Lt. Gov. Kounalakis Headlines Final Ceremony of California Resilience Challenge after Highly Successful Six-Year Run

Lt. Governor Eleni Kounalakis joined the Bay Area Council in Sacramento today (July 16) as we celebrated the highly successful six-year run of the California Resilience Challenge (CRC), which we launched with a coalition of business, community and government leaders to develop a pipeline of innovative climate adaptation projects across the state.

The theory behind the CRC was simple: if communities with innovative homegrown ideas for how to strengthen local resilience to droughts, wildfires, floods, and extreme heat events were given low-barrier planning grants, they’d be able to further develop these projects and compete for scarce state and federal grants to get shovels in the ground. This theory was more than validated: The CRC’s 38 grantees have leveraged the program’s $6 million grant total between 2020-2023 to raise an additional $73 million (and counting), including $40 million for implementation.

To learn about some of the innovative projects the CRC supported, enjoy these short videos:

Student Conservation Association (SCA): Training a Bay Area Climate Resilience Corps to improve vegetation management in East Bay open spaces to help historically disadvantaged communities adapt to extreme heat and wildfire challenges.

Fairmead/Madera County: Developing a groundwater resilience plan involving recharge and/or land repurposing efforts to address the urgent threat of a shrinking groundwater table in the Town of Fairmead.

Chief Ya’anna Learning Village: Creating an Indigenous Youth Climate Resiliency Corps to train young leaders in regenerative Indigenous science skills for wildfire mitigation and water management.

Interfaith Light & Power: Building a community resilience hub at Watts Willowbrook Church of Christ to provide shelter from wildfire smoke and heat waves for the Watts-Willowbrook-Compton neighborhood.

Forestry and Fire Recruitment Program (FFRP): Recruiting, training, and placing formerly incarcerated Californians into wildfire fighting and prevention careers to strengthen wildfire resilience across California communities.

Greenbelt Alliance: Leading a community-driven wildfire resilience planning pilot in Sonoma County to identify priority greenbelt buffers for reducing wildfire risk in urban-wildland interface areas.

As the CRC comes to a close, the Council thanks the many organizations that have provided financial support, including PG&E, JPMorgan Chase, Valley Water, Southern California Edison, the Metropolitan Water District, Resources Legacy Fund, Kaiser Permanente, Wells Fargo, Wareham Development Group, Bank of America, Alaska Airlines, LinkedIn, CSAA Insurance, the Bechtel Foundation, San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, and Pillsbury LLP.

We also extend thanks to the partner organizations who served on the initiative’s Advisory Committee over the years, including the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research, AECOM, the Nature Conservancy, the Environmental Defense Fund, Ceres, Climate Resolve, Urban Habitat, Guidiville Rancheria, the Greenlining Institute, CA/HI NAACP, The Solutions Project, and CSAA Insurance.