The Good Jobs in Clean Energy Prize is designed to encourage coalition-building in communities across the country that focus on creating quality jobs and fostering an equitable and inclusive workforce in clean energy sectors.
Donor Name: American-Made Challenges
State: All States
County: All Counties
Type of Grant: Awards and Prizes
Deadline: 01/31/2025
Size of the Grant: $10,000 to $100,000
Grant Duration: Grant Duration Not Mentioned
Details:
The focus of this Prize is on quality and access in both employment and workforce development. It is based on the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) priorities to support the creation of good-paying, union jobs in clean energy and to promote diversity, equity, inclusion, and access (DEIA) in the transition to a clean energy economy. These priorities set a goal for “strengthening prosperity by expanding good-paying, secure, and safe union jobs accessible to all workers.” In addition, this Prize will adhere to the goal of the Justice40 Initiative, which directs 40% of the overall benefits of certain federal investments—including but not limited to investments in training and workforce development—to flow to disadvantaged communities.
The purpose of the Prize is to advance economic justice in the clean energy transition by ensuring that new and existing clean energy jobs are high quality and accessible. The Prize will do this by incentivizing the formation of place-based coalitions and providing them with the resources, including training and technical assistance in High Road strategies, to build long-lasting partnerships and pipelines to good jobs in the clean energy sector. Over the course of the Prize, competitors will take training to develop and implement action plans that ensure quality, accessible job creation, and training pathways for major clean energy sectors in their communities.
Prize Goals
The aim of the Good Jobs in Clean Energy Prize is to expand opportunities for good, family-supporting, accessible careers in clean energy and to create a skilled and diverse clean energy workforce. Place-based coalitions will work to ensure clean energy projects and investments in their community result in good jobs and greater access to them for the target population they are serving. EERE is launching the Good Jobs in Clean Energy Prize under the umbrella of the American-Made Challenges.
Specifically, the Prize will award coalitions that take steps to close gaps in place-based economic and workforce development challenges for target populations in middle-skill occupations, particularly in the construction and manufacturing industries involved in producing; building; installing; operating; and maintaining clean energy equipment, facilities, and infrastructure. Prizes will be awarded to coalitions that best create resilient on-ramps that ensure local clean energy employment opportunities are high quality and accessible to the target population.
The goals of the Good Jobs in Clean Energy Prize are to:
- Incentivize the formation of durable community-based coalitions through a prize mechanism, fostering partnerships to create quality jobs and a diverse, skilled workforce in clean energy that would not otherwise exist.
- Enable partnerships between organizations such that the placed-based coalitions have the capacity and expertise to engage in clean energy employment and training decision-making.
- Fill a knowledge gap in quality and equity-oriented economic, workforce, and partnership development strategies for clean energy deployment.
- Impart High Road economic, workforce, and partnership development strategies to ensure the coalitions’ long-term success in creating on-ramps to family-supporting careers in clean energy.
- Improve access to DOE funding to foster innovation for place-based solutions in economic and workforce development to support employment and workforce challenges across clean energy.
- Strengthen organizational ties to improve community representation and community-level information to address local good job initiatives for underrepresented populations.
- Demonstrate that with investment in training and technical assistance, a place-based workforce coalition can address job quality and access while meeting labor market demand.
- Draw on lessons learned from each coalition’s Coalition Action Plan, including specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and timebound (SMART) goals; timelines; and milestones to develop scalable and replicable models to advance economic equity in the U.S. clean energy workforce.
- Showcase the impact and progress coalitions made throughout the prize process to highlight the long-term benefits to all stakeholders involved.
- Establish best practices to scale EERE’s clean energy workforce and economic equity goals.
Types of Phases
The three-phase competition catalyzes coalition building to understand, plan, and improve job quality and job access within the clean energy economy for target populations.
- Phase One: Coalition Formation
- Up to 15 winning coalitions / $50,000 cash prize each
- Winning coalitions are selected for:
- Identifying a clean energy employment opportunity and workforce challenge in a specific sector and target community, and
- Displaying robust partnerships that include at least one organization from each of the five stakeholder types: labor organization, clean energy employer, community-based organization, public agency, and education and workforce provider.
- Phase Two: Coalition Action Plan
- Up to 10 winning coalitions / $100,000 each
- Competing coalitions participate in a virtual U.S. Department of Energy-led training on High Road economic and workforce development strategies for clean energy and develop a robust Coalition Action Plan to create quality, accessible jobs, and training partnerships.
- Phase Three: Implementation and Impact
- Up to 10 winning coalitions. First place: $300,000 / Second place: $250,000 / Third place: $200,000 / Seven runner-up coalitions: $125,000
Competing coalitions implement their Phase Two Coalition Action Plans and participate in community-of-practice activities and quarterly check-ins with prize administrators.
Eligibility Criteria
Coalitions must be five-member partnerships, at minimum, consisting of at least one entity from each of the following:
- Labor Organization: A single or multiple union local(s), an association of labor unions (e.g., a local or state Building and Construction Trades Council, a local or regional Central Labor Council, or a State Federation of Labor), or a combination of different labor organizations.
- Clean energy employer: Any public or private entity that employs workers in a clean energy sector.
- Community-based organization: A membership-based, nongovernmental organization that represents the target population or a non-governmental organization with a track record of working with and serving the target population.
- Public agency: A governmental entity involved in implementing clean energy programs (e.g., a city or county sustainability office or a state energy office), a governmental entity involved in economic and workforce development (e.g., a local or state workforce investment/development board), or a governmental entity involved in delivering public assistance programs (e.g., a county or state social service agency that provides financial assistance for food, housing, childcare, etc.).
- Education and workforce training provider: A public or private institution or organization that delivers workforce education and training services focused on middle-skill occupations (e.g., community colleges, adult high schools, registered apprenticeship programs, or apprenticeship readiness programs).
For more information, visit American-Made Challenges.
