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The California Air Resources Board (CARB) is pleased to announce a competitive grant solicitation of $5 million from Fiscal Year (FY) 2023-24 for a grantee to continue implementation of the Access Clean California project. Access Clean California is an existing, multi-faceted outreach effort that helps streamline access to California Climate Investments' consumer-facing, equity-focused clean transportation and clean energy incentive programs for low-income and disadvantaged communities. Access Clean California provides resources to nonprofits, community-based organizations (CBO), and similar grassroots organizations to help individuals in low-income and disadvantaged communities learn about, apply for, and participate in clean transportation and clean energy incentive programs. The solicitation includes the option at CARB’s discretion for Grant Agreements for each of the following two fiscal years: FY 2024-25 and FY 2025-26.
This competitive solicitation is open to federal, State, or local government entities or agencies, and California nonprofit organizations with expertise in building and maintaining key partnerships, effective outreach to underserved communities, and general knowledge of CARB’s Low Carbon Transportation Equity Projects. CARB must receive complete applications by no later than 11:59 pm (Pacific Time) on April 8, 2024. The grant solicitation and all associated documents can be found on CARB’s webpage:
Q & A Session
CARB will hold one Question and Answer (Q&A) session during the Solicitation period, at which time staff will be available to answer clarifying questions regarding the Solicitation process, eligibility, and anything else related to the current Solicitation. CARB will not answer questions regarding this Solicitation before or after the Applicant Q&A Sessions. The Applicant Q&A Session will be held at the date and time listed.
Date: March 21, 2024
Time: 10:00 a.m. – 11:00 a.m. (Pacific Time)
Location: Zoom Webinar
Interested parties may email questions to Nicholas Nairn-Birch. Written questions submitted three business days prior to the Q&A session will be given priority. Staff will collect all questions and respond during the Q&A session. All answers provided during the Q&A session are draft; final responses will be posted on the CARB grant solicitations webpage within one week after the session at the Low Carbon Transportation Investments and AQIP Grant Solicitations page.
Background
This Solicitation is focused on identifying a Grantee to continue implementing Access Clean California. Access Clean California first began as a priority recommendation in CARB’s Low-income Barriers Study, Part B: Overcoming Barriers to Clean Transportation Access for Low-income Residents (SB 350 Guidance Document). Specifically, the third priority recommendation from the SB 350 Guidance Document is to develop regional “One-Stop-Shops” to increase consumer awareness and provide technical assistance. The goal of this recommendation is to:
- Increase consumer awareness of State’s clean transportation and related clean energy incentive programs;
- Provide consumers technical assistance to apply for and participate in CARB clean transportation programs; and
- Focus on providing coordinated community-based outreach and education to maximize program participation and promote advanced technology vehicle adoption among low-income residents.
CARB first funded Access Clean California in FY 2017-18 with an allocation of $5 million from the Volkswagen Settlement Fund. Under the initial name, The One-Stop-Shop Pilot Project, CARB awarded this funding via a competitive solicitation to GRID Alternatives to administer the project. CARB allocated additional funding in FY 2019-20 ($5 million), FY 2021-22 ($4 million), and FY 2022-2023 ($1 million), which brought the total funding awarded under the initial solicitation to $15 million. To implement a capacity building grant pilot project, CARB also allocated an additional $2 million to Access Clean California.
Working with CARB, GRID Alternatives used this funding to successfully initiate and complete the pilot phase of the project, and transition to a fully functioning project ready to scale up implementation. This work focused on two main components of the projects: Building and supporting a statewide network of outreach partners (OP Network), and creating a streamlined, centralized application web tool called the Benefits Finder with supporting case management. These components were designed to function together with the OP Network, leveraging their community knowledge and trust to conduct outreach and using the Benefits Finder to help community residents reach simplify and streamline their applications to multiple incentive programs.
The Access Clean California OP Network currently consists of 27 non-profit organizations representing priority populations across the state, ranging from the state’s largest labor union, Service Employees International Union, to small grassroots CBOs. Building this network required, among other efforts, long periods of capacity building and relationship building with each organization to get them to a point where they have the knowledge, resources and capability to conduct outreach. In support of the OP Network, Access Clean California created a Resource Hub to make it easier for outreach partners to access necessary outreach materials. The Resource Hub collects and centralizes the various outreach collateral created by each incentive program, as well as training videos and other education material in a user-friendly and searchable format. Access Clean California also created a platform for outreach partners to regularly convene, share lessons learned and exchange best practices, provide programmatic updates and facilitate communication.
Contact
If you have questions or comments regarding the Planning and Capacity Building Project Administrator Solicitation, please contact Nicholas Nairn-Birch, Air Pollution Specialist.
If you are interested in continuing to receive emails about this solicitation, sign up here and select the Equity Outreach topic under Clean Transportation Incentives.
Special Accommodation
If you require a special accommodation or need these documents in an alternate format (i.e., Braille, large print) or another language, please contact Nicholas Nairn-Birch by email or at (279) 208-7913 as soon as possible or at least 10 business days before the relevant Q&A session. TTY/TDD/Speech to Speech users may dial 711 for the California Relay Service.
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