The Justice40 Accelerator supports community-based and community-led groups/organizations working at the frontlines of environmental crises and advancing community-driven climate solutions.
Donor Name: Justice40 Accelerator
State: All States
County: All Counties
Territory: Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, Guam, U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa, and Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands
Type of Grant: Accelerator
Deadline: 07/31/2023
Size of the Grant: $25,000
Grant Duration: 12 months
Details:
Communities at the frontlines of climate, environmental, and social injustices have the wisdom and the solutions to create transformational change. Historic structural racism and bureaucratic inadequacies have often led to a lack of access to the capacity and resources needed to implement their community-driven solutions. With the Biden-Harris Administration’s Justice40 commitment and the unprecedented public funding flowing from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act, the Inflation Reduction Act, and other federal initiatives, the Justice40 Accelerator aims for organizations from under invested communities to be informed, inspired, and equipped to navigate the public funding space so that public money can flow to communities who need it.
The Justice40 Accelerator will provide information, resources, and technical assistance to frontline community organizations in order to help navigate public funding (local/state/federal) requirements and competitive application processes to support environmental and climate-related work, including projects that address climate change, clean energy and energy efficiency, clean transit, affordable and sustainable housing, training and workforce development, remediation and reduction of legacy pollution, agriculture and food systems, and the development of critical clean water and wastewater infrastructure.
The Accelerator is a 12-month long learning community of projects accountable to communities and committed to delivering climate-related solutions. The Accelerator is designed to be a cohort experience to meet projects where they are at in their journey to become eligible for public funding. The Accelerator will provide project development support and technical assistance to cohort members in order to competitively apply for grant funding.
Accelerator participants will receive the following:
- Training on public grant requirements, federal proposal requirements, and management/reporting
- Digest of relevant federal, state, and local government funding opportunities
- Invitations to calls with federal agency staff to learn about opportunities and to share feedback
- Support with federal grant registration and requisite policies
- Support needed to formulate identified projects with pre-project development, including research and data, capacity-building partners, project design, and evaluation planning
- Assessment of internal capacity and matching to technical assistance offerings
- Grant writing and grant submission support
- Peer spaces to share learnings, challenges, and resources
- Post-award management systems guidance
- A $25,000 unrestricted grant intended to help support the organization’s staff participation during the Accelerator.
Eligibility Criteria
- The Justice40 Accelerator will support community-based and community-led groups/organizations working at the frontlines of environmental crises and advancing community-driven climate solutions. Nonprofits with 501(c)(3) status, fiscally sponsored projects, and cooperatives based in the U.S., including sovereign lands located within the U.S. and its territories, are eligible to apply
- Accelerator is looking for applications from groups that:
- Have identified a project that addresses Justice40 Initiative covered programs (climate change resilient infrastructure, clean energy and energy efficiency, clean transportation, affordable and sustainable housing, sustainable agriculture and food systems, the remediation and reduction of legacy pollution, critical clean water and waste infrastructure, and training and workforce development related to any of the preceding areas);
- Have majority Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) leadership and serve BIPOC-majority communities;
- Have the ability and interest to participate in the Accelerator offerings from October 2023 – September 2024; and,
- Have interest and intent to apply, with Accelerator assistance, for public funds during that time.
Ineligibility
Ineligible to apply to the Accelerator are:
- Higher Education Institutions
- Public Housing Organizations
- Non-profit Organizations that do not have a 501(c)(3) status with the IRS or a fiscal sponsor
- Tribal Governments
- For-Profit Organizations
- Small Businesses
- Individuals
- Applicants outside of the U.S. or U.S. Territories
For more information, visit Justice40 Accelerator.
