Resilient Together: Climate Resilience Cohort
Join the Climate Resilience Cohort
We're thrilled to share the Climate Resilience Cohort grant opportunity! It's a key part of the Resilient Together project.
The Climate Resilience Cohort is a community engagement initiative to partner with community-based organizations (CBOs) that serve disadvantaged or vulnerable community members in Albemarle County and the City of Charlottesville. Participating CBOs will help center the needs of our most vulnerable community members through our process of crafting and implementing strategies to build local resilience to climate change.
The Climate Resilience Cohort is funded through an Environmental Justice Government-to-Government (EJG2G) grant from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Participating CBOs will receive a subgrant to support their involvement. The total project duration will be three years.
Partner with Us to Bring More Community Members to the Table
The impacts of climate change are already being felt in Virginia, from rising sea levels on the coast to increasingly severe flash floods and extreme heat inland. Locally, we are experiencing longer, hotter heat waves, more destructive storms, wildfire smoke, and invasive pests. We expect these challenges to increase in the coming years and decades, with implications for our community’s health and well-being.
Though our region’s direct risks are lower than many other areas, preparing in advance for the shocks and stressors brought on by a warming world will reduce the harmful impacts on our community. The more we work together to prepare for these impacts, the more resilient our community will be. This is the aim of the Resilient Together project.
Within our area, not all community members have the same level of access to public services, and therefore some may face greater vulnerability during extreme weather events. Because disadvantaged members of the community stand to be most impacted by climate change, it is especially important that their voices are heard in this planning effort so that solutions can benefit everyone in the community.
Traditional forms of public engagement (e.g., town halls, public comment) often present seen and unseen barriers to participation by many community members. Barriers to participation can include issues with travel, the ability to attend at the times provided, a lack of trust in governments and government officials, and many others. However, our full community will bring important perspectives to better inform climate-focused policymaking for everyone. While local government can face obstacles in meaningfully involving all members of its community in the public engagement processes, many local organizations are already engaging them and have created well-established relationships.
Through participation in the Climate Resilience Cohort, local CBOs will partner with the Resilient Together project team in order to further increase the reach of the program and to ensure the work truly serves the whole community.
Our Goals for the Climate Resilience Cohort
- Contribute to the development and production of a Climate Adaptation and Resilience Plan that centers the needs and experiences of disadvantaged community members
- Leverage the well-established relationships that many community-based organizations (CBOs) have with disadvantaged community members to facilitate an equitable and inclusive planning process
- Build and strengthen relationships between community members and local government staff
- Begin to build community adaptation and resilience to local climate change impacts
- Foster community ownership of climate adaptation and resilience initiatives
Benefits of Participating
Selected organizations will receive multiple benefits from participating in the Climate Resilience Cohort, including:
- Training in how climate change is affecting vulnerable community members and how extreme weather intersects with other social and economic challenges that many community-based organizations work to address;
- Relationship-building and peer-to-peer knowledge sharing among organizations with complementary areas of focus; and
- Leadership in solution design for resilience strategies that can leverage future federal and state funding programs.
Our Expectations for Climate Resilience Cohort Members
The project has two parts: planning and implementation. Each participant organization will perform three primary functions during these project parts:
Planning
- In partnership with the Resilient Together project team, co-design and conduct 2 community engagement initiatives focused on integrating the needs and experience of the constituents they serve.
- Provide a consistent staff person to participate in 3 training sessions to ensure a shared understanding of key climate resilience concepts and 6 roundtable meetings that will provide feedback on the goals and strategies of the draft plan.
Implementation
- Implement one or more collaborative, community-centered resilience projects, along with 2 roundtable progress check-ins. Projects will be co-designed and developed as part of participation in the Cohort.
Who Can Apply to Participate in the Cohort?
Organizations or groups applying must be principally and physically located in Albemarle County or the City of Charlottesville. Any applicant or partnering group located outside of Albemarle County and the City of Charlottesville must demonstrate either (a) that the population it serves is primarily people within these jurisdictions or (b) that the organization possesses local knowledge and expertise that could benefit the resilience planning process. Eligible applicants must be community-based nonprofit organizations with 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status or unincorporated community-based organizations affiliated with a 501(c)(3) willing to serve as a fiscal sponsor.
What Size Grants Will Be Awarded?
The total pool of funds from the EPA for the Climate Resilience Cohort is $400,000. Up to $150,000 will support Part 1 (Planning), and at least $250,000 will support Part 2 (Implementation). Due to funding and reporting requirements, grants will be awarded separately for the two parts of the project.
Planning
- Up to 10 community-based organizations (CBOs) will receive $15,000 to support the Resilient Together planning process through community engagement and staff roundtables. Applicants will be expected to submit a budget for this portion of the project with their application.
Implementation
- At least $250,000 will be allocated through a participatory process to identify and budget climate resilience implementation projects that reflect strategies in the climate adaptation and resilience plan prepared during Part 1 (Planning). CBOs will have the opportunity to identify and budget projects that can be implemented by an individual CBO or in partnership with several participant CBOs in the Cohort.
Applicants must apply to participate in both parts of the Climate Resilience Cohort.
Reporting
Grantees will be expected to provide quarterly reports to the Resilient Together project team to align with quarterly reporting requirements by the EPA. The Resilient Together team has contracted with an organization experienced in federal grant reporting who will assist grantees in meeting the grant reporting requirements.
Interested in Applying?
The Application Submission Deadline has been extended to Thursday, August 8, 2024 at 11:59 p.m. (previously was August 1)
All application documents can be downloaded from the right sidebar of this webpage, under “Climate Resilience Cohort Application Materials.” Please review the application information packet thoroughly before filling out your application form and budget worksheet.
Please submit applications and any questions to: climate@albemarle.org. Late or incomplete applications will not be accepted.
The Resilient Together project team and additional staff, as needed, will review all eligible applications and determine awards based on goodness of fit with the project. The award panel may ask applicants to answer questions to help clarify information included in the application before a grant is awarded.
Please note that application submission is not a guarantee of funding.
Questions?
Please feel free to reach out to us if you have any questions at all. We are here to help! Contact us at: climate@albemarle.org.
This project is affiliated with EPA Grant Number: 5C-95336301-0 | Assistance Program (CFDA): 66.312
