NEWS

Age-Friendly Funding Alerts: Residential Retrofit Program, BCBS of MA Foundation, MassDOT Helping Hand Mini-Grant

Jun 25, 2025

The Massachusetts Healthy Aging Collaborative is pleased to promote the following funding opportunities that support inclusive age- and dementia friendly communities:

Massachusetts Technology Collaborative’s (“MassTech”) Residential Retrofit Program (the “Program”) will make a transformational capital investment in the infrastructure needed to support delivery of high-speed internet in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts’ Affordable Housing developments.

The Program will fund the purchase and installation of broadband infrastructure in public housing and Affordable Housing buildings. Infrastructure may include fiber from the street to the building, in-building wiring and in-unit termination. Eligible expenses are fully defined in section 4 of this Request or Proposals (“RFP”).

MassTech’s objective with this Program is to address factors that have inhibited market investment by Internet Service Providers (“ISPs”) in improving infrastructure to and within Affordable Housing developments across the state. By offering capital funds, MassTech seeks to enable ISPs to offer reliable, high-speed broadband service in Affordable Housing buildings.

More info and application documents are available here.

Advancing Community Driven Mental Health grant program will fund five community based organizations with grants of up to $100,00 a year for two years, starting in December 2025 to improve and increase access to community based mental health services for adults experiencing mild to moderate mental health distress and practical problems of daily living, and develop the skills of a non-clinical workforce.

Under this grant program, the BCBSMA Foundation and its collaborators (Partners in Health, The Family Van, and the Institute for Community Health) will provide training, technical assistance, and implementation support to organizations selected to develop and implement PM+ services through the grant program.

More information is available here.

Helping Hand Mini Grant Applications awards small grants (of up to $1000) to fund transportation-related capital costs. Though all participants can apply to the Helping Hand program, rural/small urban providers are prioritized. Applications are due on July 11, 2025.