Grants
How We Fund
Types of Grants
Tier 1: Assessment Grants
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Amount: $150,000
Duration: 1 year
Ideal For: Communities starting to document EJ issues
Purpose: Understand your community's environmental justice issues
Activities that can be funded:
- Research
- Environmental sampling
- Testing and monitoring
- Community surveys
- Public outreach
- Data collection and analysis
Tier 2: Planning Grants
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Amount: $250,000
Duration: 1 year or 2 years
Ideal For: Communities ready to plan solutions
Purpose: Develop solutions for known environmental justice Issues
Activities that can be funded:
- Creating action plans
- Building partnerships
- Community engagement
- Stakeholder coordination
- Training programs
- Small-scale community projects
- Limited land acquisition (under $125,000)
Tier 3: Development Grants
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Amount: $350,000
Duration: 2 years
Ideal For: Communities ready to take actions
Purpose: Implement your environmental justice project
Types of activities that can be funded:
- Technical project development
- Construction blueprints
- Permit acquisition
- Project implementation
- Community outreach
- Limited land acquisition (under $175,000)
Capacity Constrained
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Duration: 1 year
Ideal For: severely capacity-constrained organizations
A limited amount of $75,000 non-competitive grants will be available for severely capacity-constrained community-based organizations.
What We Fund
Grantmaking Focus
Assessing and addressing environmental hazards in your community. Impacted people from the community should be included in the research of and developing solutions to the problem.
Project types that may be funded include, but are not limited to:
- Indoor/Outdoor air quality & asthma impacts
- Water quality & sampling
- Lead and asbestos contamination
- Pesticides and other toxic substances
- Fenceline air quality monitoring
- Monitoring of effluent discharges from industrial facilities
- Stormwater issues + green infrastructure
- Small cleanup or construction projects
- Improved food access/fewer vehicle miles traveled
- Environmental justice training for youth
- Emergency preparedness and disaster resiliency
- Illegal dumping activities, such as education, outreach, and small-scale clean-ups
Who We Fund
Eligibility
Communities that are eligible for funding:
- Nonprofit organizations, community-based, and grassroots nonprofit organizations .
- Native American Organizations
- Tribal governments (both federally recognized and state-recognized) and intertribal consortia.
- U.S. Territories: American Samoa, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Guam.
- Local governments (cities, towns, municipalities, and counties, public housing authorities and councils of government)
- Institutions of higher education
Ineligible for funding:
- Individuals.
- For profit businesses.
- State governments
EPA Regions
As the National Grantmaker - West, UNITE-EJ will provide grants to eligible communities in these three regions:
Region 8: Mountains and Plains
Colorado, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, Wyoming, and 28 Tribal Nations
Region 9: Pacific Southwest
Arizona, California, Hawaii, Nevada, American Samoa, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, and 148 tribal nations
Region 10: Pacific Northwest
Alaska, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, and 271 Tribal Nations
If you are not located in these three regions, click here to see which grantmaker you can apply to.