BY TFN STAFF
The Funders Network, in partnership with the Urban Sustainability Directors Network, is excited to announce the latest round of Partners for Places Mini Grants. These grants are intended to help local governments, place-based funders and frontline communities build relationships, align project ideas, and center racial equity in water, sustainability and climate action work.
The Partners for Places Mini Grants are designed to spark new relationships or deepen existing connections that will help communities develop a successful Partners for Places project application in the future.
Partners for Places is a matching grant program that improves U.S. and Canadian communities by building partnerships between local government leaders, community groups and place-based funders. National funders invest in local projects developed through these partnerships to advance efforts to create communities that are sustainable, prosperous and just. These sustainability efforts take place from coast to coast, in communities both large and small and focus largely on empowering and engaging low-income neighborhoods.
These nine communities have received Partners for Places Mini Grants:
Charlottesville, Va.:
Amount: $10,000
Project title: Addressing Energy Inequity in Albemarle County, VA
Project description: To understand the distribution of energy burden in Albemarle County, both demographically and geographically, in order to identify strategies that the Community Climate Collaborative can utilize to align its climate and equity initiatives with the county’s commitment to building a resilient, thriving community.
Frontline community-led group: Community Climate Collaborative
Funder partner: Adiuvans Foundation
Erie, Pa.:
Amount: $10,000
Project title: City of Erie Sustainability Strategy
Project description: The City of Erie will partner with CAFE, The Hamot Health Foundation, CRANE and PennFuture to initiate a sustainability strategic planning process to build stakeholder consensus and implement local policies that help protect our natural resources through a lens of racial equity and environmental justice.
Frontline community-led group: Community Resilience Action Network of Erie, PennFuture and CAFÉ
Funder partner: Hamot Health Foundation
Gwinette County, Ga.:
Amount: $10,000
Project title: Initial Resilience Planning for Unincorporated Norcross
Project description: The project seeks to take initial steps towards a long-term comprehensive, proactive plan for the resilience needs of a diverse, Latino and immigrant-dense community that is under-resourced and climate-burdened.
Frontline community-led group: LiveNorcross/Gwinnett Housing Corporation
Funder partner: Latino Community Fund of Georgia
New Orleans La.:
Amount: $10,000
Project title: Equitable green designs for frontline NOLA neighborhoods
Project description: To help develop an equitable Green Stormwater Infrastructure (GSI) tool for construction prioritization in NOLA communities. Protocols will help communities of color articulate their climate change vulnerability and needs for greening interventions, and be used to demonstrate how other frontline communities might implement a similar prioritization strategy.
Frontline community-led group: Institute for Sustainable Communities and Healthy Community Services
Funder partner: Greater New Orleans Foundation
Richmond Va.:
Amount: $10,000
Project title: Completion of a Neighbor-led Greening Plan for Richmond’s Southside
Project description: A neighbor-led greening plan centers people who are directly impacted by climate injustice and seeks to repair decades of systemic disinvestment in South Richmond.
Frontline community-led group: Virginia Community Voice and Southside ReLeaf
Funder partner: Virginia Outdoor Foundation
Santa Cruz, Calif.:
Amount: $10,000
Project title: Student-Centered Climate/Environmental Justice Art Sister City Partnership
Project description: Partners for Places Mini Grant funds will help support efforts to create a four-stage project which includes: Community Art Exhibition and the creation of mobile art pieces; mobile art pieces at in-classroom presentations to frontline students; student field trips to environmental justice murals; the creation of student art pieces and statements to share with Sister City students/communities.
Frontline community-led group: Sea Walls/Made Fresh Crew, Natural Bridges High School and Star Community High School
Funder partner: Community Foundation Santa Cruz County
Springfield Mo.:
Amount: $10,000
Project title: Urban Waters Access for All
Project description: This grant will be used to better understand people’s relationship to water and barriers to accessing regional water resources. Funding will be used to facilitate community outreach and engagement, to better understand their connection to existing local waterways, water quality and barriers to access.
Frontline community-led group: Community Partnership of the Ozarks
Funder partner: Community Foundation of the Ozarks
Westland, Mich.:
Amount: $10,000
Project title: Lower Rouge River Water Trail Leadership Committee
Project description: Friends of the Rouge will utilize funding from the Partners for Places Mini Grant to help facilitate its strategic planning meetings, community outreach, and engagement on park improvements in the Norwayne community in Westland, and help ensure the leadership committee reflects the diversity of the communities aligned with the water trail.
Frontline community-led group: The Norwayne Community Citizens Council and Friends of the Rouge
Funder partner: National Kidney Foundation of Michigan
Waco, Texas:
Amount: $10,000
Project title: Cultivating a Regenerative Food Culture in Waco
Project description: Partners for Places Mini Grant funds will be used to facilitate strategic partnerships to create a regenerative food culture and related infrastructure for food waste diversion from the landfill and education on food waste and composting. Historically disadvantaged Waco neighborhoods and Waco public schools will be the targeted frontline communities.
Frontline community-led group: Mission Waco
Funder partner: Cooper Foundation
About Partners for Places
To date, Partners for Places has awarded over $8.5 million across North America in this successful matching grant program, leading to over $18 million in investments.
The matching grant program brings national funder investors together with place-based funders to support equitable sustainable climate action and green stormwater infrastructure projects. The program is currently supported by six investor foundations: The JPB Foundation, The Kendeda Fund, The Kresge Foundation, New York Community Trust, The Allen H. and Selma W. Berkman Charitable Trust, and the Pisces Foundation.
Read about the latest round of Partners for Places matching grant recipients here.
To learn about the previous round of Partners for Places Mini Grants, visit here. (All grant announcements can be found on the Partners for Places webpage.)
For questions about the Partners for Places Mini Grants or matching grants program, please reach out to Ashley Quintana.
Partners for Places FAQ’s
→ Where is Partners for Places making an impact?
Read previous grant announcements and explore the Partners for Places Grantee Map here.
→ Where can I learn about completed Partners for Places projects?
Visit the Partners for Places Idea Bank to explore what grantees are doing, learning and sharing.
For more information about Partners for Places, please reach out to Ashley Quintana, ashley@fundersnetwork.org.
“Nature’s Artistry” by Olin Gilbert is licensed under CC BY
“Nature’s Artistry” by Olin Gilbert is licensed under CC BY
“my community” by marneejill is licensed under CC BY-SA