Food and Climate Equity Grants

Are you working to address issues related to food, climate change, or resilience in your community? Apply now for a Food and Climate Equity Grant!

The Food and Climate Equity (FACE) Grant program supports a more just and resilient Austin by providing direct funding for community-led solutions that enable transformative change in the areas of food, climate, and resilience. The program aims to uplift the experience of those most impacted by systemic and structural inequities, eliminate disparities in health outcomes, and improve quality of life for all.

By offering grants up to $3,000, we hope to support community organizations that represent and/or serve racially and economically diverse Austinites and have unique insight into their communities' needs.

Applications are now open!

Register and complete your application in our grant portal by Thursday, July 17, 2025, at 11:59 pm. You may save your application and return to it, but it must be submitted by the deadline to be considered.

Applicants will be notified of selection decisions by September 1, 2025.

If you have any questions, need additional support completing your application, or would like to request a paper application, please email climate@austintexas.gov or call 512-974-1364.

Email us to request an application in Vietnamese, Korean, Chinese, Arabic, Burmese, Hindi, or Urdu.

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About the grant and who should apply?

History

In 2023, the Office of Climate Action & Resilience held separate mini grant competitions, the Food Justice Mini Grant and the Resilience Mini Grant, awarding a total of $150,000 to community-driven projects. In 2024, the Office started the Food and Climate Equity Grants program to expand the grant opportunities available across the City and make it easier for community members to access support for their programs all in one place. In the first year of the FACE Grants program, $150,000 was distributed across 50 projects. Learn more about the recipients.

Program goals

The FACE Grants program aims to:

Encourage underrepresented voices to be leaders of change
Support local action to reduce inequities
Build relationships and trust between city staff and community organizations

Who should apply?

The program welcomes ideas and projects from all applicants who want to build food justice, climate justice, and community resilience in Austin. Proposals led by communities negatively impacted by systemic inequities will be prioritized. Funding is prioritized for projects that can meaningfully engage with the impacted groups, such as:

Black, Native American/Indigenous, Latinx, and Asian communities of color
Youth and young adults
People over 65
People who are pregnant, nursing, and/or caring for infants
People with chronic disease
LGBTQIA2S+ communities
Immigrant, migrant and/or refugee communities
People with disabilities or limited mobility
People with mental illness or mental health issues
Low-income communities
People experiencing homelessness
People with past criminal records
People who work outside

Grant requirements

Requirements

This program is seeking applicants who are leading transformative change within the communities they represent. Funded proposals may include ongoing work or new projects. Funding is available for projects addressing one or more of the following program areas: food justice, climate justice, or community resilience.

Applications will be accepted from non-profits, schools, for-profit businesses, homeowner associations, faith-based groups, grassroots initiatives, and more. To be considered for the grant, applicants must meet the requirements below.

Applicants must be serving the Austin-Travis County area
Awardees are not required to be 501(c)3 registered non-profits, but organizations/entities or their fiscal sponsor must register as a vendor with the City of Austin before funding can be awarded
Only one application is allowed per applicant
There are no insurance requirements for this grant
Funds cannot be used for any political activity, including lobbying or campaigning
Organizations must commit to completing the following tasks:
- Track project progress
- Track spending
- Share results, reflections, challenges, and stories
Awardees will submit a Final Report by June 1, 2026, describing project progress, challenges, and how funds were spent

Qualifications

Projects most likely to receive a FACE Grant go beyond a surface-level solution. Any individual, group, or organization applying for a FACE Grant should consider:

How the project addresses a community issue related to food, climate change, or resilience
How the project leads to future community growth, empowerment, and success by addressing the root cause of the issue

Groups or organizations that were awarded FACE Grants in 2024 may apply in 2025 as long as the following criteria are met:

You must have spent all 2024 awarded funds
You must have submitted your complete 2024 Final Report in the grant portal

Contact us at climate@austintexas.gov if you have questions or requests about your 2024 award and eligibility for a 2025 FACE Grant.

Want to learn more about how applications will be scored?

View our grant scoring rubric. (PDF; 162KB)
Vea nuestra rúbrica de puntuación de la subvención. (PDF en Español; 261KB)

Learn more about our grant categories

What is Food Justice?

By food justice, we refer broadly to movements advocating for transformational change around how our food moves from the fields to our forks. This includes the concept of food sovereignty, or the right of communities to define their own food and agriculture systems.

Project ideas

Example projects may include, but are not limited to:

Low-cost home meal or grocery delivery services
Community events centered on food systems or food justice
Community garden supplies and resources
Composting or waste processing equipment
Innovative food rescue techniques
Value-added food upcycling pilot programs (e.g., ugly fruit juice or preserves or spent grain bread)

What is Climate Justice?

Climate justice refers to the findings that climate emissions and climate change can have disproportionately harmful social, economic, and public health impacts on low-income and disadvantaged communities. Climate justice work aims to reverse or reduce those disparities and increase climate awareness and action. Eligible projects will demonstrate alignment with the Austin Climate Equity Plan. Successful grants will be designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions while also addressing the intersection of climate and justice.

Project ideas

Example projects may include, but are not limited to:

Education programs at schools, youth-serving, or youth-led organizations
Tool libraries or repair workshops
Increased or improved monitoring or data collection, such as air quality monitoring
Promoting climate or air quality awareness
Promote or enhance active or public transit
Promoting or implementing emissions reduction strategies

What is Community Resilience?

Community resilience refers to the capacity of a community to recover, adapt, and thrive before, during, and after a disruptive event by working together, planning, and building supportive networks. This includes the concept of community resilience networks, or a group of trusted community groups that provide information and services before, during, or after a disruptive event and together create a hyper-local network of resources that are accessible to the population nearby.

Project ideas

Example projects may include, but are not limited to:

Holding a community workshop focused on creating a household emergency plan
Building community capacity, such as creating a community ambassador program before, during, and after emergencies
Community resilience network programming, such as job training or childcare
Free or low-cost public health initiatives

Note: projects may cover multiple areas listed above or include one main area of focus.

Application tips and examples

Tips for writing a successful application

Wondering if a FACE Grant is right for your project? Curious about what a successful application might include? We put together a list of examples and tips based on past successful applications. Use it to help you put together the best application you can.

Successful applicants:

Describe how the project is equitable. Equitable means a project that works to address systemic inequities, such as barriers that impact one group of people or geography more than another. Serving a group that faces inequities is a great start, and more successful applications will include how the project is helping to break down barriers and address the root causes of the inequities.
Describe how the project is transformative. Transformative means that the project has a greater impact on the community than just the immediate benefit. For example, a program that provides food is a great benefit. However, a transformative program will provide additional information or services that empower someone to take more positive action in the future. For example, a program that provides food alongside cooking or nutrition education that has a lasting impact.
Have a helper read the application before submitting it. Having a second person review the application can help check for errors or things that were left out. It can also bring up questions about areas that need clarification. Plan on an extra few days to a week before the due date to share with another person and get feedback that you can use in your final edits.
Use the rubric to check for completion. Look over each of your responses and compare it to the rubric provided in the "Requirements" section of this website to make sure you are answering the questions to the best of your ability.
Do not rely too much on AI. AI can be a great tool to help you create an outline for an application, but if it writes the whole thing, it will leave out important information about the project! If you use AI, make sure at least one human reads over and rewrites the application to add the necessary details and check for accuracy.
Read all of the questions before starting. This can help you plan ahead and avoid duplicating answers where you don't need to. Sometimes repeating yourself is helpful, but you don't want to make extra work for yourself!
Review all supporting materials on this website. Reach out if you have questions!

Examples of successful applications

View examples of successful applications (PDF; 1.33MB). Lea ejemplos de aplicaciones exitosas en español (PDF; 1.34 MB) Please note that these are not complete applications and may not include the full answer to each question. Ellipses (...) represent words that have been edited out. The applicant organizations have given permission to share.

Frequently asked questions and answers

Read a list of our most asked questions (PDF; 139KB). Lea las preguntas frecuentes en español (PDF; 142KB).