Advancing Equity, Climate Action, and Economic Health in Communities

EPIC Staff, Jessie Mahr and Katy Hansen, were invited to participate in a two-part workshop series hosted by Urban Institute.

Through these workshops, Urban sought to learn about stakeholders’ understanding of Justice40 and gather insights on what conditions need to be met for the initiative to succeed in delivering benefits to underserved communities.

This paper distills Urban’s understanding of the contemporary Justice40 landscape and presents five main themes that emerged from our synthesis of advocate and community viewpoints.

Priority Areas

• 1. Identifying, engaging, and prioritizing communities.

  Improvements in how communities are identified, engaged, and prioritized would enable Justice40 to simultaneously advance equity, climate action, and economic health.

• 2. Program design and funding structure.

  Changes to program design and funding structure could help make Justice40 funding more accessible to the “disadvantaged” communities it is intended to benefit.

• 3. Defining and measuring benefits.

  A clear definition of “benefits” and how they are measured would help align Justice40’s intent with its impact and support meaningful evaluation of investment outcomes against Justice40’s goals.

• 4. Oversight and accountability.

  A robust, transparent, and equitable accountability structure would help ensure that Justice40 investments at all levels of government deliver the promised benefits to “disadvantaged” communities.

• 5. Whole-of-government approach.

  Item description Increased coordination and collaboration, both horizontally between federal agencies and vertically between federal, state, and local governments could help expand Justice40’s impact and scope.