The GRIT Application portal has been closed.
Supporting low-income, single-head-of-household families with no-strings-attached cash gifts.
Growing Resilience in Tacoma (GRIT) 2.0 is a 12-month guaranteed cash gift project. GRIT 2.0 is a partnership with the Washington State Economic Services Administration, the City of Tacoma, Pierce County Government, and United Way of Pierce County designed to boost the financial security of low-income, single heads of households with children.
We've reviewed qualifications, randomly chosen participants and are completing orientation. If you have questions about this process, please refer to the FAQs.
Why provide a guaranteed cash gift?
• Unconditional cash gift programs are an effective tool that empowers families by providing them with the resources they need to support their families.
• For many households, a small monthly infusion of financial support can make the difference between stability and vulnerability.
• Despite the overall prosperity of the Puget Sound area, in Pierce County more than one in four households struggles to meet their basic needs.
• Economic inequity negatively impacts families and undermines our county’s overall well-being and economic health.
• The COVID pandemic and economic inflation have magnified these inequities.
From April 2024 to June 2025, GRIT 2.0 will gift 175 ALICE (asset-limited, income-constrained, employed) families $500 a month for 12 months. These dollars are unconditional and unrestricted. This project is designed to demonstrate that this type of cash investment can reduce feelings of overwhelm and toxic stress, improve economic stability, increase housing security, and improve health and well-being while reducing poverty in our community.
This project will serve residents who live within zip codes with the highest numbers of ALICE households. Project participants will be chosen through a randomized selection process.
Program Goals:
The program aims to alleviate poverty by improving economic stability, housing security, and mental health through:
- Investing in ALICE: Supporting a population already identified as struggling - Asset Limited, Income Constrained and Employed - which represents the financial disparities of BIPOC families and has been disproportionately impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Cultivating Resilience: Empower families to make financial decisions and address crises on their own terms.
Additionally, the demonstration aims to inform State and Federal policies that promote economic opportunity and enhance, improve and increase equity in the social safety net by:
- Changing the Narrative: Through storytelling and data, build a case for supporting more equity in housing, childcare, physical wellbeing, and financial wellness and uplift the truth that poverty is a systems failure - not a personal failure.
- Building Support: Leverage learnings and experiences to impact systems changes that support unconditional cash programs and other strength-based policies that enhance, improve and increase equity in the social safety net.
