How It All Started: ALBD Grant Program

Active Living By Design was established as a national program office of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in late 2001. The grant program funded and provided technical assistance to 25 action oriented, multidisciplinary community partnerships that developed and implemented local projects to support physical activity and active living. Active Living by Design's original call for proposals required applicants to address four strategies:

  1. Create and maintain an interdisciplinary partnership that addresses active living.
  2. Increase access to and availability of diverse opportunities for active living.
  3. Eliminate design and policy barriers that reduce choices for active living.
  4. Develop communications programs that create awareness and understanding of the benefits of active living.

The 25 community partnerships that ultimately received Active Living by Design grants are a diverse group of entities, as are their settings, which include Honolulu, the South Bronx, the Smoketown neighborhood of Louisville, Albuquerque, five neighborhoods in Seattle, and the college town of Columbia, Missouri. Their tactics vary but most include such efforts as increasing the number of parks, trails, and community gardens; promoting transit and bicycle-commuting possibilities; changing local zoning laws to require sidewalks in new developments and redesigning street standards; developing walking clubs and programs such as Safe Routes to School; encouraging employers to provide bike lockers, showers, and gym memberships for their employees; engaging local elected officials and the media; and raising public awareness about the relationship between inactivity and the built environment.

Active Living By Design's approach to grant making is 'high touch, low dollar' and is demonstrated by modest financial contributions to the community partnerships—just $200,000 over five years for each site—but providing generous support in the form of high-quality technical assistance to build capacity in the 25 demonstration communities.

Through the first five years of the program, community partnerships secured $129 million from other sources to support Active Living initiatives in their project areas, a huge number relative to the Foundation's initial investment of nearly $5 million in grants. Read more about the communities.