“With billions of federal dollars hanging in the balance to fuel a greener and more resilient economy, the state and philanthropy must work together to ensure that communities who need those dollars the most are poised to access them.”
In California, we are fortunate to have the leadership and policy framework that champion accessibility and equity. Whether in jobs, healthcare, education, infrastructure, or climate resilience, Governor Newsom’s commitment to a “California for All,” embeds equity into every aspect of the state’s policies, programs, and practices.
Pair this with federal initiatives like the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the Inflation Reduction Act and the Biden Administration’s Justice 40 commitment, which aims to invest at least 40-percent of certain federal funds into disadvantaged communities, and California has an unprecedented opportunity to draw down game-changing federal investments to transform the state’s most overburdened and disinvested communities.
Sounds almost too good to be true, right? Well, it depends on what we do right now.
As it stands, most of the state’s underinvested and historically marginalized communities don’t have the time or people power to search for, apply to, and implement public grants. Most do not have staff who can devote time and energy to sifting through all the funding opportunities that appear rapid-fire every week, each with their own unique and stringent requirements.
Even if they did, even if they could ...
Even if communities did have the people power, many do not have nationally competitive shovel-ready projects that they could incorporate into a federal grant application.
Even if they did, most lack access to grant writers who can assemble the complex content and examples needed to complete competitive grant applications.
Even if they could, many do not have access to the match funding needed to be competitive or are unable to front the money for reimbursable grants.
And, even if they did jump over all these hurdles (and many others) to actually secure the grant funding, many of the smallest, most under-resourced communities struggle to successfully implement grants due to difficult reporting requirements, lack of access to contractors, low staff capacity and/or staff turnover.
How do I know?
I have spent the past five years working on the Community Assistance for Climate Equity program (CACE) for the California Strategic Growth Council (SGC). CACE is a capacity building and technical assistance program, meant to equip communities with the coordination, knowledge, leadership, skills, and access to resources to ensure that they can lead their own climate solutions. This collection of capacity building programs empowers communities by offering trainings, planning support, project development, financial management support, funding opportunity navigation, grant writing, and grant implementation. We work with tribes, under-resourced local governments, community-based organizations, and coalitions of partners to help them navigate the thorny obstacle course that awaits them in the world of public grants. In this work, we hear time and again that staff are wearing multiple hats, struggling to stay afloat, and certainly not ready to apply for state or federal grants without significant support.
But don’t take it from me.
The need for capacity building has been well-documented as a barrier to equitable investment in communities that need public dollars the most. While better resourced communities are well poised to take advantage of historic funding opportunities, the neediest communities thirst in the rain. Several recent reports* from academic and climate policy organizations alike cite capacity gaps and the complexity of public funding sources as some of the most notable barriers to achieving an equitable energy transition and protecting vulnerable communities from the worst impacts of climate change.
This is a challenge that my colleagues and I know intimately because ensuring equitable investments in the state’s most under-resourced communities is central to SGC’s mission. And why we have built a series of capacity building and technical assistance programs that serve underinvested communities at the frontlines of this funding equity crisis. These programs include:
- BOOST: A capacity building program to support under-resourced local governments in advancing their climate, resilience, and equity goals through tailored trainings, planning, grant writing, and project implementation support.
- Partners Advancing Climate Equity (PACE): A capacity building program for frontline community leaders from across California to connect and learn with peers, inspire collective action, develop connections and relationships at the statewide level, and build skills and resources to access public funding.
- Tribal Capacity Building Pilot Program: A first of its kind grant program, that provides funding and technical assistance to Native American tribes in California to build staff capacity and fill gaps to advance climate-related work.
- Regional Climate Collaboratives Program: A coalition of community-serving partners in under-resourced communities that establish community priorities, develop a pipeline of projects, and align projects with state, federal, and philanthropic funding opportunities.
My time working in this space has shown me that breaking the vicious cycle of resource deprivation in underinvested communities is complex and overwhelming – but investing in the capacity of local organizations really does move mountains. For example, with an investment of just $1.5 million, the BOOST program has brought nearly $75 million of public funding into under-resourced jurisdictions that otherwise would have been unable to access those critical funds. That’s a return on investment of 50:1.
Reversing government’s legacy of redlining and disinvestment will require state and federal agencies to listen carefully to communities about how we can make funding easier to access while also scaling up programs that build the capacity of communities who need our funding the most. The time to act is now. With billions of federal dollars hanging in the balance to fuel a greener and more resilient economy, the state and philanthropy need to work together to ensure that the communities who need those dollars the most are poised to access them. Otherwise, we risk only deepening geographic inequalities in our state as all those federal dollars flow to communities that are well-resourced and ready, while those that have been underinvested for decades get left behind. Again.
Notes
* The reports are listed below: