The Partners Advancing Climate Equity (PACE) pilot program is a capacity-building program administered by the California Strategic Growth Council and funded by the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund. The year-long pilot program began in 2021 and supported 22 participants – all local leaders deeply rooted in their communities across the state – and sought to increase their ability to advance equitable and community-driven climate solutions.
One of those participants was Fatima T. Malik from Sacramento. In 2014, Fatima and other residents of Del Paso Heights, a neighborhood in North Sacramento, established the Del Paso Heights Growers’ Alliance (DPHGA), a community cooperative to address food insecurity and promote healthy eating through sustainable food production. Neighborhood volunteers maintain DPHGA’s urban farms and host free skill-building workshops focused on food cultivation, harvesting, and preservation. DPHGA brings community members together, growing both food and relationships.
Fatima saw PACE as an opportunity to strengthen DPHGA’s organizational capacity to expand their social impact and pursue grant opportunities. At the start of the program, DPHGA was a volunteer-based organization that lacked the fiscal structure to access grant funding. In fall 2021, DPHGA successfully partnered with Sierra Service Projects, who served as the fiscal sponsor on the cooperative’s first State grant application.
“PACE provided the confidence, tools, and assistance in drafting the community needs assessment to make this possible as well as helped navigate State funding opportunities” said Fatima after this partnership was secured. “PACE provided an excellent educational opportunity, especially in an online format during the pandemic. It was full of effective tools to replicate in my community. I want to train others using the pilot’s model in my neighborhood, building a continuous cadre of climate equity partners.”
In the first phase of the PACE program, Cultivate and Co-Create, the PACE cohort conducted a series of training sessions to develop new skills, engage in peer learning, and understand how to better navigate the State’s policy and funding landscapes. Each participant also developed a needs assessment for their respective communities by analyzing community assets, strengths, and limitations, and identifying strategies and solutions to advance climate and equity priorities. In the second phase of the program, Propagate and Activate, participants received individualized guidance and technical assistance to implement components of their community needs assessments and share lessons they learned in previous phase across their respective networks.