Substance Education and Awareness Fund

In December 2021, the City of Boulder approved $380,000 in 2022 Substance Education and Awareness Fund grants, with anticipated continued grant funding through 2026, for community nonprofit substance use prevention programs.

Also in 2022, SEA Fund investments provided seed funding for the Institute for Strengthening Families, a website with English and Spanish resources on substance use prevention, for youth and their parents and guardians.

In 2023 the SEA Fund welcomed four additional grantee partners: El Centro AMISTAD, I Have A Dream Foundation, Out Boulder County and Safehouse Progressive Alliance for Nonviolence to support their substance use prevention programs.

Alongside nonprofit grant funding allocations, the SEA Fund is also building capacity for substance use prevention and peer support, by fully-subsidizing the costs of training and certification for two state processes: Certified Prevention Specialist II; and Peer and Family Support Specialist.

The annual report outlines key activities and community impacts that resulted from SEA Fund program grantees. The SEA Fund focus on substance use prevention helped support youth and other community members. This framework has been even more important given increased stress, anxiety and disparities due to COVID-19. SEA Fund grantee partners also benefited from network collaboration and professional development activities, which increase our community capacity for substance use prevention.

• Read The Report
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The City of Boulder, in collaboration with Boulder County Community Services, has since 2017 supported substance use prevention programming to benefit city youth and other community members. The SEA Fund offers grants to non-profit agencies of any size to meaningfully incorporate, expand and elevate program work in substance use and abuse prevention; develop skills in program management, data collection and evaluation; apply health equity principles and practices; increase youth-based and youth-led strategies; and leverage partnerships for greater community wide impacts. In addition to grant funding, SEA Fund partners have opportunities for professional development that will increase expertise in implementation science, prevention competency and program sustainability.

SEA program goals are:

1. Widespread community distribution and awareness of information and programs developed;
2. Shift community perceptions of risk associated with substance use, including the impact of drugs, alcohol, recreational marijuana and abuse of prescription medications on children and youth;
3. Prevent/reduce youth abuse of alcohol and recreational drugs including marijuana; and
4. Reduce accidental ingestion of marijuana and other drugs.

Funding for SEA program grants comes from a portion of annual revenue from the city’s Recreational Marijuana and Electronic Smoking Device taxes.

The dashboard below provides SEA Fund grant reporting summary data from 2017-2021. We appreciate your patience while we work to adjust to more clear and meaningful data reporting moving ahead.