CitiesGoGreen - January 2009 - (Page 27) Small Grants with a Big Impact Climate Change Micro-Grants let citizens engage their communities. by Lia Ayley I t started when Minneapolis Mayor Rybak had the idea of hiring someone to work with citizens on ways to cut their energy use. It took a while to find that person. “Eventually we realized, instead of hiring one person to do this, why don’t we use that money for micro-grants of $1000 to $10,000 and power good ideas out in the community?” said the mayor. “We got the most wonderful things that came back from that. It’s not the largest work we do, but it’s some of the most exciting.” The Climate Change Grants program was the first of its kind in the nation. Started in 2007, it gives annual awards to local groups with good ideas to help fund projects promoting practical action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Schools, churches, neighborhood and community groups, and nonprofits have all received grants so far, with a striking breadth of activities and creativity as the result. Some grant recipients have gone doorto-door in neighborhoods, talking about practical climate change strategies and carbon reduction. One group delivered clotheslines; another provided free CFLs; others held neighborhood meetings or energy fairs. A church changed all its lighting to compact fluorescent bulbs and publicized the carbon savings to its congregation. A school educated parents about vehicle idling and instituted a no-idling policy on school grounds. Several groups worked to encourage bike riding; one group taught Somali and other immigrant women about energy issues with the aid of translators, educated them about bicycling and recycling/reuse issues, and provided them with free bikes. Linden Hills Power and Light, a neighborhood group, received its second micro-grant this year. The first let them go door-to-door discussing the possibility of building an anaerobic digester in Groups applying for the grants must link their projects to the Minnesota Energy Challenge, an online tool that lets individuals calculate their carbon footprint and commit to making positive changes. That way, the city can measure a project’s success in terms of the decrease in energy use and the increased savings that peoples’ commitments bring. Prest makes the final decisions on who gets a grant, and admits it’s hard. Her team for selecting winners includes a person each from a Citizen’s Advisory Committee and the Minnesota Energy Challenge, and a few staffers. “Why don’t we use that money for micro-grants of $1000 Grant applications are kept to 2-3 pagto $10,000 and power good ideas out in the community?” es to keep the paperwork down. In — Mayor Rybak 2007, the program received 75 applivolved (about $70,000 in 2007). “I’ve been cations and awarded twenty grants of up involved in environmental education for to $1,000 and five grants of $10,000 each. twenty years, and you can’t put together Prest passes on other funding opportua multi-media radio/TV ad campaign for nities to grant recipients, hoping they’ll that kind of money. It’s just too small. But gain the confidence to apply for further from my experience working on environ- funds elsewhere. mental issues, it’s the neighbor-to-neighIn addition to the climate change benbor, peer-to-peer, student-to-student efits, Prest stresses the community-buildthing that really is the powerful thing. ing aspects of the program. “The idea of “We knew that in all of the schools, the neighbors and friends and schoolkids neighborhoods, and places of worship, talking to each other, those secondary everybody was talking about climate benefits can’t be underestimated in terms change. What we wanted to do was to of building capacity within organizations,” give them seed money, to get people to she said. think about things like holding an energy The mayor has no regrets about using fair, doing energy audits, promoting bik- the money to fund micro-grants. “As nice ing more, and to have this grass roots as it would have been to have one more kind of work take place. talented city employee, it was a lot better “And you can’t believe the leveraging to use that money to spark the creativity of volunteer hours,” she adds. “People are of the citizens of Minneapolis,” said Rybak. going to their local businesses and get- “Citizens are way ahead of government ting them to chip in, donating free CFLs right now. The more you do to spark and and that kind of thing. The leveraging has help support the ideas growing out of been phenomenal.” neighborhoods, the better.” v 27 their neighborhood that would turn food waste to energy. (The city is piloting a food waste pickup in the neighborhood now.) This year, LHP&L organized a Green Carpet Film Festival that gave awards for short films made by kids and adults on the theme of carbon reduction. The films are posted on YouTube. Gayle Prest, the city’s Sustainability Manager, is enthusiastic about the program. In terms of more conventional publicity efforts to educate citizens about carbon reduction, she said, not much would be possible with the amount of money in- January 2009 http://citiesgogreen.com/issues/january-2009/current-feature/small-grants-with-a-big-impact http://citiesgogreen.com/issues/january-2009/current-feature/small-grants-with-a-big-impact http://www.mnenergychallenge.org/ http://www.mnenergychallenge.org/ http://www.lhpowerandlight.org/getpage.asp?pagetype=article&articleid=6029 http://www.lhpowerandlight.org/getpage.asp?pagetype=article&articleid=6029 http://www.youtube.com/user/GreenCarpetFilmFest http://www.ci.minneapolis.mn.us/sustainability/ClimateChangeMicroGrant2007.asp http://www.CitiesGoGreen.com
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