Frequently Asked Questions

 

  • Proposed funding tiers are self-selected by applicants according to their project’s needs.

  • Each application is reviewed by at least two advisory board members, who assess the application against the organization and project requirements detailed in the RFP and on the website. Once the RFP closes, we will use consensus-based decision making to finalize grant awards.

  • We encourage applicants to apply for the total amount of funding they need to complete the proposed project. The grant may be awarded at the requested amount or at a lower funding tier. If there are specific adaptations to the project you would make at a lower funding amount, you are free to note that in your application. Please note, you may select only one funding tier in your application.

  • Applicants will select the funding tier, either $500,000 or $250,000 based on the needs of their proposed project.

  • Yes, up to 15% of the grant may be used towards indirect costs.

  • No, though you are encouraged to share this information in your other funding application(s), if relevant.

  • To lessen the burden on applicants, this grant will not require line-item budgets. Instead, the application will prompt you to select the level of funding you are seeking.

  • We encourage all organizations that meet the following eligibility requirements to submit an application. Environmental justice organizations the Fund will support must:

    • Serve frontline communities that have been historically underserved and disproportionately impacted by climate change and environmental injustice.

    • Aim to create a local social and/or environmental impact as defined by the applicant.

    • Center the perspectives of the communities being served via representation in project leadership and/or community participation, with a preference for community-driven decision-making.

    • Be committed to environmental justice and possess a track record of environmental justice work.

      • Note: The EJ Data Fund recognizes that there are organizations leading meaningful work in the environmental justice space that do not exclusively work on environmental justice issues. However, in this round of grantmaking the Fund will prioritize providing support to those organizations whose primary focus is on environmental justice work.

    • Be located in the United States (this includes all states, the federal district, territories, and outlying islands)

    • Meet at least one of the following requirements:

  • Yes, as long as your university (or your research institution hosted at the university) is registered as a 501(c)(3), you are eligible and encouraged to apply to the Fund.

  • Yes, as long as the primary applicant receiving funds has

    -501(c)(3) legal status OR

    -Is fiscally sponsored by an organization with 501(c)(3) legal status OR

    -is a fiscal sponsor with 501(c)(3) legal status applying on behalf of a project, OR

    -Is a federally recognized Indian tribe, or organized under Section 17 of the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934

    Please note that the maximum amount that can be dedicated to indirect costs is 15% of the total grant amount.

  • Yes.

  • No, only organizations with a 501(c)3 designation and federally recognized Indian tribe, or organized under Section 17 of the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 are eligible.

  • As long as the organization has a fiscal sponsor who is a 501(c)3, it can apply.

  • Yes, national organizations can apply, but should be specific about which communities will be supported by the project and how you will work with local partners, if relevant.

  • No, the project activities should be in the United States.

  • Although the EJ Data Fund prioritizes projects that focus on creating local impacts in the US, project scopes with global impacts are also eligible. However, organizations must carry out their project activities in the US (including all states, the federal district, territories, and outlying islands). In your application, be sure to communicate how your project will impact local communities.

  • The Fund will prioritize projects whose primary goal is focused on environmental justice. If your project meets all eligibility criteria and its goals are directly tied to environmental justice, we encourage you to apply.

  • As of now, the EJDF is a one-time grant opportunity that is only accepting applications through August, and lead organizations can only apply for one grant. We encourage applicants to apply for projects they are ready to start now. This could include data work in pilot mode.

  • Yes. Applicants should be sure to detail which local communities would be supported by the grant and how the applying organization would coordinate with local partners.

  • Typically, funds will be disbursed within 2-3 weeks of award notification - but this is contingent on Windward receiving all required due diligence materials from the grantee and successful completion of the due diligence process. If the materials are delayed or further due diligence is needed, the timeline for disbursement may extend.

  • EJDF will use a streamlined grantmaking and reporting process to ease the burden on grantees. Further details will be shared with advancing grantees.

  • If you have additional questions, please reach out via email at ejdatafund@windwardfund.org To ensure that information about the RFP is fair and accessible to all, we are unable to join or host organization-specific informational calls.

  • All data collected will be owned by and used at the discretion of project teams. The EJDF encourages collaboration across organizations, researchers, and scientists so project teams should agree on which entity or entities within a given partnership will own the data collected. Google.org believes that projects supported by its funding should benefit everyone and strongly encourages you to make data available to the public under a permissive open-source license, whenever possible.

  • Assuming the project is environmental justice-related, data collection efforts are relevant and allowable uses of EJDF funds, regardless of where or whom that data is coming from. We do encourage projects to lift up the voices of the communities they serve, which could include collecting feedback from communities, being led by a community member, among other approaches.

  • As long as the project is focused on environmental justice and includes data work, it is eligible to be funded. The purpose of these funds is to support organizations who might currently lack the resources to begin building their capacity to collect, analyze, and use data to inform their work.

  • At this time, the EJDF is strictly a funding opportunity. It is Google.org’s hope to provide support to select project teams beyond this, but that will depend on internal volunteer capacity. If opportunities for pro-bono support arise, we’ll be sure to communicate them.

  • For now, this is a one–time opportunity.

  • An organization can only submit one application as the lead applicant. If you have multiple projects, please include all of them in the same application.

  • The fund will be open to supporting projects at any stage of the process - from nascent project to advanced projects.

  • Yes. We encourage your organization to apply for funding that will either support new or ongoing work that was previously funded by the EJ Data Fund.

  • If the proposed work is a continuation of past work that has been completed then it makes sense to go into detail about your past project and explain how it relates to this next phase of work. If this is unrelated and new work, then you are not expected to articulate anything about your past project.

  • Again, we cannot answer project specific questions, but we can provide a broad answer here. Appropriateness of budget relative to proposed project will be assessed via how well proposals explain the scale of their project and how it aligns with the use of the funds they applied for.

    We will not be making adjustments to proposed budgets. Please apply for the level of funding that is appropriate for your project.

  • Please make sure that your proposal clearly lays out how your organization and project is aligned with the criteria that is outlined in the RFP. We will be scoring proposals based on those criteria 

  • Yes, in the top right corner of our website there is a button called “Preview Application Form” where you can review all the questions prior to starting an application.

  • Partnership can take whatever form makes most sense for your project and the communities you are serving. You may feel that different community organizations are best suited to manage different parts of the work. For instance, if your project includes both a data analysis component and a community engagement component, different organizations may run each aspect of the program.

    In your proposal, we ask that you be clear about any organizational partnerships, what role each organization will play in carrying out the proposed project, and how resources would be distributed between partners. 

    Where a coalition of organizations is partnering, it should be clear which organization is the lead applicant who will receive the grant and how funds would be disbursed to other partners.

  • Assuming that there is an agreement amongst the coalition of organizations about how funding is to be dispersed, the role of the lead applicant is to simply submit the application on behalf of the entire partnership and receive and disperse the funds.

  • While the Fund aims to have a geographically diverse awardee pool, the selection committee will score every application based on the criteria shared in the RFP. You are encouraged to submit as strong an application as possible with those criteria in mind.

  • While the selection committee will focus on reviewing the submitted application responses over supplementary materials, you can choose to send partner letters and other materials as relevant to your project to our support inbox ejdatafund@windwardfund.org with the lead applicant name in the subject line.

  • The aim of the Fund is to ensure that projects are intentional about serving communities that have been underserved or disproportionately impacted by climate change or environmental injustices. If national-level work serves that purpose, you are encouraged to submit an application that speaks to that intention.

  • We do not plan to share information about individual projects that were previously funded through this opportunity. However, you are encouraged to utilize and/or grow your networks to learn more about the work that colleagues in the environmental justice space are doing, which may or may not include work that was funded through the EJ Data Fund.

  • Please send any non-project specific questions to ejdatafund@windwardfund.org and our team will work with you to address them.

  • While the evaluation rubric will not be shared with applicants, you are encouraged to speak to the eligibility and project requirements in your application responses to support a strong, competitive submission.

  • An informational webinar was held on Tuesday, July 16. You can view the recording here.

  • The webinar recording is available via our website's homepage and can also be accessed here.