Tobacco Use Prevention Grants

Grants of up to $30,000 per year and grants of up to $50,000 per year to Virginia nonprofit, governmental, and charitable organizations, including schools and hospitals, to reduce the use of addictive substances among youth. Applicants must attend a conference prior to applying. Funding is intended to help encourage the prevention of tobacco, nicotine, and vaping product use among youth, including an emphasis on health equity for high-risk youth.

Applicants may apply for one of two funding categories:

Youth Development: The purpose is to fund organizations to provide evidence-based tobacco, nicotine, and vaping prevention or cessation instruction directly to Virginia youth. It is expected that the organizations who apply for Youth Development are going to be working regularly with the same group of young people. Programs with expectations of regular attendance (schools, after school programs, early care and education programs, etc.) or with long-term mandated care (youth residential treatment facilities, etc.) would be good candidates. Programs where youth attendance is irregular or sporadic would likely not be good candidates. 

• All grantees implementing programs with middle and high school age youth must also include VFHY’s The Dangers of Other Tobacco Products (OTP) module as part of their programming. This module provides some up to date information on vaping and should be inserted into the program sessions where deemed most appropriate. The module takes approximately 15-25 minutes to complete. 
• In addition to youth programming, applicants will identify a policy, systems or environmental change activity(s) to implement. A minimum of one of these activities per year must be implemented in order to receive funding.

Community Innovation: The purpose is to fund organizations to design and implement a community project to reduce tobacco, nicotine, and vaping product use among a specific youth population. Applicants must design a community-innovation project aimed at a key youth population or populations of their choice. An important component of this funding category is to develop, implement, and document innovative practices to reduce tobacco-related population health disparities. Applicants may adapt strategies found in the Community Innovation Toolkit, or propose their own strategies, or both. Organizations that have some experience working with young people and a strong connection to the community they serve are good candidates. 

Proposals must target youth at-risk, such as youth who:

• Are in the juvenile justice system 
• Have a behavioral health disorder 
• Have lower academic achievement  
• Identify as African American 
• Identify as American Indian/Native American 
• Identify as Hispanic or Latino 
• Identify as LGBTQ+ 
• Live in poverty 
• Live in rural areas 
• Other groups that applicants might choose to target.