Climate Change Challenge
EEA conducted a review of the Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness (MVP) Planning Grant process that 349/351 cities and towns in Massachusetts have completed in order to begin planning for climate resilience. Many of the plans are 6 or more years old and are in need of updates. The MVP team worked with a consultant to create an update program, MVP Planning 2.0, that addresses some of the identified gaps in the first iteration of MVP Planning grants. These gaps include a focus on environmental justice and equity and bridging the divide between planning and action. The MVP Planning 2.0 process focuses on building relationships between municipal staff and community liaisons (i.e., those with connections to marginalized groups) to create more equitable shared climate resilience actions and implement a seed project to get the action started.
Project Alignment with ResilientMass Plan Priority Actions
This project represents a direct contribution to the 2023 ResilientMass Plan via the following actions:
- ACTION 1e: Increase funding, eligibility, and focus on environmental justice to and within municipal and agency resilience action
- Launch MVP Planning 2.0 program and develop update to MVP 2.0 Action Program that addresses stakeholder feedback and improves program access and support to best practices
Climate Resilience Project Scope
ResilientMass funding was used to hire a contractor to develop and pilot the MVP 2.0 Grant program in coordination with the MVP Team.
The MVP 2.0 program expands on the work communities have done to date and supports communities with new methods, tools, and resources for building climate resilience. In particular, MVP 2.0 is a way for communities to revisit their climate resilience priorities with a focus on equity and translate those priorities into action through project development and implementation.
Goal and Intended Resilience Benefits: MVP 2.0 is designed to take communities to the next level in their adaptation and resilience planning efforts, particularly when it comes to building capacity for social resilience and moving from planning to action. MVP 2.0 was designed to:
- Convene a community team to do equitable climate resilience work
- Provide training on strategies for building climate resilience, equity, and climate justice
- Revisit resilience priorities with the involvement of the wider community
- Help the municipality and community to co-develop and implement a project that builds community resilience, with guaranteed funding for implementation
- Provide a process that can be replicated for future Action Grants
The Governor announced the pilot round of the MVP 2.0 program during Earth Week 2023. We selected 30 grantees, including 28 individual municipalities, one Tribe, and one regional group to undergo the pilot process.
Throughout the pilot round, we collected feedback from participating communities to help improve the program. The consultant scope of work for FY25 included incorporating that feedback into the program and creating a video series to promote the program.
Metrics and Results
The following process metrics will be gathered at the end of the pilot process through our final submission form, including:
- Who was involved on the Core Team? (the goal is to expand participation beyond municipal staff, specifically to “community liaisons” or those with connections to underserved populations)
- How many people in the community were reached?
- How much funding went toward compensating community liaisons for their time (a requirement of the grant)?
Results of the MVP 2.0 program most closely align with the metrics under “EJ, Equity, & Collaboration” in the ResilientMass metrics framework. Because exact metrics for this goal are under development, MVP 2.0 could serve as a primary contributor to what those metrics eventually become.
Best Practices and Lessons Learned
By working with those communities most excited to participate and gathering their feedback throughout the pilot, we hope to build a robust collection of examples for other communities to emulate in future years.
Part of the grant includes the community hiring a consultant with grant funding to help conduct the process. It is important for this consultant to have climate resilience, project management, equity, and community engagement skills. Finding consultants who are experts in all these areas is a challenge. Because of this, in FY25 the MVP program hired 6 Equity Partners that will be paired with each new community undergoing the process to consistently provide these skills and services.
Compensating community members for their time and expertise in the process is a best practice. We are seeing greater participation from marginalized groups because of this. It does have its challenges as many local governments are not familiar with this practice and do not currently have systems to make this compensation happen.
In the pilot round, it became clear that community members need more supports to understand the process and how they can contribute at the beginning of the program. As a result, this year the MVP team and its consultant worked to provide more resources and also create a video series to explain and promote certain parts of the process during the pilot round.
Further Action
Now that we have the revised program based on the pilot round we will turn to implementing this program with all 351 cities and towns. In early 2025, the program announced 33 new communities that are undergoing the MVP 2.0 process. We plan to continue the Equity Partners piece of the program during the entire tenure of the program.