Gilchrist announces $12M more for community groups fighting environmental injustice

Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist at the 2024 MI Healthy Climate Conference. | Kyle Davidson

With the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy (EGLE) pledging $20 million in grants to support communities impacted by environmental injustice, Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist announced on Thursday an additional $12 million to help draw down federal funding for community organizations.  

In EGLE’s initial announcement earlier this week, it opened up to funding proposals for community-based projects to improve local health, monitor pollution, remove blight and contamination and improve indoor air quality in schools and childcare facilities. Federally recognized tribes, community-based nonprofits, local governments and schools are eligible to apply for up to $500,000 with applications due July 15. 

“Half of EGLE’s budget flows back to communities in the form of grants and loans to help address environmental and public health challenges,” EGLE Director Phil Roos said in a statement on Tuesday. 

“Nowhere is the need more evident than in neighborhoods that have been disproportionately impacted by pollution — and those are too often in communities of color and in places without the financial resources to adequately address harmful impacts. Our new Environmental Justice Impact Grants will offer direct support for these communities in hopes of reducing some of the environmental injustices they face every day.”

Building on the grants previously announced by EGLE, Gilchrist announced at the Healthy Climate Conference in Lansing two programs: a climate justice challenge through the Make It In Michigan Competitiveness Fund alongside the MI Healthy Climate Justice 40 Technical Assistance Program to connect local organizations with technical assistance, expertise, grant fund matching and other resources to help them win federal funding. 

Through the climate justice challenge, the state will provide $11 million in grant and technical assistance to maximize investments in Michigan from the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Climate Justice and Community Change Grants, which are intended to support projects that combat climate change, increase community resiliency and address historical environmental injustices.

Of that $11 million, $1 million is designated for the Michigan Infrastructure Office’s Technical Assistance center, to assist organizations who successfully apply for the EPA grant funding, with EPA grants ranging from $10 million to $20 million. 

“It is our job in state government to position you to be even more successful in the application process and we are going to follow through to that success with you,” Gilchrist said.

The second program is the Justice 40 Technical Assistance Program, a 12-month cohort-based program for community-based organizations offering them assistance in applying for and deploying state and federal climate-related funding. The program will provide organizations with a participation grant, one-on-one support, training on grant applications and management, and technical assistance for grant writing or other technical needs.

More information on the technical assistance program will be available online through EGLE’s Office of Climate and Energy, while information on the climate justice challenge is available at EGLE’s website on the EPA Community Change Grants. 

“It is critical as we invest in communities with historical inequities that we help support those communities as they build capacity,” Regina Strong, head of EGLE’s Office of the Environmental Justice Public Advocate, said in a statement.

“By layering resources like the Environmental Justice Impact Grants and the Climate Justice Challenge that are designed to address issues in environmental justice communities we can have a lasting impact on the people in Michigan who most need it and that is an important element of advancing equity,” Strong said.

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