BY The Funders Network Staff
The Funders Network, in partnership with the Urban Sustainability Directors Network, is excited to announce the recipients of six Partners for Places Mini Grants, intended to help local governments, local foundations, and frontline community-led groups 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 hopefully help these communities develop a successful Partners for Places project proposal 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 foundations. National funders invest in local projects developed through these partnerships to advance efforts to create communities that are sustainable, prosperous and just.
Read on to meet the latest Partners for Places Mini Grant recipients, as well as to learn more about the recently launched Partners for Places interactive Grants Map and Idea Bank.
These six communities have received Partners for Places Mini Grants:
Albuquerque, N.M.:
Amount: ($9,500)
Project title: Capital Stacking for Maximum Community Sustainability
Project description: The grant will support collaborative and effective community engagement team to leverage policy and resources to target energy-burdened households with whole-house energy efficient retrofits.
Frontline community-led group: Prosperity Works
Funder partner: McCune Foundation
Boulder County and Cities of Boulder and Longmont, Col.:
Amount: ($8,000)
Project title: Community-Driven Climate Justice and Resilience
Project description: The grant will be used to support the efforts of the partner organizations to identify and build a relationship with frontline community-led group(s) to work together to co-create a Partners for Places matching grant proposal for an equitable, community-driven climate justice and resilience planning and capacity building process.
Frontline community-led groups: Boulder Food Rescue, El Centro Amistad, FLOWS and Longmont Food Rescue
Funder partner: Philanthropiece Foundation
Dubuque, Iowa:
Amount: ($8,500)
Project title: Building Energy for Change
Project description: This grant will expand partnership development with a new community group, providing incentives to participants and strengthening project management and facilitation, and support gatherings to understand frontline community perspectives related to barriers at the intersection of climate action.
Frontline community-led group: Switching Places Foundation
Funder partner: Community Foundation of Greater Dubuque
Grand Rapids, Mich.:
Amount: ($10,000)
Project title: Green Stormwater Infrastructure in Grand Rapids Neighborhoods of Focus
Project description: This grant will aid in the planning to further impactful green infrastructure opportunities in business districts within Grand Rapids Neighborhoods of Focus.
Frontline community-led group: Grand Rapids Area Black Businesses (GRABB)
Funder partner: Wege Foundation
Richmond, Va.:
Amount: ($10,000)
Project title: Southside Greening Grassroots Master Plan Development
Project description: This grant allows the city, funder partner and community groups to design an equitable greening master planning process that centers people directly impacted by environmental disparities and builds on existing organizing and greening efforts in South Richmond.
Frontline community-led group: Southside ReLeaf; Virginia Community Voice
Funder partner: Richmond Memorial Health Foundation
Santa Fe, N.M.:
Amount: ($10,000)
Project title: Co-developing a Project at the Mitigation-Resilience-Equity Nexus
Project description: To compensate marginalized community representatives and youth climate action organizers for their time spent collectively developing a grant application that addresses institutional and systemic racism, provides equitable outcomes, and advances collective goals to create a sustainable, thriving community.
Frontline community-led group: Earth Care
Funder partner: Eric Oppenheimer Family Foundation
About Partners for Places
Partners for Places general grant program is supported by The JPB Foundation, Kendeda Fund, The Kresge Foundation, New York Community Trust and the Pisces Foundation.
To date, Partners for Places has awarded more than $7.5 million across North America in this successful matching grant program, leading to over $16 million in investments.
To read about the latest round of Partners for Places matching grant recipients, visit here.
To learn about the previous round of Partners for Places Mini Grants, visit here.
Partners for Places was has been featured in Inside Philanthropy. Read the most recent story here.
Go deeper: Learn more about the new Partners for Places interactive Grants Map & Idea Bank here.
For questions about the Partners for Places Mini Grants or matching grants program, please reach out to Ashley Quintana.