T-Mobile Hometown Grants is a $25 million, five-year initiative to support the people and organizations who help small towns across America thrive and grow. Hometown Grants are given every quarter to up to 25 small towns. Apply for funding to support a community project of your choice, like revitalizing or repurposing a historic structure, creating a downtown asset or destination, or improving a space where friends and neighbors gather. Projects that add to a sense of place or could lead to further investment are of particular interest. We look forward to learning more about your town and your project. 

Projects must be completed and usable by the public by May 31, 2026. Make sure to consider these parameters when choosing the kind of project you are proposing for this grant.

Main Street America™ (MSA) is pleased to announce the Unlocking Capital on Main Street Pilot Program, supported through a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.  All State and Regional Main Street America Coordinating Programs are invited to apply to partner with MSA to bring this program to your state/region.

Note: This application is for Coordinating Programs only. Interested local Main Street programs should contact their Coordinating Program to be considered for recommendation. Coordinating Programs will act as the lead applicants and select three eligible local Main Street Organizations to pilot this work at a local level. For each of the three communities your coordinating program has nominated to apply, please refer them to this local application link to submit a separate local program application, which is also due on Wednesday, February 5 at 11:59am CST:https://airtable.com/appHSn1MqXyG1xYZT/pagYcou0ja5YERMQf/form.

The focus of this RWJF-funded pilot is on small and midsize cities, so eligible Main Streets will be 50,000 to 500,000 in population. Interested local Main Street programs who meet eligibility requirements should contact their Coordinating Program to be considered for recommendation. Please note that a Coordinating Program can propose multiple Main Street districts in the same city as long as the population is not greater than 500,000.

At Main Street America (MSA), we envision inclusive and thriving Main Streets with strong local economies and diverse businesses. However, many smaller and midsize cities face significant challenges including few banking and funding options, disinvestment, population decline, racial disparities and public health crises. MSA's research indicates that 85% of our local programs lack sufficient housing stock, and 70% are hindered by vacant or underdeveloped spaces. This lack of usable real estate stifles new business creation, business growth, and housing affordability. 

Key development barriers in our Main Streets include: limited access to capital, unfavorable construction economics, difficulty securing pre-development funding, and a shortage of local developers. This is particularly acute in communities of color, which traditionally have faced additional systemic financial challenges and barriers to entry. The Center for Community Investment's (CCI) Capital Absorption Framework has emerged as a promising framework and approach to address many of these challenges, and Main Street America™ (MSA) is uniquely positioned to address this network need in partnership with our regional Coordinating Programs. 

Program Outline

This program leverages MSA’s past work in entrepreneurial ecosystem building and our partnership with the Center for Community Investment (CCI) to implement their Capital Absorption Framework. The framework’s three functions—articulating shared priorities, creating and executing an investable pipeline of projects, and improving the enabling environment—offer leaders tools to realize their communities’ visions. 

At the conclusion of this application process, MSA and our partners will select the top two Coordinating Program applicants to participate in this initiative. Each selected program will receive the following:

1. Opportunity to select Main Street organizations in three small to midsize cities (population 50,000 to 500,000) to participate in this intensive 18-month capacity building program to support building effective community investment ecosystems alongside experienced staff from MSA and the Center for Community Investment. As mentioned above, if only two Main Street Programs are available in that range, a third can be selected from a city with a population of less than 50,000.
2. Opportunity for Main Streets to receive real estate development technical assistance and underwriting support from RePurpose Capital (formerly the Main Street America Small Deal Initiative) and potential to access loan capital from the fund, provided the project and jurisdiction meets eligibility and underwriting requirements.
3. Opportunity for coordinating staff to participate in all trainings as part of a train-the-trainer process and provide a framework & tools to expand this project to additional Main Street programs within the state/region.
4. $50,000 Capacity Grant to the Coordinating Program.
5. $70,000 Capacity Grant to each of the three selected local Main Street Programs (a total of $210,000 in subgrants to your Main Streets).
6. Access to a pool of $500,000 in grant funds to be leveraged for pre-development financing needs in all six of the participating Main Street communities. 

Selection Priorities

The following four criteria will be factors in the selection of Coordinating Programs:

1. Commitment and capacity of the regional Main Street Coordinating Program to expand your community investment ecosystem efforts statewide as demonstrated by the following:

• Strategic or Annual Work Plans with clear priorities articulated around supporting small businesses, commercial real estate development, housing, or community investment ecosystem.
• Community Investment Ecosystem Programming Capacity as demonstrated by providing or leveraging trainings, research, grant programs, or loan funds to help Main Street districts access needed development resources and to address inequitable access to capital.
• Staffing capacity, experience and expertise.
• Relevant partnerships that can be leveraged to scale the effort and remove barriers. 

Coordinating Programs will be asked to submit strategic or annual work plans and relevant programming documents or links.

2. Commitment and capacity of the local Main Street program to improve their community investment ecosystem as demonstrated in the following areas: 

• Transformation Strategies or Annual Work plans with clear community priorities around commercial real estate development, housing, economic vitality, small business support or other areas of the community investment ecosystem. 
• Have or be willing to develop a collection of investable projects (a project pipeline) – At the core of the approach is a lack of focus on a singular investment, but a goal of shifting the entire ecosystem.
• Solid programming foundation demonstrated by providing or leveraging training, research, funding, or other resources to address access to capital for Main Street stakeholders and residents.
• Involvement and relationships with property owners, local developers, finance institutions, public officials and related players in the community investment ecosystem, including representation on the Main Street board or committees.
• Clearly demonstrated public sector support.      
   

Main Streets will be asked to submit Transformation Strategies and annual work plans, relevant programming documents or links, and one letter of support from a key public or private stakeholder to support their application (i.e. Mayor, City Manager or a key downtown developer).

3. Demonstrated commitment by the Coordinating Program and selected Main Streets to allocate resources to underserved communities or residents, including historically disadvantaged communities. At the core of the Capital Absorption Framework is the desire to create fair, effective investment systems so all residents can flourish.

4. A demonstrated need based on lack of access to conventional capital sources and structural disinvestment in the past. This will be verified using reported reinvestment statistics and demographic data. 

All application finalists will be asked to assemble a set of local ecosystem support partners to participate in a video interview with Unlocking Capital on Main Street program staff.