations at the following national conferences: 2008 Smart Marriages, 2018 NARME (National Alliance for Relationship and Marriage Education), and 2022 NARME. Recordings and/or handouts for each of these presentations are available by clicking on the corresponding links below:
2008 Smart Marriages plenary 90-minute video
2018 NARME plenary 38-minute video Handout Transcript
2022 NARME plenary 40-minute video Handout
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The first step in learning about the model is to view the (above) video of the the 2018 NARME plenary (Communities and Congregations: A Grass Roots Strategy for Strengthening Marriages and Families) which discusses the application of this model in Jacksonville. The 2022 NARME plenary (Reducing County-Wide Divorce Rates) quantifies the results from the four projects listed at the beginning of this section. For a deeper understanding of the model, feel free to also watch the (above) video of the 2008 Smart Marriages Plenary (The California Campaign), which in addition to providing a more detailed description of the overall model also discussed the work that was being done in Orange County and Fresno at that time and includes the initial reports of the reductions in Orange County's and Fresno's divorce rates.
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Related Webinars
To view a Grants-Opportunity Webinar describing this grant - which took place on Friday, February 4, 2022, click here.
To view a Grant-Writing Training Webinar associated with this opportunity, which took place on February 11, 2022, click here.
To download a handout for that Grant-Writing Training Webinar, click here.
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QUESTIONS?
If you have any questions about this grant opportunity, please contact Steffanie Oltmans at this email address.
