SAN FRANCISCO & WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The U.S. Conference of Mayors and Wells Fargo today announced the 2019 CommunityWINS^® grant program, aimed at accelerating neighborhood revitalization, economic development and job creation in municipalities across the U.S., with a $1 million commitment by the Wells Fargo Foundation.

The U.S. Conference of Mayors and Wells Fargo first announced the CommunityWINS grant program in 2015, with a three-year, $3 million commitment by Wells Fargo. In 2018, the public-private collaboration was extended through 2020 with an additional $3 million commitment by Wells Fargo, bringing the combined total to $6 million over six years.

The CommunityWINS grant program is administered by the U.S. Conference of Mayors and funded by the Wells Fargo Foundation.

“The CommunityWINS program collaboration is about helping communities succeed,” said Tom Cochran, U.S. Conference of Mayors CEO and executive director. “Wells Fargo and the USCM are working together, and with our communities, to create positive change by accelerating neighborhood revitalization, economic development and job creation. We look forward to seeing more success in 2019.”

Through a competitive application process, the conference will determine eligibility and administer grant funds to eligible nonprofits in eight cities, two awards per population category: Metropolitan (500K+); Large (275K-500K); Medium (50K-275K); and Small (50K or less) to support neighborhood revitalization, economic development and job creation initiatives. The population categories have been redefined this year, resulting in the addition of a Metropolitian category and two more awards.

“Together, the U.S. Conference of Mayors and Wells Fargo are strengthening cities by empowering communities to make improvements in local municipalities,” said Martin Sundquist, head of housing philanthropy for the Wells Fargo Foundation. “It’s been four years since we announced the CommunityWINS grant program, and the progress made in achieving our goals of accelerating neighborhood revitalization, economic development and job creation has been incredible. We are excited to see even more communities benefit from this commitment.”

Member cities can nominate up to three eligible nonprofit initiatives or programs that address one of the following issues:

• Neighborhood stabilization – projects designed to stimulate growth and stability while assisting in the removal of blight and the rebuilding of neighborhoods.
• Economic development – projects designed to promote business development.
• Job creation – projects designed to aid in local job creation or assist in job training.

Grant requirements, application details, application checklists and the online application forms are available now at www.usmayors.org/communitywins/. Applications must be submitted by March 22.

In 2018, CommunityWINS grants were presented to six nonprofits: Pacific Gateway Workforce Partnership (Long Beach, Calif.); Year Up Greater Boston; Greater Dayton Union Cooperative Initiative (Dayton, Ohio); Near Northwest Neighborhood Inc. (South Bend, Ind.); Youngstown Neighborhood Development Cooperation (Youngstown, Ohio) and The Community Foundation of Greater Rochester (Rochester Hills, Mich.).

The CommunityWINS grant program collaboration between the U.S. Conference of Mayors and Wells Fargo follows a national alliance formed in 2011 to address foreclosure prevention, property disposition, homeownership promotion and community development. The alliance was forged to address housing challenges through strategies developed by Wells Fargo.

About the U.S. Conference of Mayors

The U.S. Conference of Mayors is the official nonpartisan organization of cities with populations of 30,000 or more. There are nearly 1,400 such cities in the U.S. today, and each city is represented in the conference by its chief elected official, the mayor. The organization is on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/usmayors and on Twitter at https://twitter.com/usmayors.

About Wells Fargo

Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE: WFC) is a diversified, community-based financial services company with $1.9 trillion in assets. Wells Fargo’s vision is to satisfy our customers’ financial needs and help them succeed financially. Founded in 1852 and headquartered in San Francisco, Wells Fargo provides banking, investment and mortgage products and services, as well as consumer and commercial finance, through 7,800 locations, 13,000 ATMs, the internet (wellsfargo.com) and mobile banking, and has offices in 37 countries and territories to support customers who conduct business in the global economy. With approximately 259,000 team members, Wells Fargo serves one in three households in the United States. Wells Fargo & Company was ranked No. 26 on Fortune’s 2018 rankings of America’s largest corporations. News, insights and perspectives from Wells Fargo are also available at Wells Fargo Stories.