Federal grant programs / Environmental Protection Agency

Environmental Justice Small Grant Program (66.604)

Also known as EJSG

• Awarded, FY 2021 to 2025$7.8 million
• Grant awards104
• Typical award$75,000
• Awarded in FY 2025$0
• Size rank1542 of 1824
• Type of assistanceProject grants

Key findings

• It is the 1542nd largest of 1,824 federal grant programs by five-year awards.
• The 20 largest recipients received 22% of the money.
• Awards went to recipients in 38 states and territories.

What the program funds

This program has been terminated. The Environmental Justice Small Grants (EJSG) Program provides funding directly to community-based organizations for projects that help residents of underserved communities understand and address local environmental and public health issues. The term “underserved community” refers to a community with environmental justice concerns and/or vulnerable populations, including people of color, low income, rural, tribal, indigenous, and homeless populations that may be disproportionately impacted by environmental harms and risks. In general, the EJSG program awards grants that support community-driven projects designed to engage, educate, and empower communities to better understand and address local environmental and public health issues. Community-driven projects are projects that include activities where community residents and/or representatives are integrally involved in the thinking behind and execution of those activities. Therefore, applying organizations should have a direct connection to the underserved community impacted by environmental harms and risks.

From the federal Assistance Listing. Read the full listing on SAM.gov.

Open opportunities

No opportunity under this program is open or forecast on Grants.gov right now. Programs often post once a year, so the funding history below shows what to expect.

Rules from the program listing

Who can apply

An eligible applicant must be one of the following: • incorporated non-profit organizations —including, but not limited to, community-based organizations, grassroots organizations, environmental justice networks, faith based organizations and those affiliated with religious institutions;* U.S. Territories • Tribal governments, must be either federally-recognized or state-recognized – including Alaska Native Villages • tribal organizations * • Freely Associated States (FAS) – including local governmental entities and local non-profit organizations in the Federated States of Micronesia, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, and Palau. Applicant organizations claiming non-profit status must include documentation that shows the organization is either a 501(c) (3) non-profit organization as designated by the Internal Revenue Service; OR a non-profit organization recognized by the state, territory, commonwealth or tribe in which it is located. For the latter, documentation must be on official state government letterhead. Applicants must be located within the same state, territory, commonwealth, or tribe in which the proposed project is located. This means that an applicant’s registered address of record (i.e., the address designated on their IRS or State-sanctioned documentation) must be in the same state, territory, commonwealth or tribe as the location of the proposed project.

Continue reading on SAM.gov

What the money can and cannot pay for

Grants and cooperative agreements are available to support recipients' allowable direct costs incident to approved surveys, studies, and investigations plus allowable direct costs in accordance with established EPA policies and procedures. Assistance agreement awards under this program may involve or relate to geospatial information. Further information regarding geospatial information may be obtained by viewing the following website: Geospatial Resources at EPA (https://www.epa.gov/geospatial). Projects must not be used for the following purposes: routine program implementation (e.g. funding of the same program, without changes or advancements, that has existed and been routinely available for multiple consecutive years), implementation of routine environmental protection restoration measures (e.g. municipal curbside trash service); duplication of work performed under a prior EPA grant; completion of work which was to have been completed under a prior EPA grant; litigation against the Federal government or any other government entity; construction; lobbying; matching funds for other Federal grants; travel for Federal employees; and human health studies (taking blood or other information from humans). If a proposal includes tasks or activities determined to be ineligible, then that portion of the proposal will be ineligible for funding and may, depending on the extent to which it affects the proposal, render the entire proposal ineligible for funding.;

Matching requirements

This program has no statutory formula. Matching requirements are not applicable to this assistance listing. MOE requirements are not applicable to this assistance listing.

Deadlines

For competitive awards, deadlines will be specified in the competitive announcement.

Award range and average, in the agency's words

$50,000 to $100,000/fiscal year; average $75,000.

Quoted from the program's federal Assistance Listing. The notice of funding opportunity is the official source for each competition's rules.

Who usually wins

Nonprofits received 90% of the money, tribes 10%.

By state

2 states have a page for this program: those that received at least $1 million or 10 awards. They are New York and California.

Award amounts are federal obligations reported to USAspending.gov for fiscal 2021 to 2025; see how our data works.