Pilot Program Successfully Converts $1 Million Investment into Nearly $50 Million in Grant Funding for Under-Resourced Communities to Address Climate Change
ILG and the California Strategic Growth Council Announce Results of
18-Month Pilot Program for Local Governments
ILG and the California Strategic Growth Council (SCG) announced today the successes of the BOOST Pilot Program designed to help California local governments advance climate and equity goals. The outcomes and successes of the program are outlined in a new report released today.
The 18-month pilot program was designed to provide flexible and responsive technical assistance to under-resourced local governments by helping them address their varying and evolving capacity challenges, while also sharing best practices and lessons learned to help inform future state programs. ILG and SGC selected ten cities and two regions to participate in the pilot program and developed customized work plans with each community based on self-identified needs.
The BOOST Pilot Program helped communities:
Build awareness of funding opportunities to address climate action;
Organize projects to be best positioned to meet their goals;
Optimize existing resources and build more capacity;
Strengthen relationships with key stakeholders and identify new opportunities for regional engagement and collaboration; and
Transform their approach to addressing climate action.
“The Institute for Local Government is proud of the work we did to support local governments while also advancing state and regional climate and equity goals,” said Erica L. Manuel, CEO and Executive Director of the Institute for Local Government. “The pilot program allowed us to partner with our BOOST communities to secure critical funding for housing, transportation and infrastructure projects. We also worked together to authentically engage diverse residents, build partnerships and advance climate action and resilience planning efforts that will build the foundation for a more vibrant, healthy and resilient future.”
Through the BOOST Program, ILG:
Provided grant writing assistance for 59 grants totaling almost $50 million, including $42,918.714 in California Climate Investment (CCI) funding opportunities and $6,630,000 in SB2/LEAP grants to support planning, affordable housing, equitable transportation and climate mitigation and resilience projects;
Facilitated discussions between local agency partners, state agency staff and technical assistance providers working on 12 grant programs from five different state agencies;
Provided strategic counsel, allocated funding, secured resources and/or identified expert consultants to help develop six Climate Action and/or Resiliency Plans;
Trained 72 local agency staff on authentic public engagement strategies through numerous customized capacity-building workshops; and
Strengthened local planning projects by facilitating discussions and building relationships with community-based organizations and advocates that provided valuable input to support more equitable planning to address the needs of vulnerable populations.
Join ILG, SGC and select BOOST communities for a webinar on Wednesday,May 26th at 2:30pm to hear more about successes of the program, best practices and lessons learned.
