Deadline: 10-Apr-23
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is issuing this solicitation to request applications for projects supporting community-based nonprofit organizations (CBOs) in their efforts to collaborate and partner with other stakeholders (e.g., local businesses and industry, local government, medical service providers, academia, etc.) to develop solutions that will significantly address environmental and/or public health issue(s) in communities disproportionately burdened by environmental harms and risks.
These projects will help transform disadvantaged and underserved communities into healthy, thriving communities capable of addressing the environmental and public health challenges they have historically faced, as well as current and future challenges.
Objectives
- Collaborative Problem-Solving Model – The program’s objective is to support projects that demonstrate the utility of the Environmental Justice Collaborative Problem-Solving Model. For the purposes of the EJCPS Program, collaborative problem-solving is defined as an effort to bring together groups and resources (e.g., information, labor, money) by three or more stakeholders to solve a set of problems that any single entity cannot solve individually. Collaborative problem solving builds upon existing community understanding to establish and maintain partnerships capable of producing meaningful environmental and/or public health results. To provide a systematic approach towards collaborative problem-solving, OEJECR has developed a Collaborative Problem-Solving Model (Model). Such a Model is intended to assist vulnerable and underserved communities in developing proactive, strategic, and visionary approaches to address their environmental justice issues and achieve community health and sustainability.
- Collaborative problem-solving also involves developing a well-designed strategic plan with a built-in evaluation component to measure and achieve results on local environmental and/or public health issues and to sustain the partnerships. These elements are cross-cutting and interdependent and should be utilized in a proactive, strategic, and iterative manner. Determining which elements to undertake, and in what order, can vary greatly, however, depending upon the unique facts and circumstances surrounding each environmental and/or public health issue. Not all the elements are required to be used in every situation. Rather, the CPS Model and its seven elements can be viewed as a “toolbox” filled with different tools that can be used as needed. The seven elements are as follows:
- Issue Identification, Visioning, and Strategic Goal-Setting;
- Community Capacity-Building and Leadership Development;
- Development of Multi-Stakeholder Partnerships and Leveraging of Resources;
- Consensus Building and Dispute Resolution;
- Constructive Engagement with Other Stakeholders;
- Sound Management and Implementation; and
- Evaluation
Funding Information
- The total estimated funding expected for all awards under this solicitation is approximately $30,000,000, broken down as follows:
- $25,000,000 for CBOs proposing projects for up to $500,000 each. Approximately 50 awards for up $500,000 each are anticipated under this track.
- $5,000,000 for qualifying small CBOs with 5 or fewer full-time employees proposing projects for up to $150,000 each.
- Duration:
- EPA anticipates issuing approximately 83 total awards. Applicants should plan for an estimated project period start date of October 1, 2023.
- EPA cannot extend the performance periods for EJCPS assistance agreements beyond three years.
Types of Projects
- The EJCPS Program has funded a wide range of projects and project types over the years that address local environmental and public health concerns through collaborative partnerships. All proposed projects should include activities designed to engage, educate, and empower communities to understand the local environmental and public health issues and to identify ways to address these issues at the local level. Types of projects the EJCPS program has funded in the past and would be eligible to be funded under this competition include, but are not limited to, the following:
- Air quality & asthma
- Water quality and sampling
- Food access to reduce vehicle travel and fuel emissions
- Stormwater issues and green infrastructure
- Lead contamination
- Pesticides and other toxic substances
- Healthy homes
- Illegal dumping
- Emergency preparedness and disaster resiliency
- Environmental job training
- Youth development relating to Environmental Justice
Eligible Projects
- Applications submitted in response to this funding opportunity must address one of the following five broad categories:
- community-led air and other pollution monitoring, prevention, and remediation, and investments in low- and zero-emission and resilient technologies and related infrastructure and workforce development that help reduce greenhouse gas emissions and other air pollutants;
- mitigating climate and health risks from urban heat islands, extreme heat, wood heater emissions, and wildfire events;
- climate resiliency and adaptation;
- reducing indoor toxics and indoor air pollution; or
- facilitating engagement of disadvantaged communities in Local, State and Federal public processes, such as advisory groups, workshops, and rulemakings
Eligible Activities
- The following are more specific examples of the types of activities which may be considered for funding under this solicitation. It is provided for illustrative purposes only and is not all inclusive:
- research that is incidental to the project design
- public education
- small-scale construction and demolition work (if needed for project)
- small-scale clean-ups
- installations of air or water filtration systems
- major disposal training
- energy recovery projects training
- building refurbishments that reduce greenhouse gas emissions and other pollutants
- mitigation of pollution
- remediation of lead or asbestos
- workforce development to support low and zero emission and resilient technologies that reduce greenhouse gas and other air pollutants.
- Environmental Justice partnership building that engages disadvantaged communities in Local, State and Federal public processes, such as advisory groups, workshops, and rulemakings
- community revitalization planning in support of climate resiliency and adaptation
- monitoring of sources of pollution
- efforts to improve equitable transportation and mobility including through efforts to address barriers of cost and safety related to walking, bicycling, and public transit in order to reduce air pollution
- development of disaster preparedness plans
- community revitalization planning addressing local pollution and greenspace
- facilitating the engagement of disadvantaged communities in State advisory groups, workshops and rulemakings and other public processes.
Eligibility Criteria
- An eligible applicant must be one of the following entities:
- a community-based nonprofit organization; or
- a partnership of community-based nonprofit organizations*
- *Note: the partnership must be documented with a signed Letter of Commitment from the community-based nonprofit organization detailing the parameters of the partnership, as well as the role and responsibilities of the community-based organization.
- Partnerships with CBOs – for the purposes of the Environmental and Climate Justice Block Grants programs, a “partnership” is a formal financial relationship between two or more community based nonprofit organizations (CBO) that is memorialized in writing and is legally binding under applicable law. The final partnership agreement (which may be finalized between the two partnering CBOs after selection and/or award) must specify which member of the partnership will enter into the assistance agreement with EPA for the purposes of accountability for the proper expenditure of Federal funds, performance of the assistance agreement, liability for claims for recovery of unallowable costs incurred under the agreement and must specify roles in performing the proposed scope of work for the assistance agreement.
- One CBO in the partnership must receive EPA funding as the direct recipient of the cooperative agreement and the other partner(s) or as a subrecipient(s). Thus, a qualifying partnership must include a subaward from the direct recipient of EPA funds to the partnering organization. The applying organization must explain in their workplan that they plan to subaward funds to their partner and detail the roles and responsibilities of the partnering CBOs throughout the project. Additionally, Letters of Commitment from the partnering CBO must indicate a subaward agreement is planned to establish the partnership. The final partnership agreement must also at a minimum specify other roles and responsibilities of each partner, including how the priority environmental and public health issues of the disadvantaged communities being served by the partnership are identified and selected for projects and activities, as well as the role of community leaders in the decision-making processes and implementation of the proposed projects for funding.
- Letters of Commitment – Applicants should include signed letters of commitment from the partnering CBOs (and entities from other stakeholder groups) that provide detailed information about the partnership agreement (e.g., roles and responsibilities), including information about the planned subaward (if applicable). Only partnerships that include a signed letter of commitment will be considered valid partnerships during the evaluation of your application.
Ineligible
- Tribes and tribal governments
- US Territories
- Freely associated states
- International Organizations
- Public and Nonprofit Institutions of Higher Education;
- For-profit colleges, universities and trade schools,
- hospitals;
- state and local governments and their agencies and instrumentalities;
- quasi-governmental entities
For more information, visit Grants.gov.