California Invests $8.5 Million to Help Communities Accelerate Climate Action

SACRAMENTO – The State of California today approved $8.5 million in grant funding to support communities experiencing the worst impacts of climate change compete for and implement funding for projects that tackle climate impacts. The California Strategic Growth Council, a state body comprised of seven state agencies and three public members, voted unanimously today to approve this funding through the Regional Climate Collaboratives (RCC) program. The first round of funding will support six Regional Climate Collaboratives – coalitions of community-based organizations, nonprofits, and local governments – to build readiness for climate investment and implementation.

Established by Senate Bill 1072 (Leyva, 2018), the RCC program broadens access for frontline communities facing historic disinvestment to access unprecedented state and federal climate infrastructure investments.

“The Regional Climate Collaboratives program is an emerging government investment model to build local capacity and ensure communities have an on-ramp to successfully compete for and implement climate infrastructure investment,” said Lynn von Koch-Liebert, Executive Director of SGC. “Oversubscription in our first round of funding makes it clear there is significant need to build capacity to prepare communities for unprecedented state and federal investment. We are thrilled to announce our Round 1 grantees to begin this work, and want to thank all our applicants for their continued work to build thriving, healthy and resilient communities for all.”

SGC received overwhelming interest in the program, receiving 45 applications representing 300 unique nonprofit, CBO, and local government entities from 42 counties applying for what would have totaled $66.6 million in awards. Earlier in the year, the Council identified capacity building as an urgent need, adopting a resolution to advance this as a key strategy to create more equitable access to state resources.

Round 1 Awards

“The Gateway Cities Regional Climate Collaborative (GCRCC) partners are thrilled to be in the inaugural cohort of RCC grant awardees,” said Nancy Pfeffer, Executive Director of the Gateway Cities Council of Governments, which is part of the Gateway Cities Regional Climate Collaborative. “Through this opportunity we can continue to strengthen and formalize our relationships, while ensuring a community-driven response to climate change in our communities of focus in Southeast Los Angeles that have been historically underserved. We are confident that our collaborative process will [increase] the capacity of all stakeholders to ensure that funding flowing into our underserved and under resourced communities exponentially increases.”

“This Regional Climate Collaborative Round 1 grant award will provide an essential foundation for Southern California Tribal Chairmen’s Association Tribes and partners to systematically collaborate and build shared resources to address climate change issues affecting all 25 SCTCA member tribes,” said Chairman Robert Smith, Chairman for Pala Band of Mission Indians and the Southern California Tribal Chairmen’s Association (SCTA), which is part of the Southern California Regional Climate Collaborative. “Ultimately, the Southern California Tribal Regional Climate Collaborative will generate more climate change resilience, more efficiently, rapidly, and equitably for Native American communities throughout our region.”

“This grant makes it possible for our Collaborative to support proactive, community-based climate resilience efforts,” said Alia Roca Lezra, a Program Manager for the Siskiyou Economic Development Council, which is part of the Siskiyou Climate Collaborative Partners. “This funding will create unprecedented opportunity in Siskiyou County to facilitate planning and implementation efforts around climate challenges, like extreme wildfire and drought, that our communities face. This partnership will allow us to prepare for the coming public, private, and philanthropic climate investments that our communities would otherwise not be able to access.”