Anatomy of a Grant: CA Jobs First RII with bated breath…

This is the story of the most extensive grant application in REAP’s history and the rollercoaster that it set us on – a rollercoaster whose twists and turns are winding down now, though I daresay we learned to enjoy the ride. It’s about funding a vision for change in a broader political environment that doesn't want to see any, and the risks and rewards of dreaming big. At this moment, we wait, with bated breath - it could go either way…

In 2023, we began building a promising grant pipeline to secure funding that will drive our vision for a world where human-built systems align with nature. The grant landscape was broad and hospitable, and by late 2024, we had almost $20 million in applications in our grants pipeline. We were feeling pretty good, but you probably already know the next part: most of that funding was federal at its roots, and at the wave of a few short-sighted hands, it was gone, just like that. 

Those were rough weeks for organizations like us, but we white-knuckled through them relying on hard work, optimism, and a bit of good luck. We leveraged our experience and systems to focus on state funding opportunities – both those we’d won and those we could still win. That turned out to be a great call. We also leaned into important partnerships with the Native American Health Center, services revenue from the CA Department of Rehabilitation, and other sources of funding. It was a scramble. 

At the end of 2024, the Governor’s office was preparing to launch the primary implementation phase of a roughly $317 million initiative to grow California’s top industry sectors with a bottom-up approach centered on quality jobs and workforce development. This was the Regional Investment Initiative (RII): “Charting California’s Economic Future in Partnership with Communities.” From agriculture to aerospace to biotech, and beyond. And REAP fit in some exciting and unexpected ways…

The RII had two primary funding paths. The first, the Catalyst Predevelopment Phase, allocated $182 million to support regionally specific economic planning and cultivate a pipeline of projects aligned with the RII’s objectives. Then, the Implementation Phase would bring $135 million to invest in ready-to-go projects that align with regional Jobs First Strategies. Of course, these are big numbers, but also a fraction of the need of a $4.1 trillion economy, the 4th largest in the world. 

It was clear to us from the get-go that the vision of the Governor’s office aligned with REAP’s: their priority is to foster good-paying jobs in disadvantaged communities and to expand regional industry sectors. We empower communities to grow Earth-Conscious Industries through workforce development, innovation acceleration, and business-building support. Those goals are strongly aligned, and the selection committees seem to agree: at the end of 2024, we learned that our proposal to the Predevelopment Catalyst phase had been accepted, a huge win for us and our partners. 

For the Predevelopment Catalyst phase, we applied under the Bay Area Jobs First region, directed by the experienced regional convenor, All Home. Led by Greenbelt Alliance, REAP’s proposal was the Regenerative Jobs Program, and we were honored to win $530,000. This paved the way for finalizing an even bigger, shovel-ready project with a massive coalition of subawardees and regional stakeholders, opening up the door to a significantly greater impact on climate and underserved communities. This set the stage for the roller coaster that shapes this story. 

The RII Implementation Phase is where things got exciting. Fresh off the Catalyst win, it felt a bit like swinging above our weight class. But then again, we’ve had over 6,000 people visit our half-mile-long campus in the last four years. We’ve transformed our campus into a space for learning, training, and fun, and have participated in numerous major regional projects, certifying almost 200 individuals. Maybe we’re ready. I think we are. 

We were encouraged by very clear alignment with the excellent work of CA Forward, GO-Biz (California Governor's Office of Business and Economic Development), and the RII Grant as a whole. CA Forward brought a particularly interesting piece to the table by involving private funders and investors in the process. As you’ll see later, this created excellent opportunities for us and the other grant applicants to grow our access to funding. It also aligns with an emergent trend of funds exiting philanthropy and moving into impact investing for an outsized economic and social return.  

Those first weeks were thrilling. Pulling together the vision, the coalition showed us the value of the past four years of hard work. We developed a project that, in essence and effect, embodies REAP’s entire mission and vision: the “Regional Workforce Development Center: Regenerative Job Certificate Training & Entrepreneurial AgTech Accelerator.” Our proposal builds upon the work of the Catalyst grant by launching additional curricula that focus on training individuals to work with regenerative systems. It also kickstarts a regenerative AgTech business accelerator, enabling us to provide funding to projects with huge potential to impact our state’s food security, climate, and communities. We are focusing on what matters most for human and planetary health through the alignment and optimization of natural systems with the built environment. 

The project encompasses the entire spectrum of what we’ve been working toward all these years, from play and discovery through to certification and job placement. But it goes beyond that to supporting the development of businesses rooted in regenerative practices. More on that in a minute.

We drew on our extensive network of experts and professionals to bring this project to fruition. It all came together in an incredible coalition, the strongest we at REAP have ever had the honor of convening. Our project taps the talents of the College of Alameda, the Alameda County Workforce Development Board, Greenbelt Alliance, Pacific Coast Community Services, the Alameda Chamber & Economic Alliance, and Finian Makepeace, co-founder of Kiss the Ground. Each of these partners is actively contributing their expertise to the project, from labor market analysis to job training to building businesses in regenerative agriculture. It’s an incredibly exciting moment. 

With our coalition, we built a strong case for our Regional Workforce Development Center proposal. But the RII process is pretty unique – something we would soon learn had its benefits but also its challenges. By bringing CA Forward into the process and shifting the typical grant application format, the folks at GO-Biz are doing something innovative with the RII: they want to expand the impact of their work by drawing in other types of funding and creating stronger connections between projects and regions. They are underscoring the strength of public/private partnerships. The whole grant process was fascinating, especially given our experience with traditional grant applications. So much was the same, and so much was different, and things were changing fast. 

Here’s a perfect example of that: about 3 rounds into the application process, we learned from the folks at GO-Biz that we needed to find something called a “Cross-regional Cluster Lead” to nest ourselves under. Effectively, we needed to partner with a larger organization in the state and integrate our project into their existing framework, all within two to three weeks. This was both annoying and also one of the best things that this grant did for us. Sometimes you’ve gotta eat your vegetables, and this was an eat your vegetables moment. 

We ended up in conversation with the University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources (UCANR), one of the largest and most impactful organizations in agriculture and land management in the state. We represented something a little bit different for them.

See, the Bay Area is not a critical agricultural region in the traditional sense. There are a lot of small-scale agriculture operations here, but compared to somewhere like the Central Valley, we’re small fry. But that doesn’t mean that we aren’t important to the agriculture industry in the state. In fact, beyond our existing agricultural production, we have something critical to offer in innovation and capital resources in the Urban-Rural interface. By accelerating AgTech businesses and training skilled workers for jobs in regenerative agriculture, we can bridge the Bay Area’s capital and innovative assets to outlying regions doing agricultural work at scale. We can also provide place-based security for other regions to showcase their essential practices and innovations.

What we’re really pushing forward as we support regenerative businesses through our AgTech accelerator and workforce development is the recognition that natural systems and processes are a crucial form of technology. Tech isn’t always new. A staircase is a piece of technology in a certain light. We believe there's a place for technologies like automation and AI, as well as robotics and drones, but all of this exists against the backdrop of these ancient systems and the indigenous practices that work with them. By recognizing our project as AgTech, UCANR and the state of California are acknowledging regeneration as a form of technology. And we think that is a huge step.

There’s another major benefit to bridging the distance between the Bay Area and outlying regions through a relationship with UCANR: part of the Governor’s Office plan is to spread resources and wealth to disadvantaged communities. Here at REAP, we aim to bring capital and resources to the practicekeepers and workers who live and work in the areas most heavily impacted by stresses to our food systems, from climate change to politics. Rather than fly in and proclaim that we know best (we don’t), we want them to expand the impact of their own expertise, and in the process, support agricultural communities through funding and business support. As living conditions in these areas improve due to climate change mitigation efforts and increases in profitability through regenerative agriculture, it is crucial that the communities that undertake this work are the chief beneficiaries.

By requiring us to find a cross-regional lead in UCANR, the grant process forged this crucial contextual connection. It wasn’t the only curveball they threw us, though. When we were first applying, it seemed like the final round interviews would be held in Sacramento, but late in the process, when we’d made it through the fifth round, we learned that the final “interview” would actually be live pitches (in a sort of venture capital style) in San Francisco. At this point the 500 or so projects had been narrowed down to just 35, and each of us would be given 5 minutes and 8 slides (yep, 8 slides including the first and last, no exceptions!!) to present our project to GO-Biz and a room of other investors convened with the help of CA Forward. As a kicker, each project could only send one person to the event, so after all this collaboration, all this coalition-building, all this sweat, I rolled into that room all on my own to give a presentation on the whole project – which at the time of submitting was about 160 pages of writing – in 5 minutes. It was exciting, fun, and stressful.

It’s worth taking a pause here to reflect on the challenge this presented, not just for me and our team, but for all the incredible projects that applied for the RII grant. This is a grant that sought to center disinvested populations in the distribution of some incredible funding, and the final climb of this winding road was an investor-style pitch and open-floor networking, a style of competition that really favors certain groups who have had the privilege of being in those spaces. To make the most of that opportunity, you had to know how to work the room. Some of the most incredible projects, often originating from rural regions with fewer spaces like this, are inherently disadvantaged by that space. And the space itself was a challenge, too: a tight, hot, concrete bunker of a room with two presentation areas and a lot of people. 

I want to emphasize that CA Forward and the GO-Biz team did an incredible job, truly, piloting this first-of-its-kind initiative. The California Jobs First economic blueprint and the RII are historic investments in improving working conditions for Californians. The team did an incredible job with this first time through, but there is room for improvement, of course, underscoring the value of public-private partnerships. We can do more together. As an Executive Director, I consider my job to be largely optimism and allyship, but this final presentation was a closed room, and there was no space to bring our coalition partners and allies who would have benefited from the experience. 

Ultimately, the pitches were incredible. I walked into the room 80% sure we had this thing in the bag, and walked out 50% sure only because of the depth and quality of the other projects. It’s unique to this grant to be able to see and meet your competitors. It’s also an incredible opportunity. That half-day in a basement in SoMa created some invaluable connections precisely because by meeting our competitors, we were able to meet other organizations doing this impactful work. We are already in conversations with some of them over how we can learn from one another and even collaborate.

We are also enthusiastic that our cross-regional cluster of projects continues to solidify our integrated value, led by UCANR, which has a presence in every county of the state. California is strong, innovative, and has consistently demonstrated for the world that the best path through challenges is the act of coming together. Our food system has never seen greater challenges, but I will save those details for another time.      

The bottom line? We don’t know if we got it yet! We think we rocked the application. I know the pitch went well, but it all comes down to these next few weeks. We know we’re qualified, but so are the other teams! In any case, the process itself has already yielded considerable benefits: we have forged incredible connections, and through the application process, we have gained the most in-depth understanding yet of our project, our impact, and how we can achieve it. 

We center regenerative practices and nature-based infrastructure as AgTech for community resilience and economic prosperity. We asked RII for $3.2 million to unlock our $10.7 million project, which is expected to deliver $43.5 million in value over the next five years. 

Beyond RII and REAP,  still growing, the UCANR cluster alone represents over $50 million in impactful, shovel-ready, interconnected projects - potentially returning 3x to 5x in both new jobs and trained workers in the near term, and immeasurable value for future generations through resilient and regenerative food supply from California to the world.

We hope RII funds REAP’s project, but we intend to proceed either way: your insights, introductions, and donations could help make this possible. Learn more about the project or review our full deck HERE.