Agenda 12-12-23; 6-b - Community Climate Action Grant (CCAG) - FY 2023-24 Project Selection for General Applicants and Schools

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Attachment 1 5 ORANGE COUNTY NORTH CAROLINA Date: December 12, 2023 To: Board of Orange County Commissioners From: Amy Eckberg, Sustainability Programs Manager RE: Orange County Community Climate Action Grant- Project Descriptions, Scoring, and Comments for General and School Applicants For the 2023-24 funding cycle of the Orange County Community Climate Action Grant program, $564,085 in funding was budgeted to support climate action projects that benefit Orange County residents both socially and financially. For this grant cycle,the Board of Orange County Commissioners reserved half of the total funding for this grant program ($282,042.50)to be awarded to projects submitted by either of Orange County's two public school districts.The remaining half($282,042.50)was to be made available to all other eligible "general" applicants. Based on feedback received from the Board, a concerted effort to publicize the grant opportunity was made this year. A UNC-Chapel Hill Eco Studio intern helped support our community engagement efforts through phone calls,flyer distribution and "door to door" canvassing of local businesses, churches, and community groups. A special info graphic announcing the grant was distributed via social media, Orange County TV screens,website, and weekly happenings email. A targeted mass email went out to community groups, churches, nonprofits and small businesses announcing the grant opportunity. As a result of all these outreach efforts, we received the most grant applications ever received since the inception of the grant and many new applicants! The Community Climate Action grant program received 11 "general" applications in this round from a variety of nonprofit and public organizations whose total requests add up to almost$615,000. In addition, both school districts submitted applications totaling almost$558,000. Following the scoring and eligibility guidelines of the Board of Orange County Commissioners (BOCC),the applications were reviewed and scored by the Commission for the Environment (CFE) and the Human Relations Commission (HRC).The BOCC asked the Human Relations Commission to score the applications on the Social Justice and Racial Equity criterion, as this pertains to their expertise and because the racial representation of the CFE as a whole does not reflect the racial diversity of Orange County. The following is a rank-order summary table of the combined project scoring and recommendations.A full table showing the scores for each project on each of the 7 scoring elements is included in the Appendix. P.O. Box 8181 * Hillsborough, North Carolina 27278 Telephone: (919)245-2625