An update on the Regional Investment Initiative and all that we’ve accomplished in 4.5 years in Alameda

In our July blog post, we discussed the CA Jobs First Regional Investment Initiative (RII) and our hopes of securing a $3.2 million grant from the state to accelerate and enable REAP’s vision. If you haven’t read that post, we highly recommend that you do, since it goes into depth on our vision for and experience with RII. The $3.2 million would unlock and fund a $10.7 million project and deliver back $43.5 million in economic value over five years. This is just part of our overall mission and roadmap.

We learned earlier this month that we are not being awarded in this $80 million round, but we are being pushed to the next $45 million round, closing January 2026. So we didn’t win, but we also didn’t lose: out of the 500 initial projects, we made it to the final 35. The grant process created amazing new relationships with organizations like the University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources (UCANR) that will help us move forward and expand our impact for many years to come.

We are not going to weigh in on the somewhat scandalized hubbub and hullabaloo that only 11 projects were awarded when it was rumored that there would be 20. Plus, none of them were from the Bay Area region, despite strong regional participation. All we know for sure is that our team and coalition did a great job. We are honored to have made it so far and are excitedly ready for the next round.

We have already articulated how our plan for a Regional Workforce Development Center fits under UCANR’s own Statewide Agriculture Innovation and Deployment Network. It’s incredible to have the buy-in and experience of one of the state’s most crucial, innovative agriculturally-minded organizations on our side. We couldn’t be more excited about that, and how it supports our complementary goals for food security in the context that nature-is-infrastructure. We are more ready than we have ever been.

As we outline in the RII Blog post above, the process was pretty unique and challenging. The next funding round will focus on deserving projects that didn’t win the first time. Given how close we came in the first round and the interest we’ve stirred up in high places, this time should be different.

But it isn’t all silver linings: the end of that application process does leave us in a challenging position, seeking new ways to fund our mission to help communities grow Earth-conscious Industries. From our ongoing Regenerative Jobs Program to our volunteering opportunities, we are already doing that incredible work, but in order to keep going and make it to that next opportunity, we are in urgent need of funding.

Four and a Half Years of Impact

That makes this a good time to call out all the incredible things we have done for and with the Alameda community. We’ve been here for just four and a half years, and our organization and campus are virtually unrecognizable as compared to those early days.

When we moved into 2133 Tynan Ave, this half-mile-long strip of former railroad land was an illegal dump site. It was blighted and somewhat dangerous. In the five years before REAP started, police were reportedly visiting the site weekly due to public safety concerns, and they have not had to return since we took over the stewardship of the land. We started with clean-up and supportive services, a precursor to our climate mission. The accolades and support from neighbors, the community, and the City have been lovely. REAP has transformed these centrally-located 4.26 acres of land from a derelict railroad holding back to community uses. However, we need to buy it if we want to stay, but that’s a longer story.

The community has taken advantage of the opportunities REAP provides. All-told, we have seen over 6,500 people visit our Alameda campus - half kids and half adults. We’ve had field trips and volunteers from virtually every school on the island. We provide ecological experiences that roll up to climate job training and are a 3rd space that takes people from play and discovery to career pathways. We know that a healthy climate starts with good jobs. We also know that climate risk is business risk, and climate change mitigation is an opportunity for all.

Through the thousands of volunteer hours contributed to REAP Climate Center, the Alameda community has helped build this place and shape it into something that brings joy, enables creativity, and ultimately sparks interests that lead to something more, something hugely impactful (we will get to that in a second).

Our long-term vision for this land is community-centered and informed by the evolving needs of our environment, from biodiversity to sea level rise. In 2024, we learned that the land REAP sits on is incorporated into the region’s sea level rise adaptation planning as a crucial piece of infrastructure. We aim to be here long enough to see the process through in partnership with the City, while also training community members in the necessary skills to address these challenges.

Our Theory of Change

What we’ve talked about so far encapsulates the foundation of our theory of change, engaging individuals with regenerative systems from play and discovery through to certification and job placement. Most of what is discussed above has emphasized the first half of that arc, but it’s really in the second half that we are delivering durable, high-level impact to the communities, ecosystems, and economies of Alameda, the Bay Area, and California as a whole.

REAP is ultimately a nimble workforce development center geared at training individuals from underserved communities for much-needed jobs in regenerative industries while providing support to those emergent businesses. That is what it means to help communities grow Earth-conscious Industries.

Our thesis is simple and tested: workforce investments and business support in regenerative industries will bring outsized benefits to communities, ecosystems, and economies.

You can read an in-depth infographic explaining our approach and fundraising needs here.

We are just months away from launching the first cohorts of The Regenerative Jobs Program, which gets at the core of our vision for impact: we will be certifying four cohorts for jobs in biochar, compost, vermiculture, and mycoremediation. You can read more about the implementation of that program here.

This Critical Moment

The Catalyst Grant has enabled something incredible: we are equipped to offer curricula and certifications in emergent regenerative sectors. As a nonprofit delivering microcredentials and industry-recognized training, we are responding nimbly to the shifting needs of these emergent industries, connecting people with critical vocational opportunities.

This adaptability complements traditional vocational education. A college will typically take 2-3 years to develop and roll out new courses in new areas. In a symbiotic back-and-forth, we rapidly prove and test curricula and help traditional systems decide where to focus courses and training.

Ecological and climate needs are urgent, and people sense that urgency.

Younger generations especially want to respond faster than the traditional 4, 8, and 12-year educational models. We need their impact now.

This is what our island, our region, and our state need to propel us into an economy where we center regenerative practices and recognize that nature is infrastructure for ecological, agricultural, industrial, and human-health outcomes. We align human-built systems with natural systems. Our approach has been validated by our work with organizations like UCANR and by our research across industries and communities.

That vision comes right back to our campus and our community here in Alameda. Because as it turns out, Alameda is crucial to this entire vision.

Island nations and municipalities are and will continue to be among the places hardest hit by climate change, Alameda among them. But there are a few things that set this little island apart from its cohort: firstly, it’s the largest island municipality in the State of California, a state which—on its own—is the 4th largest economy in the world. We are just across The Bay from San Francisco, one of the largest innovation hubs in the world. And because of geopolitical and historical factors, Alameda is one of the few island nations and municipalities that benefits from and participates in the economic upsides of the system whose damages now directly threaten its livelihood.

Alameda’s unique position of both affluence and threat resulting from climate change gives us an obligation to provide leadership and innovation as we can, and to listen and observe as we must. That is why Alameda. By building community around regeneration and supporting our growing regenerative industries, we can adapt, improve, and ready our community for what’s to come. REAP Climate Center does just that.

But in the meantime, we need you to help support our important work. There is so much on the horizon for us. It’s an incredibly exciting moment in which we can feel that our vision and mission are perfectly aligned with what the planet and our communities need, and with how the state government sees our economy developing.

But in order to keep REAP in the Alameda community, we need your help. Come check us out and get to know us better at our fireside potlucks, open houses, and volunteer days. Or, if you’re able, please donate at the link below or inquire about other means of funding.

In Solidarity,

Jonathan DeLong

DONATE

Read More About Our Impact

Let’s take this moment to reflect on all we have accomplished in the four and a half years that REAP has been around. In that time, we’ve been hard at work driving at that goal. There are a couple of things that really tell the story of us:

6,500 people engaged on our Alameda campus. This speaks volumes, literally – we have brought 6,500 people into contact with regeneration through real, hands-on experience, and many of them keep coming back – as volunteers, donors, or otherwise.

200+ workforce clients certified. Workforce is at the heart of what we do, the top of our arc of engagement from play and discovery through to certifications and job placement. It’s how we impact industries, economies, and communities. The best part of this number? With the Catalyst grant and our Regenerative Jobs Program (more on that below) that number is about to jump up. It’s a very exciting time.
Thousands of hours of volunteer time. We’ve had folks from all over the island, the bay and the globe come visit us to volunteer. Together we have built compost, raised fences, upcycled all sorts of material, and so much more. Our volunteers come every Sunday and Wednesday.

We are honored by all the contributions we have had from the community in time, energy, and trust. So much of that work, from the volunteers to the sheep-feeders to the workforce clients who come to learn, has contributed to and stems from our incredible campus. REAP’s Alameda campus has been transformed in the past 4.5 years into something whimsical, beautiful, and impactful.

420 tons of compost created and used. Soil is big for us, and this is a big brag. We walk the talk of circular systems from the ground up, and we’ve raised the ground up, adding all of this compost into the land. Our executive director even has a TED Talk about it.
140 trees planted. Between volunteers, workforce clients, and staff, we’ve put trees in the ground. It’s not so much about the quantity as it is about the practices we convey to our community and clients.
4+ Classrooms built. Perhaps the most important part of our campus infrastructure, we have transformed shipping containers, stage props, and even a World War 2 mobile field office into cute, functional classroom spaces to support our workforce programs.
4.26-acres of useable, hands-on learning space that is home to all breadths of biodiversity and life, from the bugs to the kids to the full-grown human adults that keep the walls from falling down. We have transformed this land into a space of creativity and education. Come visit!
8 essential impact categories supported by our mission: Climate, Carbon, Biodiversity, Food Security, Resilience, Infrastructure, Economic Development, High Road Jobs.

Perhaps the most important thing that REAP has built in these four and a half years are the deep partnerships that inform and drive our work.

**Alameda Food Bank**
The Alameda Food Bank are long-time partners in how we think about the future of food equity in Alameda. We have also been capturing their food waste to feed into our compost and regenerative animal agriculture programs since our foundation.

We’re also proud of the local, mission-aligned projects and initiatives we continue to serve on that make Alameda, the Bay, and the whole world just a little bit better.

Perhaps the biggest win in the last 4.5 years has been solidifying our mission around workforce development into a coherent, actionable plan which, especially with the Catalyst Grant we won earlier this year, we are implementing every day.