The Just Transition Fund is excited to announce that we are expanding our Federal Access Center! Launched last year, the Federal Access Center (FAC) provides grants and technical assistance on a rolling basis to help coal communities access historic levels of federal funding available for community economic development, workforce, and broadband infrastructure projects. Recognizing the organizations are at different stages of readiness to apply, the FAC supports organizations that are preparing to apply for federal funding (application ready) and those that are in earlier stages of planning and development (early stage).
See below for details about the expansion of the FAC and related updates to our grantmaking.
Expanding our Geographic Scope
First, in response to growing demand, we are expanding our geographic scope to include coal-impacted communities from across the U.S.! We will continue to prioritize communities that are economically hardest hit and home to the highest concentrations of marginalized populations. But we are now also welcoming submissions from coal-impacted communities in any state.
Enhancing our Application-Ready Support
In response to community needs and federal opportunities, we are are also enhancing our application-ready support in a number of key ways, specifically:
- Expanding eligibility to include local governments, in addition to community-based nonprofit organizations. We recognize that not only are local governments essential drivers of and partners in community economic development, but they are often under-resourced and similarly face significant barriers to accessing federal funding.
- Helping communities access federal loan programs, in addition to federal grant programs. We’re expanding our services in this way in response to the billions of dollars now available through new loan guarantee programs at the U.S. Department of Energy and U.S. Department of Agriculture.
- Increasing the range of grant amounts, in proportion to the amount of federal funding applied for. We will now make grants of between $15,000 to $100,000 to cover expenses associated with developing federal applications, such as matching fund requirements and grant writing expenses.
For application ready grants and technical support, we are accepting submissions on a rolling basis. To learn more about the services we offer and how to apply, please click here!
Replacing our Community Economic and Workforce Development Grants with Early-Stage FAC Grants
We are also growing our early-stage support, which focuses on building organizational readiness to apply for federal funding. We plan to make a select number of grants this year at a significant level of investment. These grants will replace those previously made via our annual Community Economic and Workforce Development grant cycle.
Prior to launching the FAC, the JTF worked to build the capacity of community-led economic solutions via this grant cycle (known as “Cycle 1”). Going forward, as we increase our emphasis on scaling these efforts via federal investment, we are discontinuing our Cycle 1 grantmaking process. Instead, all grants for community economic development, workforce development, and local infrastructure projects will be made via our expanded FAC and focused specifically on helping coal communities access federal funding.
We will announce more information soon about our priorities and process for awarding early-stage grants, so please stay tuned!
Continuing to Award Policy Grants via an Annual Grants Cycle
Finally, please note that our grants focused on federal and state transition policy (previously known as “Cycle 2”) will continue to be administered via an annual grantmaking cycle, as in years past. We will publicize the RFP when that cycle launches later this year.
Otherwise, all JTF grants will be made via the expanded Federal Access Center, as described above. Please see here for more information and to contact us. And to join our mailing list, please click here!
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