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WW+ Infrastructure Bulletin:December Edition
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A digest of infrastructure news and funding opportunities. The What Works Plus (WW+) funder collaborative is a partnership coordination hub across philanthropy, government, and nonprofits to advance equity and climate resilience through thoughtful implementation of historic federal infrastructure funding. WW+ is a project of Freedman Consulting, LLC, which provides strategic consulting services to foundations and nonprofit organizations.
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OPPORTUNITIES TO ENGAGE WITH WW+
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A snapshot of learning events and high-impact federal infrastructure funding implementation-related opportunities in need of philanthropic support. For more information about these opportunities, please contact info@whatworksplus.com.
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Funding Opportunity: The ALLIANCE - “Electrical Pre-Apprenticeship and Supportive Services for English Learners”
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The Gap: Historically, immigrants and other underrepresented groups have felt like outsiders when pursuing careers as electricians. English learners often face language barriers, sometimes struggle with apprenticeship coursework, experience challenges communicating on the job site, and have difficulty establishing rapport with colleagues.
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The Opportunity: The ALLIANCE’s pre-apprenticeship program for English Learners will help expand the pool of qualified workers and combat labor shortages. The ALLIANCE will reach out to English Learners and facilitate pathways into pre-apprenticeship programs, registered apprenticeship programs, and careers in the electrical industry. To achieve this goal, all materials offered in the pre-apprenticeship and first-year apprenticeship computer mediated learning curriculum will be translated into Spanish. While in the pre-apprenticeship, participants will concurrently receive ESL instruction, classroom instruction, mentorship, paid on-the-job training, and other supportive services to help them complete the pre-apprenticeship and move on to registered apprenticeship. To learn more about this opportunity, contact andrea@amcrawfordinc.com.
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December Spotlight: News from Core Members & Friends
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Have a notable infrastructure-related investment, partnership, or event coming up? Let us know at info@whatworksplus.com and we’ll feature it next month.
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This month, The What Works Plus Collaborative, Families and Workers Fund, Energy Foundation, and Joyce Foundation hosted a virtual discussion on how philanthropy can collaborate across climate and workforce portfolios to maximize the impacts of recent federal infrastructure and climate legislation. Stay tuned for future discussions on this topic! A recording of the presentation portion can be found here. Brookings Metro, Living Cities, and What Works Plus co-hosted the second webinar of a two-part learning series featuring thought leaders and leading practitioners discussing how to make the most of procurement practices amid generational investments in infrastructure and climate action. A recording of the event will be available on What Works Plus soon. The James Irvine Foundation recently granted $400,000 to the Brookings Institution to provide customized learning opportunities to state and local public sector leaders in order to advance equity and climate resilience through infrastructure investments in California and nationwide. Technical assistance will draw on Brookings’ expertise on inclusive economic development and its equity impact assessment tool to shape how public sector leaders allocate public funds and evaluate the impact of public funds along racial equity measures. With support from the James Irvine Foundation and Surdna Foundation, the Aspen Institute released a report outlining strategic reforms to procurement policies and practices. Proposed reforms include reporting on job quality and diversity, equity, and inclusion by firms seeking public contracts and assessing job quality through worker earnings, retention, and advancement. The Aspen Institute also hosted a virtual conversation discussing public procurement as a tool to improve jobs quality and equity. A recording can be found here.
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INFRASTRUCTURE NEWS UPDATES
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A snapshot of this month’s key infrastructure news.
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A record $136 million investment to advance climate resilience was announced by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF). Grants, which will be awarded through the National Coastal Resilience Fund, will support 88 infrastructure projects helping communities prepare for increased coastal flooding and more violent storms while improving thousands of acres of coastal habitats across 29 states and U.S. territories. A list of 2022 grantees can be found here. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced that it will allocate $550 million in Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) funding directly to state, Tribal, and local governments through the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant (EECBG) Program to support communities across the country develop comprehensive energy plans and deploy clean energy technologies to cut emissions and reduce energy costs.
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The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) announced its latest round of transportation innovations through the Every Day Counts (EDC) Program (EDC-7) - a state-based program that identifies and rapidly deploys proven yet underutilized innovations to improve transit safety, build greener and more sustainable infrastructure, and grow a more inclusive workforce. These innovations include procurement practices that use Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) to ensure sustainable product delivery and to help small, disadvantaged businesses compete for design-build contracts. The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) announced the current actions it is taking to deliver transportation funding in Indian Country, which include funding regional tribal technical assistance centers, supporting Tribal Nations’ roles in the electric vehicle (EV) battery supply chain, and more. The announcements came on the first day of the White House Tribal Nations Summit, where President Biden discussed his administration’s dedicated funding allocations for Tribal communities and Native people, including $32 billion in the American Rescue Plan (ARP), $13 billion in BIL, and $700 million in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).
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The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), announced $72 million in investments from BIL to strengthen the clean energy jobs pipeline by expanding the Industrial Assessment Centers (IACs) Program, which trains future energy engineers. Funds will establish up to five regional Centers of Excellence and create new IACs at trade schools, community colleges, and union training programs. This investment is also intended to create new Building Training Assessment Centers (BTACs) through grants to higher education institutions for workforce development efforts.
The U.S. Department of Labor announced $90 million in YouthBuild program grants to support pre-apprenticeships for disadvantaged youth in high-demand industries, including construction. The YouthBuild program will fund approximately 75 projects across the United States and prioritizes quality jobs, green building, and community violence intervention. Applications are due in February 2023. Former YouthBuild grantees from 2021 can be found here.
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The Harvard Kennedy School Government Performance Lab recently launched the Procurement Excellence Network (PEN), a free online hub to support government professionals whose work touches procurement and contracting as they drive reform and make procurement more efficient, fair, results-driven, equitable, and strategic. This month, The White House released an IRA guidebook to provide an overview of the law’s clean energy and climate-related tax incentives and investment programs, and to detail who is eligible to apply for funding and for what purposes. The Electrification Coalition released a Local Government Playbook containing recommendations, best practices, and innovative policy approaches for counties, cities, and towns to effectively leverage federal investments in electric vehicle infrastructure. With support from the Markle Foundation and the Strada Education Network, Brookings Metro published “Seizing the U.S. Infrastructure Opportunity: Investing in Current and Future Workers”, which aims to equip leaders with data and resources to “target, measure, and address” infrastructure workforce needs. You can read more about the project here. In a recent op-ed, WW+ Senior Advisor Xavier De Souza Briggs writes about ways to ensure off-shore energy investments are accompanied by — and help generate — significant investments in the communities and tribal nations expected to host the clean-energy revolution. The piece examines a new partnership model for offshore wind development in northern California.
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WW+ Infrastructure Bulletin: December Edition
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