Publication
Blueprints for Change
Communities of color have been systematically denied the public investments needed to build healthy, resilient neighborhoods, while navigating funding systems that were never designed for them.
When major climate and infrastructure funding does become available, communities shaped by generations of disinvestment are often forced to build the capacity to access and implement those investments in real time.
Civic infrastructure is what allows communities to shape, access, and implement major investments. It includes trusted community organizations, local leadership, technical assistance providers, public agency partners, coalitions, financing tools, staffing, data, and the relationships needed to move community-led projects forward.
The Biden-Harris Administration created a historic opportunity to direct public dollars toward communities most impacted by disinvestment, pollution, and climate risk through Justice40, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, and the Inflation Reduction Act. While the Trump Administration cut that opportunity short — freezing or clawing back at least $425 billion in federal infrastructure funding, and decimating key agencies responsible for implementing investments — this investment cycle offered important lessons about what communities need to translate funding opportunities into equitable, community-led climate progress.
Developed by The Greenlining Institute in collaboration with the Urban Sustainability Directors Network, Blueprints for Change examines what communities, local governments, funders, and implementation partners learned from the recent wave of federal climate and infrastructure funding.
Drawing from interviews, survey responses, and a practitioner convening, the report identifies the conditions that help community-led projects succeed and offers recommendations for strengthening the civic infrastructure required to turn investments into lasting community benefits.
Report Recommendations
Blueprints for Change calls on government, philanthropy, private capital, and public agencies to invest now in the people, institutions, partnerships, and capacity that enable communities to turn the investments they have long been denied into tangible, community-led climate progress. Recommendations include:
- Invest before the funding arrives. Build the strategic, technical, and administrative capacity communities need to develop project pipelines, manage funding, and move quickly when opportunities emerge.
- Fund capacity as infrastructure. Treat staffing, organizational stability, skill development, and staff retention as essential components of successful climate and infrastructure implementation.
- Build peer networks that move the field together. Cohorts, communities of practice, and cross-sector learning spaces help local leaders troubleshoot challenges, share models, and sustain momentum.
- Design with communities from the beginning. Bring community-based organizations and local implementers into project design, governance, timelines, and funding structures before decisions are made.
- Grow local development capacity. Invest in the expertise communities need to move projects from vision to shovel-ready, including planning, construction, finance, compliance, and long-term asset stewardship.
- Turn funding windows into long-term community assets. Use major investment opportunities to build community ownership, durable governance, and local wealth that lasts beyond a single grant cycle.
- Modernize financing for community-led projects. Expand flexible, reparative, and community-centered financing tools that help communities access pre-development, bridge, and implementation capital.
- Strengthen the ecosystems that protect progress. Build durable partnerships across local government, CBOs, philanthropy, labor, technical experts, and private capital so community investment can withstand political shifts.
- Fund data, evaluation, and storytelling. Help communities measure impact, demonstrate success, build public trust, and make the case for continued investment.