2018 RAILS Applications are in!
Background
On June 21, 2016, the Sacramento City Council adopted the Innovation and Growth Fund Policy and Guidelines to create new programs that expand the startup pipeline and engage the innovation ecosystem. In doing so, the council unanimously approved a framework for the $1M Rapid Acceleration, Innovation, and Leadership in Sacramento (RAILS) Program.
The first round of RAILS grantees was approved in November of 2016 and concluded their projects in 2017. Based on the results of this program, we developed nine recommendations for the 2018 RAILS Grant Program and opened the application process from April 9, 2018 to May 7, 2018.
This round of RAILS is aligned with the Office of Innovation and Economic Development’s focus on building the Sacramento Urban Technology Lab (SUTL) framework. Applicants were asked to align their projects with our SUTL verticals. We received 143 applications for $11.4M in funding and have learned a few interesting things so far.
Previous RAILS grantees are ready to build
The 2016/17 RAILS cohort consisted of 15 grantees constituting $953,239 of investment by the City to support the conditions in which startup formation occurs.
This round of RAILS, we anticipated being able to give approximately 30% of funding to previous RAILS grantees to support their efforts moving forward.
This year, 11 of the 15 grantees submitted applications for a total of $1.2M in funding. Two of those applications are to support continued execution of projects funded in the previous round, however, the rest were new programming — either completely different than their previous project or building on their previous projects.
There is a big interest in Workforce Development
When asked to select which SUTL verticals their projects most aligned with, applicants, by far, selected Workforce Development. Most applicants see their projects as building up Sacramento’s capacity for innovation jobs moving forward — a key factor as we support Sacramento’s growing innovation ecosystem and local entrepreneurs look to establish a business and grow in our city.
Focus on Inclusive Innovation
The City’s Innovation and Growth Fund was designed to support projects and programs that achieve at least one of six criteria including encouraging diversity and inclusion in the innovation community.
To encourage geographic and economic diversity, we asked applicants to identify areas of the city designated as “priority neighborhoods” that their projects would serve. And applicants came through. The most selected — Oak Park, Del Paso Heights, and Meadowview — have 74, 60, and 48 projects respectively focusing efforts within those neighborhoods.
Encouragingly, 106 selected at least one priority neighborhood to serve. As the finalists are determined and projects are implemented, we plan to track how the RAILS funding is spent to serve those neighborhoods.
So what’s next?
An independent review panel is currently in the process of evaluating all 138 eligible applications.
We have moved the pitch day to June 14th due to availability of judges and are sticking to an aggressive timeline to be able to notify finalists on June 4th of their status.
