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Opportunities for Making Energy Improvements at Nonprofits
July 2024
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Calling all nonprofits! See the information below for federal opportunities to support energy efficiency and clean energy improvements. Get help building healthier community spaces and saving money, so your nonprofit can focus its resources on mission-driven work.
This month, the Department of Energy's (DOE) Renew America’s Nonprofits Program is pleased to highlight opportunities for grant-writing support, upcoming funding opportunities and deadlines, and resources for multi-family housing nonprofits.
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Featured Content
This spring, the Renew America’s Nonprofits program hosted a series of webinars on how nonprofits can pursue building improvements to reinvest energy savings into their mission while reducing emissions – with energy efficiency, solar energy, and tax credits.
How can nonprofits finance and plan for these energy improvements? Read the step-by-step process based on the content provided in these DOE webinars.
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Renew America’s Schools Program invited school districts and partners to learn more about non-competitive federal funding for schools from IRA tax credits.
The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) has made unlimited and non-competitive clean energy tax credits available to schools and other tax-exempt entities for the first time. Featuring UndauntedK12 and Center for Green Schools, this webinar walked through examples and highlighted common questions regarding eligibility, stacking credits with other sources of financing, and bonus requirements which can add significant value to the credit received. Watch the recording here!
The DOE Office of State and Community Energy Program (SCEP) and Solar Energy Technologies Office (SETO) held an informational webinar on July 9th about community solar opportunities for nonprofits. The webinar included nonprofit success stories for how to leverage the National Community Solar Partnership and the Community Power Accelerator. Watch the recording here!
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Funding Opportunities for Nonprofits
The Elective Pay – Blueprints for Communities opportunity was launched in July 2024 to support the development of additional resources for communities as they plan and execute projects which are eligible for clean energy tax credits through Elective Pay or the 179d energy efficient commercial building property tax deduction. The opportunity envisions blueprints as documents that will help guide interested entities through all stages of a sample project, identifying important considerations, opportunities, and restrictions along the road to claiming Elective Pay. A total of $915,000 in funding will be awarded to 3-10 selectees through this opportunity. Applicants can request up to $305,000 to execute proposed activities over the course of 6 months.
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Eligibility: Applicant must be a domestic entity.
- Competitive applicants will have experience providing educational assistance to nonprofits or local governments, tax expertise, and established community networks for information sharing.
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Deadline: August 8, 2024, at 3pm ET.
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DOE anticipates notifying applicants of their selection by August 2024 and engaging with applicants through February 2025.
The “Connected Communities 2.0: Innovations to Manage Growing Transportation, Building, and Industrial Loads to the Grid” funding opportunity is designed to address major new loads from transportation, industry, and buildings on the electric grid by providing new tools for users, planners, and operators of the electric grid.
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Eligibility: Nonprofit entities and institutions of higher education are eligible to be Primes or subrecipients. For-profit entities and state and local governmental entities and federal recognized Indian Tribes are also eligible.
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Deadline: Applicants must submit a Concept Paper by August 20 at 5pm ET.
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Full Applications are due October 10 at 5pm ET.
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Support for Applicants: DOE is compiling a Teaming Partner List to help interested applicants form teams.
The Charging and Fueling Infrastructure (CFI) Program will fund electric vehicle (EV) charging and alternative-fueling infrastructure in urban and rural communities and along designated highways, interstates, and major roadways. The program is divided into two categories: community charging and fueling grants and alternative fuel corridor grants.
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Eligibility: Higher education institutions, public housing authorities, and state, local, and tribal governments.
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Deadline: August 28, 2024.
Strategic Economic and Community Development (SECD) supports eligible projects in implementing strategic community investment plans. Created by local stakeholders, these plans help build rural prosperity by amplifying a community’ s unique strengths. Applicants are encouraged to consider projects that will reduce climate pollution and increase resilience to climate change impacts in rural communities.
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Eligibility: Project must be eligible for a covered USDA Rural Development program; be carried out in a rural area; and support a multijurisdictional and multisectoral strategic community investment plan.
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Deadline: Varies depending on USDA Regional Development offices
The NOAA Climate-Smart Communities Initiative will work with communities to co-develop equitable climate resilience plans ready for funding and implementation. The priority is to assist communities with the highest risk to climate impacts and have the most need for assistance.
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Eligibility: Partnerships across four domains—government, academic, commercial, and non-profit organizations.
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Deadline: Will be announced when the funding opportunity is live.
Search All Federal Funding Opportunities
Learn about what types of funding are available from the federal government. To view all open funding opportunity announcements, access:
Technical Assistance Opportunities
EPA has selected 16 Environmental Justice Thriving Communities Technical Assistance Centers (EJ TCTACs) to help underserved and overburdened communities across the country. EJ TCTACs is now accepting technical assistance requests!
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Support Offered: EJ TCTAJCs can help nonprofits build capacity for navigating federal grant application systems, developing strong grant proposals, and effectively managing grant funding
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How to Submit a Request: Reach out to the EJ TCTAC for your region shown on the table here.
EPA is launching a technical assistance program to help eligible entities in disaster prone areas prepare to apply for Community Change Grants to benefit disadvantaged communities. This technical assistance will consist of free design and project development assistance, community engagement, and partnership development workshops.
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Support Offered: Grant application support, project planning and development, outreach and engagement, and general capacity building.
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How to Submit a Request: Submit intake request here.
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Deadline: Submit a request by August 16, 2024.
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Tools and Resources
DOE Launches Zero Energy Ready Home Education Hub
DOE’s Zero Energy Ready Home (ZERH) program recently launched an Education Hub to serve as a landing page for all training and educational materials related to the program. These are useful resources for nonprofit multi-family housing providers.
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Resources: Two DOE-developed ZERH trainings, webinars from National Association of Home Builders discussing federal incentives for both single-family and multifamily new construction programs, and webinars from the U.S. Green Building Council focused on multifamily and tax credit opportunities. The Hub will be updated on an ongoing basis.
Multi-family housing providers may also be interested in the following webinars from the DOE’s Better Buildings Initiative:
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Events
📅 July 24 | 1 – 2 p.m. ET
📅 July 30 | 11 a.m. – 12 p.m. ET
📅 July 30 | 3 p.m. - 5 p.m. ET
📅 July 31 | 2 p.m. – 3 p.m. ET
📅 August 5 | 1 p.m. - 3 p.m. ET
📅 October 17 | 1 – 2:30 p.m. ET
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Renew America's Nonprofits
The Renew America’s Nonprofits program was created to reduce carbon emissions, improve health and safety, and lower utilities costs at buildings owned and operated by 501(c)(3) nonprofits. This first-of-its-kind investment in the nonprofit sector aims to help nonprofits make high-impact energy efficiency improvements that will create cleaner, healthier community spaces, while generating sustainable savings so that critical funds can be redirected toward mission-driven work. It also aims to stimulate widespread energy improvements in the nonprofit sector, promoting the formation of partnerships between stakeholders to create a pipeline of energy and cost-saving projects that will continue beyond the life of the grant.
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State and Local Solution Center
The State and Local Solution Center is an online technical assistance portal that provides technical assistance resources to enable strategic investments in energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies through the use of innovative practices across the United States by a wide range of stakeholders, in partnership with state and local organizations and community-based nonprofits.
The State and Local Solution Center is managed by DOE's Office of State and Community Energy Programs (SCEP). SCEP supports DOE's mission to accelerate the research, development, demonstration, and deployment of technologies and solutions to equitably transition America to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions economy-wide by no later than 2050, and ensure the clean energy economy benefits all Americans, creating good paying jobs for the American people—especially workers and communities impacted by the energy transition and those historically underserved by the energy system and overburdened by pollution.
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