Resilient Power Leadership Initiative Awards
Clean Energy Group’s Resilient Power Leadership Initiative (RPLI) provides awards of $10,000 for one year to primarily BIPOC-led nonprofit organizations working in the areas of environmental justice, energy equity, and sustainability. RPLI recipients develop local resilient power awareness and implementation strategies in the communities they serve. Since 2017, Clean Energy Group has awarded $220,000 to 22 community-based organizations located across the country.
Read more about Clean Energy Group's RPLI grantees below.
Forward Together Wisconsin
Location: Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Website: www.forwardtogetherwi.org
About: Forward Together Wisconsin (FTW) was founded to immediately address the climate emergency, centering racial justice and equity by recognizing that communities of color must be in the driver’s seat when responding to and recovering from the climate crisis. FTW's purpose is to create a new model for how organizations can best interact as a liaison between community members and federal investments to ensure these dollars are spent.
Forward Together Wisconsin’s Leadership Grant will be used to:
- Host a training for Wisconsin school districts, other state education infrastructure entities, and interested supporting groups to concretely educate them on how they can access solar and energy storage benefits immediately
- Participate in stakeholder convenings to build awareness about solar+storage
- Support educational opportunities for K-12 students to learn about clean energy and opportunities for solar and battery storage.
Sustaining Way
Location: Greenville, SC
Website: www.sustainingway.org
About: Sustaining Way works to create a world where all neighborhoods, people and nature thrive. Through its energy equity initiatives with homeowners, community centers, and houses of worship, Sustaining Way supports systems-level change impacting 12,500 primarily low-wealth residents in four of Greenville County’s historically African American communities – Nicholtown, Belle Meade, New Washington Heights, and Brutontown.
Sustaining Way’s Leadership Grant will be used to:
- Build internal capacity by creating a new Energy Coordinator position
- Launch a workforce development program to train a cohort of residents from impacted communities on energy efficiency and clean energy installation
- Engage local partners in developing local community centers and houses of warship into Resiliency Centers powered by solar and battery storage
- Support the development of EV charging networks in historically underserved communities
Baltimore Green Justice Workers
Location: Baltimore, MD
Website: www.greenjusticeworkers.org
About: Baltimore Green Justice Workers Cooperative equips people from marginalized, under-served neighborhoods with innovative, out-of-the-box green solutions that help them shift power dynamics and create more beautiful, energy-efficient, safe spaces in their communities.
Baltimore Green Justice Workers’ Leadership Grant will be used to:
- Support internal knowledge and capacity building about solar and battery storage
- Host a series of community conversations about environmental injustice and resilient power in partnership with three local neighborhood associations in East, West and Northeast Baltimore
Be a Helping Hand
Location: Nashville, TN
Website: bahelpinghand.org
About: Be a Helping Hand (BHH) is a minority-led affordable housing nonprofit developer in Nashville working to empower families and build strong communities by providing safe and affordable housing, person-centered support, and green initiatives.
Be a Helping Hand’s Leadership Grant will be used to:
- Build internal capacity for solar and battery storage and its application within single-family affordable housing
- Establish a workforce development program that will train low-income, minority workforce populations to install solar and battery storage system’s at BHH’s affordable housing properties.
Community Through Colors
Location: Vieques, Puerto Rico
Website: www.communitythroughcolors.org
About: Community Through Colors’ (CTC) mission is to bring disaster relief and preparedness to remote, isolated, and under-served coastal communities. CTC has installed solar and battery storage on more than 15 buildings on the island of Vieques, Puerto Rico, including at the emergency communications tower, multiple resilience hubs, fire department, elderly care center, and single-family residences of medically vulnerable community members. These systems not only provide power through hurricanes, but also provide resilient back-up power through daily brownouts and frequent blackouts.
Community Through Colors’ Leadership Grant will be used to:
- File the necessary documentation for the Vieques Energy Cooperative to be established as a legal entity that can manage existing and new solar+storage systems
- Host awareness building, educational events, and workshops to engage community members in conversations about resilient power, its benefits, battery chemistries, and applications within Puerto Rico.
- Support a workforce development program for locals to gain experience working with solar systems or other electrical components to achieve long term project sustainability and job growth.
United Parents Against Lead & Other Environmental Hazards
Location: Petersburg, VA
Website: www.upal.org
About: United Parents Against Lead (UPAL) is a national networking organization of and for parents of lead poisoned children working to end the continuing threat of lead poisoning and other environmental hazards. UPAL, in partnership with the Virginia Environmental Justice Collaborative, has led the development of a solar-powered resilience hub in Petersburg, Virginia, which will serve as a community center and hub for UPAL and VEJC.
UPAL’s Leadership Grant will be used to:
- Support internal capacity-building and the partnership development necessary to host a 40-hour solar+storage workforce development training for 35+ local residents
Feed the Second Line
Location: New Orleans, LA
Website: www.feedthesecondline.org
About: Feed the Second Line is dedicated to supporting the culture bearers of New Orleans. Through the Get Lit Stay Lit program, Feed the Second Line is creating a stronger hurricane safety-net for the people of New Orleans by providing solar and battery storage to neighborhood restaurants that commit to serving as a community resource during power outages. Restaurants powered by resilient solar+storage can offer warm meals, a place to charge phones or electricity-dependent medical devices and can act as a cooling center.
Feed the Second Line’s Leadership Grant will be used to:
- Build internal capacity by hiring a part-time organizer to engage surrounding communities and prospective restaurants to serve as resilience hub hosts
- Support fundraising initiatives to install solar and battery storage at more neighborhood resilience hubs
- Integrate job-training opportunities into the Get Lit Stay Lit program
Faunteroy Community Enrichment Center
Location: Washington, D.C.
Website: www.faunteroycenter.org
About: The Faunteroy Center serves the Deanwood community and primarily focuses on Youth Development with a strong emphasis on Health and Wellness on a multi-generational level. The programs and activities offered - which are provided free of charge - foster independence, economic stability, and overall well-being among
children and young adults.
Faunteroy’s Leadership Grant will be used to:
- Support internal knowledge and capacity building to further empower the Faunteroy Center on addressing environmental justice and equity concerns in the community
- Increase internal knowledge within the organization and community engagement regarding solar and battery storage
- Incorporate aspects of the RPLI knowledge building process into the Summer Youth Program
Status Update: In March 2024, the Faunteroy Community Enrichment Center celebrated their progress towards installing a solar+storage microgrid with a ribbon cutting event. Read a press release from the D.C. Department of Energy and Environment here.
East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Website: www.eycej.org
About: East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice (EYCEJ) is a community-based organization that works to facilitate self-advocates in East Los Angeles, Southeast Los Angeles and Long Beach. Through grassroots organizing and leadership building skills, EYCEJ builds leadership capacity for communities impacted by industrial pollution, the goods movement and oil and gas refineries. By providing workshops and trainings, EYCEJ prepares community members to engage in the decision-making processes that directly impact their health and quality of life.
EYCEJ’s Leadership Grant will be used to:
- Build internal capacity to advance local microgrid and community solar projects
- Advocate for clean energy technologies and infrastructure in environmental justice communities
Sail Relief Team
Location: Puerto Rico
Website: www.sailrelief.team
About: Focusing on response, recovery, and resilience, Sail Relief Team is an emergency aid and recovery nonprofit that assists communities in the aftermath of a disasters. As part of response and recovery efforts, Sail Relief Team assists in rescue and first-aid, as well as coordinating donations and volunteers during the rehabilitation process post-disaster. In order to better prepare communities for future disasters, Sail Relief Team builds resilience in communities by hardening power and communication infrastructure and educates the community on sustainable development. Sail Relief Team is currently focusing efforts on the small island municipality of Vieques off of the coast of Puerto Rico. Vieques was hit especially hard by Hurricane Maria and still faces challenges in recovery and rebuilding.
Sail Relief Team’s Leadership Grant will be used to:
- Train two recent high school graduates as solar technicians for the island of Vieques.
- Begin efforts to build a community microgrid for households reliant on electricity-dependent medical equipment
- Build knowledge about resilient power technologies and apply that knowledge to educating others within the communities Sail Relief Team works.
El Departamento de La Comida
Location: San Juan, Puerto Rico
Website: www.facebook.com/departamentodelacomida
About: El Departamento de la Comida is a nonprofit organization in Puerto Rico that supports small-to-medium size farmers in Puerto Rico around sustainable agriculture practices and regenerative food projects. Working with local farmers, grassroots organizations, and education institutions, El Departamento advocates for food autonomy and resilient communities that can control their own energy and food. Resilient power is increasingly vital to El Departamento’s work as it promotes energy sovereignty and will allow farmers to keep harvest crops refrigerated, power well water pumps, and doors open through an outage to serve their communities.
El Departamento de La Comida’s Leadership Grant will be used to:
- Build internal capacity to strengthen knowledge of solar+storage
- Document the process of a solar+storage feasibility study and installation on the El Departamento farm and main structure
- Create a resilient power “toolkit”, providing partner farms with valuable resources and tools for implementing their own solar+storage needs
Appalachian Voices
Location: Boone, NC
Website: www.appvoices.org
About: Appalachian Voices is a nonprofit organization advocating for environmental conservation and justice within Appalachian communities in the coalfield region. In an effort to build a new clean energy economy in coalfield communities facing high unemployment, decreasing and aging populations, and high poverty levels, Appalachian Voices is advocating for a clean energy economy. A staple of that work is using clean energy as an economic development tool, converting abandoned mine lands to be used for solar energy projects and advocating for resilient power policies on the local and state level.
Appalachian Voices Leadership Grant will be used to:
- Support work of the Solar Workgroup of Southwest Virginia to expand access to energy storage for Appalachian community critical facilities
- Identify solar+storage projects for critical facilities in the region and seek funding to develop those projects
- Coordinate grassroots engagement in support of policies to advance resilient power in Virginia
Local Initiatives Support Corporation Boston
Location: Boston, MA
Website: www.lisc.org/boston
About: As one of the largest community development financial institutions in the United States, Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) is dedicated to helping community residents transform distressed neighborhoods into healthy and sustainable communities of choice and opportunity. Since 1983, LISC Boston has been a critical supporter of multifamily affordable housing across Massachusetts. As a result of its Massachusetts Green Retrofit Initiative from 2010 onward, LISC Boston has become a leader in the field working with 50 owners across the state to drive energy efficiency and clean energy technologies to the Commonwealth's multifamily affordable housing sector, enabling the benchmarking of a total of 17,000 units, retrofitting of more than 5,000 units, and leveraging over $17 million.
LISC Boston’s Leadership Grant will be used to:
- Build organizational capacity to work with its long-term affordable housing partners regarding new potential solar+storage projects across their affordable housing portfolios.
- Identify potential opportunities for solar+storage in affordable housing through a Massachusetts Clean Energy Center funded comprehensive energy audit program.
- Support LISC’s Green Retrofit Initiative staff members in educating affordable housing partners about the economic and resiliency benefits of solar+storage systems through peer learning forums.
Alliance for Affordable Energy
Location: New Orleans, LA
Website: www.all4energy.org
About: Alliance for Affordable Energy works to ensure a fair, affordable, and environmentally responsible energy system for all of Louisiana. Their initiatives aim to reduce energy costs, promote clean energy job development, and improve public health through sustainable development and pollution reduction. As the only dedicated consumer advocate in Louisiana for utility customers, the Alliance for Affordable energy advocates for customer clean energy opportunities, including community solar and battery storage programs, as well as utility investment in clean energy assets, such as replacing fossil fuel burning peaker power plants with battery storage alternatives.
Alliance for Affordable Energy’s Leadership Grant will be used to:
- Support the Alliance’s engagement with the New Orleans City Council to provide community solar and battery storage opportunities for low to moderate income city residents.
- Advocate for a clean energy alternative to a gas peaker power plant proposed for New Orleans.
- Engage with New Orleans communities and educate residents as to the value of solar and battery storage technologies.
Catalyst Miami
Location: Miami, FL
Website: https://catalystmiami.org
About: Catalyst Miami has been advocating for low-wealth communities in Miami-Dade County, Florida for over two decades. In 2015, Catalyst began working on climate resilience, environmental justice, and energy advocacy. As an outgrowth of this work, Catalyst created a diverse, multi-sector network that advocates for climate resilience; the Miami Climate Alliance. Catalyst is also addressing community resilience through the creation of resilience hubs. The hubs will provide Catalyst Miami health and wealth services, as well as help communities to prepare for and recover from a storm.
Catalyst’s Leadership Grant will be used to:
- Install solar and storage in community resilience hubs to ensure continued critical service delivery and community relief in the event of a disaster.
- Advocate for progressive clean energy and energy storage policies and programs at the state and county level.
California Environmental Justice Alliance
Location: Oakland and Huntington Park, CA
Website: www.caleja.org
About: The California Environmental Justice Alliance (CEJA) is a statewide, community-led organization that works to create comprehensive change and grow the movement for environmental health and social justice through organizing, movement-building, and strategic policy advocacy. CEJA represents approximately 30,000 residents across California, and has been a leading force in state energy policies for the past eight years. CEJA empowers low-income communities and people of color to create resilient communities that are blanketed with local clean renewable energy, including advanced comprehensive technologies such as energy storage. CEJA is the leading California statewide environmental justice-specific coalition with a focus on renewable energy.
CEJA’s Leadership Grant will be used to:
- Educate and mobilize environmental justice communities on comprehensive solar+storage solutions
- Lead the campaign to successfully implement the Multifamily Affordable Housing Solar Roofs Program (MAHSR) in California
The Greenlining Institute
Location: Oakland, CA
Website: www.greenlining.org
About: Founded in 1993, The Greenlining Institute is a policy, research, organizing, and leadership institute working for racial and economic justice. Headquartered in California, Greenlining’s approach focuses on bringing grassroots community leaders face to face with public and private sector leaders. Greenlining works on a variety of major policy issues, including energy and environmental equity, with a focus on civic engagement and economic opportunity. Greenlining’s energy and environmental equity programs are focused on ensuring that California’s investments in energy efficiency, renewable energy, and other “green” technology are equitably distributed, so that all Californians have a chance to benefit. Through these programs, Greenlining aims to fight poverty and pollution, making sure that the communities hit first and worst by climate change receive environmental and
energy investments that will reduce pollution, create good jobs for residents, improve the health of disadvantaged communities, and strengthen local economies without displacing low-income residents.
Greenlining’s Leadership Grant will be used to:
- Conduct the outreach necessary to make sure affordable housing owners are aware of the challenges/benefits of solar+storage technologies and opportunities that will become available in California.
- Work with housing advocates, the CPUC, and the MAHSR program administrator to help ensure that building owners get the information and assistance they need to participate successfully in the program, and directly engage property owners and other community stakeholders to inform them and their tenants about solar+storage opportunities.
LINC Housing Corporation
Location: Long Beach, CA
Website: www.linchousing.org
About: LINC Housing’s mission is to build communities and strengthen neighborhoods for people underserved by the marketplace. LINC is committed to creating and preserving housing that is affordable, environmentally sustainable, and a catalyst for community improvement. LINC serves communities across California, with most of its properties located in the greater Los Angeles area. Most LINC residents earn between 30-60 percent of area median income, and LINC’s expanded work in special needs housing has allowed it to serve formerly homeless individuals and families with extremely low incomes. LINC is committed to transforming its existing multifamily housing communities through sustainability. In 2012, LINC formed SEED Partners, LLC, a mission-driven energy and water service company to facilitate this work.
LINC Housing’s Leadership Grant will be used to:
- Provide staffing to pursue resilient solar+storage housing projects.
- Support SEED’s efforts to expand the model of the multi-site solar project and apply it to use taxcredits for energy storage on the same sites.
Preservation of Affordable Housing
Location: Boston, MA
Website: www.poah.org
About: Preservation of Affordable Housing (POAH) is a nonprofit developer, owner and operator of nearly 9,000 affordable homes in 9 states and the District of Columbia. POAH’s primary mission is to preserve, create and sustain affordable, healthy homes that support economic security and access to opportunity for all. Since 2001, the POAH team has advanced its mission with a blend of expertise and creativity, solving complex problems that others have seen as insurmountable. POAH integrates energy and water conservation into every project to manage its environmental footprint. POAH has secured long-term affordability for residents while addressing the interests of owners, funders, public agencies, and other stakeholders.
POAH’s Leadership Grant will be used to:
- Analyze and incorporate resilient power strategies at new construction and rehab projects.
- Gain a better understanding of how to include solar+storage technologies and resilient design principles across POAH’s existing affordable housing portfolio.
Sustainable Molokai
Location: Kaunakakai, HI
Website: www.sustainablemolokai.org
About: Sustainable Molokai is a grassroots group formed to inspire youth and all Molokai residents to work toward a more sustainable future. Sustainable Molokai conducts education and advocacy work that honors traditional and cultural pathways alongside modern strategies for sustainability. Over the past seven years, Sustainable Molokai led the Molokai island community in creating energy efficiency educational programs that made it Hawaii’s most energy efficient island. Building on the success of past community energy projects, Sustainable Molokai is working to build capacity to broaden the breadth and depth of the island’s community renewable energy projects.
Sustainable Molokai’s Leadership Grant will be used to:
- Support the organization’s work on utility scale solar+storage innovation, financing and policy work, and to partner with local community residents as well as Molokai High School, University of Hawaii, and the Richardson Law School Energy Justice Program to train future energy leaders
- Build partnerships through the Hawaii State Energy Offices and Legislators, and advocate for legislation to allow battery storage for lower to middle income households through GEMS revolving loan program
THE POINT Community Development Corporation
Location: Bronx, NY
Website: www.thepoint.org
About: THE POINT Community Development Corporation is dedicated to youth development and the cultural and economic revitalization of the Hunts Point section of the South Bronx, a low-income community of color. Since 1994, THE POINT has worked with its neighbors to celebrate life and art in a community traditionally defined by its poverty, crime rate, poor schools and substandard housing. THE POINT uses the lens of environmental justice, youth development and arts and culture to engage Hunts Point residents in creating a more livable community and to generate economic opportunity. THE POINT has long-standing community-based partnerships in the South Bronx and has a track record of collaboration with local stakeholders, community-based organizations, elected officials, government agencies, and neighborhood planning processes.
The POINT’s Leadership Grant will be used to:
- Mobilize the community to advocate for large solar installations with support from back-up battery storage as the best possible scenario for the community, and advocate for a strong commitment from New York City to pursue the best possible scenario for energy pilot projects for the community, while creating renewable energy sources to reduce the current reliance on diesel for emergency power generation.
- Pursue distributive energy resource solutions, such as community shared solar and battery storage, and other opportunities to address the high-energy burden in the residential community along with the resiliency needs of the community.
WE ACT for Environmental Justice
Location: New York, NY
Website: www.weact.org
About: WE ACT’s mission is to build healthy communities by ensuring that people of color and low-income residents participate meaningfully in the creation of sound and fair environmental health and protection policies and practices. Since 1988, WE ACT has been a driving force of change that improves the well-being of all New Yorkers, with a focus on Northern Manhattan. WE ACT prioritizes its advocacy and organizing initiatives to address several of its eight healthy community indicators: clean air and climate change; equitable transit; waste, pests and pesticide reduction; toxic-free products; healthy food in schools; sustainable land use; open and green space; and healthy indoor environments. WE ACT is the central coordinating organization for the Environmental Justice Leadership Forum on Climate Change (EJ Leadership Forum), a coalition of 31 organizations across 18 states.
WE ACT’s Leadership Grant will be used to:
- Support continued implementation of its Northern Manhattan Climate Action Plan, which seeks to make the neighborhoods of East, Central, and West Harlem and Washington Heights and Inwood more resilient to the intensifying effects of climate change.
- Lower greenhouse gas emissions while lowering energy costs and improving air quality and, ultimately, health outcomes in vulnerable communities of color and low-income in Northern Manhattan, specifically, and New York City, broadly.
Testimonials
UPAL’s solar installation training graduates. Credit: Queen Shabazz, UPAL.
"Clean Energy Group, through the Resilient Power Leadership Initiative, funded UPAL's inaugural Solar PV Installation training session held on August 29th through September 22, 2022. We graduated 20 individuals who will contribute to Virginia's clean energy workforce."
Queen Zakia Shabazz
Virginia Environmental Justice Collaborative and United Parents Against Lead (UPAL), RPLI Awardee 2022
Feed the Second Line Get Lit Stay Lit solar+storage installation at a New Orleans restaurant, Queen Trini Lisa. Photo Credit: Katie Sikora
"The RPLI provides extra support for Feed The Second Line leadership to continue the work of being on the frontlines- in efforts to continue to support the communities in our city in the aftermath of a natural disaster through our Get Lit Stay Lit program."
Tinice "Tee" Williams
Executive Director, Feed the Second Line, RPLI Awardee 2022