Key details on California’s IRA grants and the role urban forestry software can play

April 10, 2024 |  Alec Sabatini

The next two months are packed with potential for California urban forests. An unprecedented $30.8 million is available for urban forestry projects through the California Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) Grants. Organizations and local governments have the opportunity to win funding for projects where they are needed most: disadvantaged and under-invested urban communities.

If you represent one of the eligible applicants, don’t miss this chance! The application deadline is May 30th. This blog will break down key details of the application process, with a particular focus on the role urban forestry software can play in strengthening your application and eventually, supporting your project. When you’re ready to dive into the process, check out the most up-to-date grant guidelines on the CAL FIRE website to get started.

Key Details of the California IRA Urban Forestry Grants

The grant program timeline:

• Applications are due by May 30th, 2024 at 5pm PDT
• Awards will be announced in June and July, 2024
• All project work must be completed by March 31st, 2028

Eligible applicants:

• Local governments (city, county, qualifying districts)
• Nonprofit organizations
• Federally recognized Tribal Nations
• School districts, community college districts, and childcare facilities
• Special districts, such as park, recreation, water, and local taxing districts

The eligible applicants depend on the grant type. I’ll provide a short breakdown of the grant types below. Refer to page 24 of the grant guidelines to see the full grant type details.

Applications will be submitted on the CAL FIRE’s eCivis Grants Portal, and an accompanying user guide for the portal can be found here. You do not need an account on SAM.gov to submit a grant application, but an active account is required to receive grant funds. The registration process can take up to a couple of weeks to become active, so it’s worth starting while working on your application.

Six Grant Project Types

Urban Forest Education and Workforce Development

Creation, development, and implementation of projects to educate, train, and employ individuals to prepare them for careers in urban forestry.

Green Schoolyards

Assist with planning and/or implementing projects that focus on tree planting, extreme heat, environmental, economic, and social benefits for urban public school campuses and eligible childcare facilities.

Grant awards range from $150,000 to $1.5 million for all grant types except for Urban Forest Regional or Statewide Impact, which has a larger maximum of $3 million.

No Match Requirements

The purpose of these grants are to support disadvantaged and low-income urban communities in growing equitable access to trees and their benefits. All grant projects must deliver 100% of program benefits to these communities. To lower the barrier to accessing these grant funds, cost share and match requirements are waived for all awards. I’ll repeat it: don’t miss the chance to apply!

Identifying Priority Populations

Eligible areas for these grants include state-designated priority populations, disadvantaged communities, low-income communities, and/or low-income households. This blog will use priority population to refer collectively to these designations. An additional requirement is communities must contain at least 2,500 people.

Three mapping tools are suggested for demonstrating, on a census tract basis, how a proposed urban forest project will directly benefit a priority population.

Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool (CEJST)

The nationwide Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool (CEJST) was developed by the White House Council on Environmental Quality to highlight overburdened and underserved census tracts, which are eligible areas for California IRA Urban Forestry grants. PlanIT Geo is in the process of adding a new data layer to TreePlotter™ INVENTORY to show CEJST disadvantaged community boundaries. This layer is expected to launch in the next couple of months, making it much simpler to view and filter trees plotted within disadvantaged census tracts.

Give Your Organization Some Back Up With Urban Forestry Software

We’ve seen a misconception pop up that software is not an eligible expense under IRA Grants. This is false. Software is not considered equipment and is therefore not subject to the $5,000 unit expenditure cap. Depending on the delivery, grantees can show software acquisition as a supply cost, or a contractual cost if there are ongoing costs for subscription access, data collection, etc. For example, your organization could apply for a 3-year subscription to TreePlotter INVENTORY as a contractual cost.

Tracking the progress of your project at the census tract level is essential for this grant. Using products like TreePlotter INVENTORY, a GIS tree management software, makes it simple to track exactly where your grant dollars are going and measure their impact.

Ecosystem benefit display in TreePlotter INVENTORY for Fremont, California.

Putting Inventory Data to Work

For organizations interested in conducting or updating a tree inventory through the Urban Forest Management grant type, GIS tree software is a must. Yes, it’s necessary for tracking the data during the inventory, but the real kicker is how to leverage that data once it’s collected.

TreePlotter INVENTORY has a suite of functions designed to help organizations turn inventory data into action. It’s helpful for picking planting sites and for prioritizing maintenance or removal of trees. Removing trees has special requirements that require the approval of the CAL FIRE Regional Urban Forester, and INVENTORY makes it easy to provide the necessary photos and information for any removal requests.

PlanIT Geo provides TreePlotter INVENTORY to California Releaf. Nonprofits that are members of the Releaf network have the opportunity to utilize INVENTORY through that network. If interested, please reach out to California Releaf.

Urban Tree Canopy Mapping

This grant is also an excellent opportunity to obtain urban tree canopy data and analysis software. The mapping tools referenced above are just a start. With a tool like TreePlotter™ CANOPY, you can overlay similar demographic information with land cover data to precisely identify where your organization should focus its efforts.

A core component of this grant is to sustain or grow urban tree canopy. With TreePlotter CANOPY you can establish a clear baseline canopy amount and track growth and loss every couple of years as new aerial imagery becomes available. CANOPY allows your organization to see where all of the available planting space exists within a community, and then filter data based on census tracts or other metrics like urban heat island potential to build carefully prioritized planting plans.

Urban tree canopy data is a powerful storytelling tool for earning additional funding beyond the California IRA urban forestry grants. An urban tree canopy assessment can tell a compelling visual story of the urban forest. Having maps and data documenting exactly how tree cover is changing and how it is distributed across a city moves conversations into a discussion of reality instead of hypotheticals.

This Grant Is A Seed

These grants, with no match requirement, are a low-barrier jumpstart for organizations to significantly amplify their impact with disadvantaged communities.

An optimal urban forestry program is built on four pillars: an updated tree inventory, a recent tree canopy assessment, effective tree ordinances or codes, and an urban forest management plan. This grant can be used to develop one or more of those pillars to set up effective urban forest management for decades to come in the neighborhoods that need it most.

We’d be happy to have a conversation specific to your community and grant application. Please reach out with any questions about how software, an inventory, a canopy assessment, or management planning could support your project.