Environmental Justice - Eastern Regional Grantmakers (EJ - ERG)
The Environmental Justice – Eastern Regional Grantmakers (EJ-ERG) is one of three National Grantmakers for EPA’s Thriving Communities Grantmaking Program. EJ-ERG supports the eastern U.S. in EPA Regions 1, 2, and 3.
EJ-ERG will manage $50,000,000 to make it easier for small, community-based organizations—particularly those with low capacity or resources—to access federal environmental justice funding for projects that identify, document, address, and respond to conditions related to environmental and/or climate injustice. As the National Grantmaker for the Eastern region, EJ-ERG will provide support, coordination, and oversight to the Regional Grantmakers across EPA’s Regions 1-3.
The EJ-ERG team consists of Institute for Sustainable Communities as the project lead and the following organizations as implementing partners: Emerald Cities Collaborative, Groundwork USA, Urban Sustainability Directors Network, Trust for Public Lands, and River Network.
Project Contact
"ISC is thrilled to work with the EPA to support its national Environmental Justice Grantmaking efforts alongside our partners. We welcome this opportunity to reduce the barriers communities face in applying for federal grants through a bottom-up, community-centric approach, and recognize the important role of multi-sectoral partnerships like the EJ TCGM program to mitigate cumulative impacts of the climate crisis in overburdened communities."
About the Thriving Communities Grant Program:
The EPA’s Environmental Justice Thriving Communities Grantmaking Program aims to make it easier for small community-based organizations to access federal funding to advance environmental justice in their communities.
As part of President Biden’s Investing in America agenda, the Biden-Harris Administration announced $600 million for 11 selected Grantmakers under EPA’s Environmental Justice Thriving Communities Grantmaking program, created by President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, the largest investment in climate action in history. This new grant program responds to community feedback about the need to reduce barriers to federal funds and improve the efficiency of the awards process to ensure communities that have long faced underinvestment can access the benefits of the largest climate investment in history.
Communities will be able to apply to a Grantmaker for a subgrant to fund a range of different environmental project activities, including (but not limited to) small local clean ups, local emergency preparedness and disaster resiliency programs, environmental workforce development programs for local jobs reducing greenhouse gas emissions, fenceline air quality and asthma related projects, healthy homes programs, and projects addressing illegal dumping. The 11 Grantmakers consist of regional selectees (i.e., Regional Grantmakers) who will issue subgrants to communities in specific EPA Regions, as well as national selectees (i.e., National Grantmakers such as EJ – ERG) who will provide additional support, coordination, and oversight to the subgrantees, applicants, and the Regional Grantmakers themselves, as well as issue additional subgrants to fill potential gaps in the regions.