Application Burden - California Climate and Energy Collaborative

Barrier 4: Application Burden & Accessibility

Barrier Statement

Competitive public grant applications are overly complex, confusing, and inflexible pass/fail processes that are oversubscribed with little standardization, extracting limited organizational capacity that could be used for action while creating prohibitively high costs and low success probabilities that discourage resource-constrained organizations from attempting to apply.

Filterable Database

How communities are experiencing this barrier

View the details on what communities have shared with SLECC from across the state.

Key challenge discussed in - San Francisco Bay Area, Central Coast, Los Angeles, Inland Deserts, San Diego, Statewide

Fragmented, non-standardized, and overly complex grant processes disproportionately drain the limited capacity of small, rural, tribal, and under-resourced organizations, leaving less time for actual planning and implementation.

Illustrative Example: A tribal grantee managing five concurrent state grants described having to rewrite the same information five different ways every quarter (same cover page, entirely different formats) with each grant carrying different reporting templates, invoicing requirements, and accounting standards.

Key challenge discussed in - San Francisco Bay Area, Central Coast, Los Angeles

The cost of pursuing and managing grants (including pre-application needs assessment, relationship building, project concept development, and grant writing) is entirely uncompensated, with no funding pathway for this work, falling hardest on organizations with the least capacity and creating a structural barrier before any grant process even begins.

Key challenge discussed in - San Francisco Bay Area, Central Coast, Los Angeles

Reimbursement-only grant structures require organizations to carry costs for months (sometimes up to a year) creating cash flow crises that break trust with contractors and effectively exclude organizations without financial reserves.

Key challenge discussed in - Central Coast, San Diego

Eligibility tools like CalEnviroScreen systematically misidentify disadvantaged communities, leaving some frontline populations excluded from programs designed for them while better-resourced communities with stronger data infrastructure successfully access funding.

Key challenge discussed in - Central Coast, Los Angeles

Matching fund requirements create a structural deadlock (each funder requires evidence of match before committing, but no funder will commit first) effectively excluding under-resourced organizations with worthy projects from multi-funder applications.

Local Solution Opportunities

SLECC stakeholders have brainstormed the following solution opportunities that can be taken by local leaders. Existing examples of progress or pathways to make further progress are highlighted if known.

Local Solution

Partner with higher-capacity organizations and regional conveners to distribute grant writing, administration, and reporting burdens, allowing CBOs and smaller jurisdictions to focus on community-facing delivery while partners with greater administrative capacity handle compliance, fiscal management, and reporting, reducing redundancy and expanding equitable access to competitive funding.

Existing Examples of Progress:

1. San Diego Regional Climate Collaborative and foundations acting as “regional convening facilitators” to lead multi-partner funding efforts. 2. Regional collaboratives supporting low-capacity districts in applications. 3. The Pajaro Valley TCC multi-partner structure distributed planning, community engagement, grant writing, and fiscal management across four organizations, demonstrating this model in practice on the Central Coast.

Further Progress Pathways

Region(s): San Francisco Bay Area, Central Coast, Inland Deserts, San Diego, Statewide

Local Solution

Develop shared regional project databases that map funding needs, project readiness, and sectoral priorities.

Existing Examples of Progress:

1. Lift to Rise’s Capital Absorption Framework – Aligns regional partners around shared goals, aggregates a cross-sector project queue, and integrates pre-development loans to accelerate funding access. 2. WRCOG’s Regional Project Pipeline Portal – A digital tool mapping investable projects across jurisdictions, improving visibility for funders and technical assistance providers

Further Progress Pathways

Region(s): Inland Deserts

Local Solution

Engage in state agency feedback processes to shape future reforms, including ongoing guideline updates for programs like the Transformative Climate Communities (TCC) and Community Resilience Centers (CRC)

Existing Examples of Progress:

Further Progress Pathways

Region(s): Inland Deserts

State Solution Opportunities

SLECC stakeholders have brainstormed the following solution opportunities that can be taken by state leaders. Existing examples of progress or pathways to make further progress are highlighted if known.

State Solution

Streamline and modernize state grant applications through a common application, longer timelines, simplified requirements, and upgraded digital platforms. A unified, equity-centered grant system would reduce administrative burden, improve transparency, and expand access for under-resourced applicants.

Existing Examples of Progress:

SGC and its Connecting Communities Initiative are exploring ways to reduce these administrative burdens while increasing access for under-resourced communities

Further Progress Pathways

Region(s): San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, Inland Deserts, San Diego, Statewide

State Solution

The state can establish flexible climate resilience block grants administered by regional entities—such as COGs—that replace competitive, project-by-project awards and provide predictable, multi-year allocations. By offering formula-based funding, upfront or multi-round disbursements, standardized applications, common reporting formats, and access to advance pay, these block-grant models give jurisdictions stability for long-term planning while enabling regional bodies to deliver coordinated TA and grant administration.

Existing Examples of Progress:

1. Proposition 4 implementation – $10 billion for climate infrastructure (urban forestry, greening, fire mitigation, water improvements, etc.). Agencies are working to avoid duplication, reduce application burdens, and expand community input in program design, led by the California Natural Resources Agency (CNRA). 2. EECBG program seemed to be particularly straightforward with templates for types of energy projects.

Further Progress Pathways

Region(s): San Francisco Bay Area, San Diego, Statewide

State Solution

State should require advance payment to nonprofits, tribes, and smaller CBOs at grant award rather than treating advance pay as optional, ensuring organizations have money in the bank on day one and can begin implementation without carrying costs for months while waiting for reimbursement.

Existing Examples of Progress:

1. Existing legislation authorizing (but not requiring) advance pay; stakeholders call for mandatory implementation. 2. California's tribal capacity building program provides early seed funding to tribal organizations at grant award rather than reimbursement, enabling tribes to build the organizational infrastructure needed to access and implement larger grants that would otherwise be financially out of reach.

Further Progress Pathways

Region(s): San Francisco Bay Area, Central Coast, Los Angeles, Statewide

Solution Spotlight

The California tribal capacity building program provides early-stage funding to tribal organizations at the point of grant award rather than requiring them to carry costs until reimbursement arrives. By giving tribes seed capital upfront, the program enables them to build the organizational infrastructure needed to pursue and implement larger grants that would otherwise be financially inaccessible, demonstrating how advance funding structures can meaningfully expand tribal access to state climate and resilience programs.

Integrate equity into grant scoring – Reform grant criteria so that cities with disadvantaged residents (even if not formally designated as DACs) are eligible for equity-based points

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