The Farallon Strategies team is looking forward to the opportunities that 2022 presents, for both our firm and the state of the practice for climate change and resilience. In 2021, our firm grew from one to six staff, and continued to build on our community of collaborators and partners. We are excited about the potential of our strong partnerships to deliver community benefit projects across the United States, and for our team to collectively and intentionally create the workplace policies and procedures that will set us up for future success.
Farallon Strategies was founded during the early months of the pandemic to create an alternative path for the creation of a democratically led climate focused private sector firm – to work in a new paradigm, one that mandates action in support of our communities in addition to creating balance in the lives of our team. The design of Farallon Strategies focuses on doing meaningful work, with fantastic clients, with the balance in our lives to address shifting priorities and commitments for our people during this pandemic and beyond.
Thank you so much to our partners, collaborators, and clients for making 2021 the best first full year of operating we could have hoped for. We look forward to our continued partnership and collaboration in the new year. A number of new projects will launch this year that will continue to support innovation in the private and public sector. A few select projects we are currently working on in 2022 include:
California Resilience Partnership and Statewide Resilience Landscape Analysis
Farallon Strategies is excited to continue working with Resilient Cities Catalyst on program support and multiple projects related to the California Resilience Partnership (CRP). CRP is a public-philanthropic effort in coordination with a diverse set of organizations and stakeholders to support collaboration on statewide resilience priorities. In partnership with RCC, Farallon Strategies is leading an inclusive stakeholder engagement process across the state in order to improve State agencies’ and other grant-making institutions’ understanding of the opportunities to maximize the effectiveness of grants. This effort will result in recommendations on how best to distribute state funding to maximize resilience outcomes as well as recommendations for how communities can prepare to access state funding.
America’s State Commissions
Farallon Strategies is coordinating a climate action working group for America’s State Commissions, the national association of state service commissions. Prompted by the emerging opportunity to develop climate corps across the United States, the team conducted a survey of climate service needs, built a library of climate service resources, and developed a framework for developing a climate corps. Taken together, these resources are designed to help the community of service commissions, and their constituent AmeriCorps program partners, more effectively and rapidly develop and deploy climate focused AmeriCorps programs in the coming years.
CivicWell Climate Corps related Initiatives
Farallon Strategies is continuing our strategic partnership with CivicWell to support the growth and evolution of their CivicSpark program in California, Colorado, and Washington State. In early 2022, the Farallon team is helping identify key partners for AmeriCorps member placements while also working with the CivicWell team on longer term strategies to strengthen the program and empower it’s capacity to meet the increasing demand for climate service activities across the United States.
Volunteer Florida – Climate, Health, and Housing Programs
As an outgrowth of our late 2021 support for climate resilience service programming, Farallon Strategies will support the Florida Service Commission – Volunteer Florida – with further strategic engagement to help them lift up and activate service solutions in the public health and housing arenas.
Strategic Growth Council’s BOOST Program
Farallon Strategies is continuing our partnership with the California Strategic Growth Council, the Institute for Local Government, and other program partners in providing technical assistance that builds capacity to advance climate and equity goals of seven under-resourced cities across California through 2023. We are working with the project team to deliver work plans for each of the seven cities, and serve as advisors to the cities on new mandates on adaptation (SB 379) and environmental justice (SB 1000) compliance and plan integration.
Santa Clara County Climate Resilience Strategy
Farallon Strategies is building on our partnership with BluePoint Planning to support the development of a Climate Resilience Strategy and a countywide climate collaborative for Santa Clara County. Farallon Strategies is focused on the development of the Collaborative and activating partners and stakeholders to maximize the impact and longevity of the project. Working closely with the County, we are supporting the development of a governance model that centers equity and ensures community based organizations have not only a voice, but influence, in decision making processes of the Collaborative.
PG&E Climate Vulnerability Assessment Public Engagement Plan
In partnership with BluePoint Planning, our team is working to support the development and implementation of PG&E’s Public Engagement Plan to inform their climate vulnerability assessment. This work involves developing a framework and governance to support broad based outreach to engage disadvantaged communities throughout the Bay Area. Farallon Strategies is focused on the development of a sustained partnership model that features ongoing support of community based organizations to maximize the impact and longevity of community collaborations to support future engagement efforts in the Bay Area and beyond.
Yolo County Climate Action Commission and Climate Action Plan
Farallon Strategies is working with Consero Strategies to support Yolo County in initiating their Climate Action Commission, including the recruitment of commissioners and the preparation of a governance charter. In addition, we are supporting the development and implementation of “early actions” that are no-regret actions that can be implemented in the near term and are grounded in existing policy and plans in order to demonstrate immediate impact to Yolo County communities most impacted by climate change and COVID-19. Farallon Strategies is also researching best practices to inform the development of a scope of work that will need to meet the County’s 2030 carbon neutrality goals.
Our team is actively supporting a number of other initiatives that we’ll bring forward throughout the year as blogs and social media posts – please sign up below for our email list and follow us on LinkedIn to stay connected and hear about new projects and initiatives.
