This page includes additional resources such as technical assistance opportunities, other websites that feature curated information for available funding opportunities, and other support to help you identify and access opportunities to fund community projects.
Other Resources
Active Transportation Resource Center
Caltrans
Project Types: Active Transportation
Caltrans Active Transportation Resource Center (ATRC) offers several ways to help communities plan and implement their active transportation goals. These include training on bicycle and pedestrian planning, design, and safety; technical assistance with on-call personalized support around active transportation planning for infrastructure and non-infrastructure projects; resources and tools to inform and support active transportation projects. ATRC also provides resources for various active transportation project types, and its website and list serve is a great way to hear about the latest on active transportation information.
California Grants Portal
California State Library
Project Types: All Project Types
The California Grants Portal provides a listing of all grants and loans offered on a competitive or first-come basis by California state agencies. This resource was developed as mandated by the 2018 Grant Information Act (AB 2252), requiring California’s state agencies to provide summaries of each of their grant or loan opportunities to the California State Library to create this resource.
CCEC Funding Resources
California Climate & Energy Collaborative
Project Types: Climate & energy
The California Climate & Energy Collaborative Funding Resources website features relevant funding opportunities for climate change and clean energy projects. The website also features important resources such as the “CCEC Funding and Assistance Program Database”, the “How-To Guide: Ways to Get Funding”, as well as Pre-Funding Opportunities.
The Complete Parks Playbook
Change Lab Solutions
Project Types: Parks
Written by Change Lab Solutions, the Complete Parks Playbook helps jurisdictions assess a community’s parks system – the local or regional network of parks, green spaces, and open spaces – and determine areas in need of improvement as well as policy levers that can facilitate those improvements. This introductory resource can help decision-makers and advocates develop a safe and accessible parks system that is integrated into a community’s built environment, hosts activities and programs, and addresses residents’ needs.
Cool California
California Air Resources Control Board
Project Types: Active Transportation, Drinking Water Supply & Quality, Public Transit and Wastewater
The California Air Resources Control Board’s Cool California website is a portal to help local governments, schools, small businesses, and households assess their carbon footprint, and to identify actions and strategies that will help them improve their emissions. The site also includes such tools as the interactive Climate Action Portal Map which tracks local government’s climate action planning efforts and creative planning ideas to address climate change and the Funding Wizard, which is a searchable database of grants, rebates, and incentives to help pay for sustainability projects.
Funding Fairs, Funding Information, and Technical Assistance
California Financing Coordinating Committee (CFCC)
Project Types: All Projects
The California Finance Coordinating Committee (CFCC) is comprised of four California State and two Federal funding agencies. The CFCC’s website lists up-to-date information on available grants, loans, bond financing, and application assistance for infrastructure projects. The CFCC conducts free annual funding fairs statewide to educate the public, an opportunity to meet with financial representatives from each agency, and learn more about their currently available funding programs. The CFCC site includes funding information for all types of infrastructure projects. In the past, the funding fairs showcase information related to wastewater disposal and safe drinking water funding programs only. Recent funding fairs included representatives from additional funding programs for projects like energy efficiency, flood management, solid waste, and compost.
Sierra Nevada Conservancy Funding Opportunities
Sierra Nevada Conservancy
Project Types: All Projects
The Sierra Nevada Conservancy’s Funding Opportunities Newsletter connects Sierra Nevada communities with funding opportunities and support services to fund a variety of environmental, economic, and infrastructure projects. The Funding Opportunities webpage features Grant Research Memos that list key information about a variety of funding programs, such as funding amounts, eligible costs, and application deadlines. The webpage also features grant writing workshop opportunities, information about available funding opportunities via a monthly newsletter, and individualized funding assistance for nonprofits, agencies, and local governments in the Sierra Nevada Region.
Funding Wizard
California Air Resources Control Board
Project Types: Active Transportation, Drinking Water Supply & Quality, Public Transit and Wastewater
The California Air Resources Control Board’s Funding Wizard database is a searchable compilation of grants, rebates, and incentives available throughout California to help individuals, schools, small businesses, and local governments pay for sustainability projects. Using the Carbon Footprint Calculator on the Cool California site to find an action strategy to reduce your carbon footprint, the Funding Wizard database will show you funding opportunities to cover the costs associated with that strategy. You can also use the database on its own to find funding opportunities tailored specifically to your interests or needs.
Native American Affairs Technical Assistance Program
Bureau of Reclamation
Project Types: Drinking Water Supply & Quality and Wastewater Management
The Bureau of Reclamation’s Native American Affairs Technical Assistance Program offers several ways that Federally Recognized Tribes have the opportunity to participate fully in Reclamation programs as they develop, manage, and protect their water and related resources. There is 2019 funding opportunity currently available to help Tribes with technical assistance on their water-related projects.
Rural Community Assistance Corporation (RCAC)
Project Types: Drinking Water Supply & Water Quality and Wastewater Management
RCAC provides training, technical assistance and loans to construct, improve or expand safe drinking water and wastewater disposal facilities. Technical assistance services for drinking water and wastewater disposal facilities are free to most rural communities under 10,000 people and take the form of classes or individualized support, including training for technical staff, Median Household Income studies, application assistance for state and federal loans and grants, rate studies, policy development, regionalization and board training. RCAC also provides funding and similar services for other environmental infrastructure and community facilities projects.
Technical Assistance
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
Project Types: Active Transportation, COVID 19, Parks, and Public Transit & Shared Mobility
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Building Blocks for Sustainable Communities Technical Assistance Program offers a variety of tools designed to address challenges across many different local contexts. The purpose of the program is to stimulate a discussion about growth and development and strengthen local capacity to implement sustainable community development projects. The next call for applications will be at a date to be determined in Spring 2021.
Tribal Technical Assistance Program
Federal Highway Administration
Project Types: Street Repair and Public Transit
The Center for Local Aid Support’s Tribal Technical Assistance Program (TTAP) is a one-stop transportation resource for tribal communities across the country and offers them comprehensive transportation training and technical assistance on their transportation projects. The TTAP seeks to connect tribal communities with experts to help them build skills that ensure the safety and maintenance of tribal roads and the continuous professional development of tribal transportation workforces.
Tribal Transportation Improvement Program (TTIP)
Federal Highway Administration
Project Types: Street Repair and Public Transit
The Federal Highway Administration Office of Tribal Transportation via the Tribal Transportation Improvement Program (TTIP) works with Tribal Governments to develop transportation plans for Tribal lands. The TTIP also helps Tribes to understand the roles and responsibilities of providing transportation services.
Uplift Resource Finder
The Greenlining Institute
Project Types: Active Transportation, Parks, and Public Transit
The Uplift Resource Finder matches individuals, agencies, Native American Tribes, nonprofit organizations, and for-profit businesses from urban and rural communities to green energy and recycling, energy efficiency and agricultural efficiency, and sustainable communities and clean transportation funding programs. The resource provides an overview of the funding program and links the user to the program webpage.
WaterSMART Programs Assistance
Bureau of Reclamation
Project Types: Drinking Water Supply & Quality and Wastewater Management
The Bureau of Reclamation WaterSMART programs are efforts that enable communities in western states to work together to address water supply issues. The WaterSMART programs include Water and Energy Efficiency Grants, Water Marketing Strategy Grants, Small-Scale Water Efficiency Projects, Title XVI grants, Desalination projects, Basin Studies, Baseline Assessments, Site-Specific Pilot projects, Applied Science grants, Cooperative Management program, Drought Program, and the Water Conservation Field Service Program. Grant programs offer pre-application webinars to help communities with understanding how to fill out the grant application. Previous grantees’ applications are available on respective program’s sites for future applicants to see what makes successful applications. Grants and program funding vary from year to year, so check with program staff whether a project you are considering if feasible for an upcoming project cycle.