As covered in the articles on State Support and Federal Resources, leveraging state and federal funding is critical to launch and sustain your climate corps program. Below we provide guidance on how to navigate online financial databases.
Grants.gov is a site where you can both search for federal grants and learn grant-writing skills. The Learn Grants tab features the following topics.
- Grants 101 — Basics about the grant lifecycle and management
- Grant Policies — Laws and regulations for federal awards
- Grant Eligibility — Are you eligible to apply for grants?
- Grant-Terms — Grant-related terminology and acronyms
- Grant Agencies — Federal grant-making agencies
- Grant Systems — Tools and apps to register and manage grants
- Grant Programs — Financial assistance and benefits
- Grant Careers — Tips for a career in grants management
- Grant Reporting — Learn about reporting and monitoring
- Grant Fraud — Recognize and avoid grant scams and fraud
- Grant Events — Upcoming grant trainings and conferences
Search Grants is a great tool to find posted and forecasted upcoming grant opportunities at the federal level. You can filter by eligibility, funding instrument type, category, and agency. A few key words to try searching include climate resilience, adaptation, mitigation, climate action plan, and vulnerability assessment.
GrantWatch
GrantWatch is an excellent site to find federal, state, and local funding opportunities. First, click the Search Filters button to set your filters. The first category is set to Environment and Conservation, but this can be changed to allow for all categories or check multiple categories. Other relevant categories include Social Justice, Science, Quality of Life, Research and Evaluation, Mental Health, Health and Medical, Disaster Relief, Climate Change, and BIPOC. You can then filter by location, selecting a state, country, or international scope. The types of funding sources you can filter by include corporations, federal government, foundations, state government, and local government. Finally, you can filter by recipient category, selecting either individuals, nonprofits, or small businesses. For Advanced Searches, you can also enter keywords, a grantwatch ID, or a deadline date range. Some suggested keywords include climate resilience, adaptation, mitigation, climate action plan, and vulnerability assessment.
Climate Health Equity Toolkit
Several philanthropy-serving organizations created a funder toolkit on climate, health, and equity. The toolkit is intended to be used by the philanthropic community and grant-seekers. The partners for this toolkit include:
- Biodiversity Funders Group
- Climate and Energy Funders Group
- Environmental Grantmakers Association
- Grantmakers in Health
- Health & Environmental Funders Network
- Neighborhood Funders Group
- Philanthropy California
- Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems Funders (SAFSF)
- The Funders Network
The toolkit offers a resource page for GOVERNMENT FUNDING AND COLLABORATION under the WHO’S DOING WHAT tab at the top of the page. The page has four sections.
- Information on Current Public Funding Opportunities (including the Justice40 Initiative and newly-legislated federal funding)
- Hubs of Collaboration for/with Government Funders — organizations supporting interaction among US city, county, state, federal, tribal government, and/or other funders
- US Federal Agencies and Programs Addressing Climate, Health, and Equity (alphabetized list by US federal agency or office)
- US City, County, and State Agencies and Programs Addressing Climate, Health, and Equity for the following states
- Arizona
- California
- Colorado
- Connecticut
- Florida
- Illinois
- Indiana
- Maine
- Maryland
- Massachusetts
- Michigan
- Minnesota
- New Hampshire
- New York
- North Carolina
- Oregon
- Pennsylvania
- Rhode Island
- Vermont
- Wisconsin
The toolkit also offers resources by impact focus, by issue focus, or by geographic focus to look through.
EPA Greenhouse Gas Inventory Data Explorer
The Greenhouse Gas Inventory Data Explorer is an interactive tool that provides access to data from the EPA’s annual Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks and the new Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks by State. You can use the tool to create customized graphs, examine trends over time, and download data. National data has been updated through 2021 and state level data has been updated through 2020.
This tool is a great way to track emissions by sector or state. To use the tool, scroll down and choose your filter criteria in order of Sector, Category, Greenhouse gas, Break out by, Year(s), and Geography. You must select each criteria in that order as the dropdown boxes are specific to your previous selections. From your choices, a graph is populated and available for export. The standard years, or all years, are from 1990-2021 for national geography and vary 1990-2020 for states.
EPA Climate Change Impacts by State
The EPA Climate Change Impacts by State site offers a series of factsheets, by state, which provide projected climate change impacts. In addition to the 50 states, there are factsheets available for Guam, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands. To view a factsheet, simply click on the state or territory name from the list and you will be taken to a PDF factsheet on What Climate Change Means for X area. The two-page fact sheets include photos and graphics for easy viewing and cover topics by sector and natural hazard. These factsheets were developed in 2016, so some information is a bit dated and should be supplemented with recent events.
Here are some example factsheets for North Carolina and California.