Led by Sol Alvarez-Taubin, Writing for Green worked closely with our client – The Bullard Center for Environmental and Climate Justice (the Bullard Center) – to plan, design and submit a successful program proposal for the EPA’s Solar for All competition. With a massive grant award of over $156 million, in partnership with the Clean Energy Fund of Texas, the Bullard Center will deploy technical assistance and funding to historically Black colleges and universities and minority serving institutions, to develop residential-serving community solar and storage projects in low-income, majority BIPOC communities on the frontlines of grid vulnerability and energy justice challenges. Projects are expected to operate in 19 states across the United States South and Southeast (EPA Regions 3, 4, and 6), averting millions of tons of CO2, generating utility bill savings for thousands of households, mobilizing private capital for a just green transition, and driving local wealth-building through community ownership. Writing for Green looks forward to continuing to support the Bullard Center with implementation of its Solar for All program, and to continuing to assist frontline environmental justice organizations in building capacity to transform their communities. Congratulations to the Bullard Center and Clean Energy Fund of Texas on this monumental award!
News & Updates
The Bullard Center Wins $50 million Thriving Communities Grantmaker Award with WFG’s Help
Writing for Green’s Courtenay Strickland was the lead writer, and thought partner, for this project, collaborating with The Bullard Center for Environmental and Climate Justice (BCECJ) to create a winning proposal for the Environmental Justice Thriving Communities Grantmaking (EJ TCGM) program. The project – which BCECJ will implement in partnership with Houston-based Achieving Community Tasks Successfully (ACTS) – will implement a grant-making program which will award more than $40 million in grants to non-profit organizations working to advance environmental justice and public health in the EPA’s Region 6. A key objective will be to remove barriers to federal funding for frontline organizations, making it easier for them to implement their work in the communities that are often disproportionately affected by environmental degradation, harms from climate change, and the attendant public health challenges. As a secondary objective, the program will provide a level of technical assistance and expertise that will maximize the impact of subrecipients’ funded projects. The grantmaking project will make ~232 grants; the primary outcomes targeted through this initiative are that CBOs working in the EJ space in underserved communities report increased capacity as a result of the funding, as well as improved environmental/public health conditions in the communities they serve.
Overview of Our Recent USDA Forestry Grant Wins – Securing $29.5 Million for Our Clients!
This year, the USDA provided over $1.5 billion in forestry project grants to 385 organizations. The USDA grants were funded by the Inflation Reduction Act, which enabled the Forest Service to make historic and unprecedented investments in forestry projects designed to benefit disadvantaged communities, leading to improved health outcomes, and other quality-of-life metrics.
Three Writing for Green Clients Win USDA Urban and Community Forestry Grant
Writing for Green helps frontline organizations increase their capacity to write competitive grant applications to receive more funding for their important work. Three out of the five organizations that we assisted in applying for this funding opportunity were awarded grants. Following is a brief overview of these clients and their winning projects.
Partnership for Southern Equity
Partnership for Southern Equity is a nonprofit organization advancing policies and institutional actions that promote racial equity and shared prosperity for all in the metropolitan areas of Atlanta and the American South. They secured $2 million in USDA funding for their Canopy for Just Communities Project in Georgia. Their proposed tree planting program includes training local urban forest stewards, strengthening grassroots organizational capacity, and funding for their operations, as well as canopy expansion and maintenance. They anticipate that the project will increase equitable access to nature, reduce urban heat vulnerabilities, increase nature-based solutions to environmental injustice and climate change, engage disadvantaged youth, and reforest urban land for sustainable community benefit. The project covers three of USDA’s funding categories – Restoration and Resilience, Workforce Development, and Planning and Community Engagement.
La Cosecha Community Supported Agriculture (CSA)
La Cosecha CSA is a farmer-owned cooperative in New Mexico whose mission is to ensure that low-income South Valley and International District families have adequate and sustainable access to healthy and affordable locally-grown food and nutrition education. La Cosecha CSA received $2.5 million in funds from the USDA for their South Valley Community Forestry Project. The aims of the project are to 1) establish native and edible community forests, 2) create a workforce capable of maintaining the locally adapted forests, and 3) inspire the community to value and sustain natural and heritage landscapes, regenerative agriculture, and local culture. Their project applies to four USDA funding categories – Tree Planting and Maintenance, Restoration and Resilience, Workforce Development, and Extreme Heat.
Green Latinos
Green Latinos is a national non-profit comprised of Latino leaders dedicated to tackling national and local environmental issues impacting the Latino community. They 1) demand equity and dismantle racism in all spaces, 2) work to ensure that they and their partners are resourced to win environmental, conservation, and climate justice battles, and 3) strive for their political, economic, cultural, and environmental liberation. Green Latinos received $25 million from the USDA to operate as a national passthrough organization. They will provide grants to sub-awardees that meet their proposed project’s objectives.
Green Latino’s sub-awardees will be working to meaningfully increase tree canopy in disadvantaged communities. Their project will involve tree assessments to identify locations to expand equitable urban tree canopy – including public housing sites, maintenance experts co-developing site plans with sub-awardees, the planting of trees, and bilingual outreach activities to engage residents in urban forestry. This project will advance five of the USDA’s funding categories – Tree Planting and Maintenance, Restoration and Resilience, Workforce Development, Planning and Community Engagement, and Extreme Heat.
Broader Impact of the USDA Urban and Community Forestry Grant Wins
In the context of Justice40, frontline EJ organizations have a generational opportunity to access significant government funding for their critical work. The USDA’s Urban and Community Forestry Grants have the potential to drastically impact the well-being of millions of Americans living in communities facing extreme heat and many other environmental and health challenges due to limited access to trees and canopy coverage.
What are the Keys to Writing for Green’s Success?
The Writing for Green team is a group of dedicated and experienced grant-writing professionals who, in their careers, have each raised millions for nonprofit and frontline organizations. Collectively, Writing for Green’s team brings decades of experience to meet the many diverse needs of our clients.
This funding opportunity is just one example of the many that Writing for Green is helping our clients to access; we are honored to be playing an important role in this effort and are excited for the opportunities that 2024 holds in store for our clients.
If you are interested in learning more about the awardees of the USDA Urban and Community Forestry Grants, you can visit their 2023 Grant Awards page here.
Reflections From Our First Environmental Justice TCTAC Train the Trainer Conference
On October 24-26, in Washington, D.C., Writing for Green (WFG) hosted a conference for eight of the EPA’s 17 Environmental Justice Thriving Communities Technical Assistance Centers ( TCTACs). One of the key responsibilities of the TCTACs is to help environmental justice organizations and their leadership gain the knowledge and skills needed to secure funding and resources for their environmental justice work. The purpose of the conference was for the TCTAC leaders to learn how to effectively support frontline organizations in grant writing by employing WFG’s training and coaching services.
Resources Developed for TCTACs Ahead of the Conference
Over the past year WFG, in partnership with the Frontline Resource Institute (FRI), led by Dr. Margot Brown, has developed a comprehensive, proven model for training environmental justice organizations to write competitive grant applications, and win funding. This model includes a digital platform that allows learners to uptake these skills at their own pace and an efficient mechanism for the TCTACs to provide technical assistance around this subject matter. The model also includes live, interactive training, which can be delivered in-person or remotely via video conference and one-on-one coaching to help representatives of frontline environmental justice groups to better apply the principles of the training in their daily work.
Overview of the TCTAC Conference
The two-day conference was filled with many interactive sessions to support the learning and engagement of the TCTAC representatives. In addition to being oriented to Writing for Green’s curriculum and technology-based systems, the training participants learned about WFG’s methodology and discussed strategies for employing these tools and resources in the work of their TCTACs.
A highlight of the event was a panel discussion, led by Dr. Brown, that aimed to better define “capacity building” in the context of fundraising, and illuminate effective strategies for doing just that. The esteemed panel included Kimberly Foreman (Environmental Health Watch), Esther Sosa (EPA), and Sacoby Wilson, Ph.D., (Center for Community Engagement, Environmental Justice, and Health).
Future Plans for TCTACs
Writing for Green is thrilled to be supporting TCTACs, as they directly serve hundreds of worthy frontline groups nationwide in the coming years, helping them to access more funding and improving the quality of life of people in their communities.
$10 million Win to Build Capacity of EJ Groups
Writing for Green (WFG) played a vital role in securing a $10 million grant from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice (DSCEJ). The grant, named the Thriving Communities Technical Assistance Center (TCTAC), will allow the DSCEJ to serve as a regional hub, providing much-needed support to grassroots environmental justice organizations across the Deep South.
WFG’s contribution to the grant application was crucial, as a member of our team led the writing and development of the TCTAC proposal. The expertise of WFG in crafting compelling narratives and communicating complex environmental justice issues played a significant role in securing the funding.
Now that the grant has been awarded, WFG will continue to collaborate with the DSCEJ to ensure that the TCTAC program has a meaningful impact. WFG’s focus will be on supporting the DSCEJ as they build the capacity of grassroots organizations so they can do their work more effectively, and win additional grant funding. This will result in stronger environmental justice organizations capable of creating real change in their communities.
The successful partnership between WFG and the DSCEJ is a testament to the power of effective communication, and effective collaboration. In the past year alone, WFG principals have helped the DSCEJ to win $17 million in grant funding. The work of the DSCEJ serves as a reminder of the importance of investing in grassroots organizations and supporting those working to create a more just and sustainable world. We are thrilled to have been a part of this success.
$2 Million to Fight Climate Injustice
With short notice, we wrote a winning capacity-building grant proposal for the Deep South Center of Environmental Justice (Deep South), resulting in a $2 million grant from one of the country’s largest private foundations. The Gulf Water Justice and Climate Policy Project will bring together communities in the Gulf Coast Region to expand their capacities for climate policy action that tackles a significant, but overlooked, public health concern: community-exposure to hazardous industrial releases that occur during major flood events and storms. Deep South designed this project in recognition of the fact that the impacts of climate change are not felt equally. In the five states of the Gulf Coast Region (Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas), the unjust concentration of industrial facilities in and near Black communities exposes residents to toxic pollution and other environmental hazards. This exposure is made worse by the destructive effects of climate change that increases rainfall and supercharges hurricanes, which increase the risks of facility accidents and the migration of toxic substances from industrial sites to nearby homes and schools via stormwater. There is, however, no regional response that protects Black and other communities of color, who are disproportionately exposed to the double-disaster of a major storm and industrial hazard.
We are a trusted partner of Deep South, because we share the same values, and because our team gets results. This grant represents our third success in as many attempts. What are the key components to an effective partnership, between a service provider like us an client like Deep South? We think they include: trust, identifying and leveraging existing assets, genuine collaboration, and the willingness to be open and honest with each other.