As technical assistance programs blossom across the country, communities and climate professionals are challenged to leverage these programs to advance climate priorities, build municipal, Tribal and CBO capacity, and connect lessons learned across programs and geographies. Technical assistance (TA) is a broad concept that encompasses an array of services and products intended to meaningfully advance the work of TA recipients. It encompasses services provided to help intended audiences have the knowledge, ability, or capacity to achieve specific goals and outcomes related to climate adaptation.

Session Summary

In this year’s 2024 National Adaptation Forum Session, “Building it Better,”  TA recipients and TA providers gathered in a working session to discuss opportunities to improve the Climate Adaptation Community of Practice’s approach to and design of Technical Assistance programs across the country. The session was facilitated by Anna Marandi from HDR, and the panel included Carolyn Yvellez from Farallon Strategies, Robert Macnee from Climate Resilience Consulting, Aminah Luqman from The Greenlining Institute and Tamila “Shy” Walker, Director of Sacred Spaces and TA recipient through BayCAN.

The participants of the session included TA recipients and providers from a broad range of federal, state level, and private TA programs. We heard from municipalities and community-based organizations (CBOs) on what form of technical assistance has met the mark and where room for improvement remains. On the other side, TA providers shared how they are challenged to transfer products and lessons across communities and programs and what promising practices they see among their peers and in the design of public and private programs.

Anna Marandi started the session by introducing the following TA Typology, which describes the range of TA services offered by level of effort to provide them or capacity needed to receive them. 

• – Low Touch – TA/capacity building that is primarily one-way webinar programs, light peer learning opportunities, and TA on-call for limited non-term defined support.
• – Medium touch – May include any of the above, includes a drafted scope of work of very clear definition of services available from the TA provider to the TA recipient and clearly defined goals and outputs for both the TA provider and recipients.
• – High Touch – May include any of the above and features a sustained engagement by the TA provider to the recipient over a period of months, and can be characterized by TA providers serving in an “extension of staff” role, providing active project management support.

Carolyn Yvellez spoke about the experiences of Farallon Strategies providing high-touch TA for several Strategic Growth Council grant programs, including BOOST and Regional Climate Collaboratives. For these programs, Farallon Strategies staff meet weekly or biweekly with TA recipients, and serve as extension of staff to the organizations they are supporting. Technical assistance ranges from project management, administrative and reporting, community engagement, to project/plan development, grant writing, and project implementation support. As staff of BayCAN, Carolyn was also involved in evaluating technical assistance through the Bay Area Regional Climate Collaborative’s Regional System Assessment for Adapting to Climate Change, which has its own set of findings and observations around the status of available TA in the Bay Area.

Robert Macnee shared his experience providing medium-touch technical assistance through the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Climate Communities Initiative Technical Assistance. In addition to providing synchronous learning sessions on adaptation-related topics, Robert and his team at Climate Resilience Communities provides direct TA for up to 30 hours to TA recipients that have requested additional support. This TA involves the development of a concise work-plan, and semi-regular check-ins to support progression of grantee goals. The CCITA program also includes opportunities for peer learning across the cohort.

Robert also shared his current experience delivering high-touch technical assistance through the EPA’s Community Change Equitable Resilience Technical Assistance (CCERTA) program. This work involves pulling together technical teams including engagement, design and engineering expertise to support community-based organizations and cities develop applications for the Community Change Grant. This technical assistance is delivered to each CBO/city over 5 months and includes community engagement exercises, development of designs and drawings for the application, costing and project planning, and providing material which can be used in grant applications.

Aminah Luqman spoke about her experience providing high-touch TA through the Greenlining Institute’s Capacity Building team and Greenlining the Block Program.  Greenlining the Block supports the leadership and expertise of communities of color to prepare for and maximize federal, state and local infrastructure investments to drive effective climate action that meets community needs. Greenlining the Block works to strengthen community-based organizations to advance climate justice neighborhood capital projects across California, Colorado, Illinois, North Carolina and Michigan. The TA program includes four core components:

• – Community of Practice to build collective and sustained learning to advance a suite of community-driven climate projects
• – Tailored 1:1 Coaching and technical assistance across pre-development, project development and grant application activities
• – Project Proposal Development to support community partners to prepare for competitive grant opportunities and advance their neighborhood capital projects
• – In-person learning tours and site visits

To close out the panel portion of the session, Tamila “Shy” Walker shared their invaluable experience as a TA recipient of both BayCAN NCRF Community Driven Planning to Advance Nature Based Solutions TA program, as well as Greening the Block Program to help them in building their organization, Ninth Root, and developing their keystone project: Sacred Spaces. Shy shared about the value of TA in supporting them move from idea to action through an organized step-by-step or task-by-task project management support. They also shared the importance of TA recipients not making assumptions or approaching their services from a faulty perspective that TA recipients need “help”, or know less than TA providers, when in reality, they often have deep experiential and historical knowledge of the community they are servicing.

Following the panel discussion, Anna Marandi led session participants in an interactive activity designed to narrow down the most important elements of a successful TA program. Participants were asked to write down what they perceived to be the top five most important elements of a successful TA program. After doing so, Anna asked everyone to find a buddy, and to share their top five while narrowing down the list to top three elements. The exercise was repeated once more, with groups of four narrowing down their respective lists to identify the single most important aspect of a well-designed TA program.

Key Findings: Elements of a Successful TA Program

Participants discussed the critical elements that contribute to the success of a technical assistance program. These elements collectively create a robust guiding framework for achieving meaningful and lasting outcomes in technical assistance initiatives.

1. Effective communication emerged as essential, ensuring clear, consistent, and tailored messaging about the TA program. In many cases, TA recipients are unaware of the range of services that TA providers can offer. Clearly communicating the value of a TA program, as well as the outcomes of participation can help improve participation and buy-in from TA recipients.
2. Build genuine relationships between TA providers and grantees/recipients. TA recipients and providers alike felt that better outcomes were achieved during a TA program in which significant time went into building trust and forming a relationship that did not feel transactional, but rather a genuine desire to support the development and success of the TA recipient. This extended to building relationships that last after the TA program concludes.
3. Foster collaboration across TA recipients and external stakeholders were highlighted as vital for leveraging resources and expertise. Many TA recipients value peer learning programs that allow them to share opportunities, challenges, and exchange resources across similar organizations. TA providers may provide great value to TA recipients by helping them to expand their network, making connections to interested parties for a project or funders that may have expertise or resources that can further advance the goals of the TA recipient. Supporting the introduction and transition of relationships to the TA recipient can be instrumental in the development of a TA recipient’s organization.
4. Don’t over-engineer TA programs. Session participants shared that in some cases, TA design has been over-complicated. For example, TA recipients have had to participate in an intake survey, call, and review/support the development of a work plan only to receive a couple hours of support. TA should inherently be easy to access, and administrative burdens should be minimized.
5. Design TA to be flexible and adaptable to allow programs to respond to changing needs and contexts. Session participants voiced that TA providers need to meet TA recipients where they are and tailor TA to allow for participants to participate in the way they feel is most beneficial, whether that be low, medium, or high-touch TA. In some cases, TA recipients may not have enough time to participate in high-touch TA that requires weekly check-ins, but nevertheless TA can be valuable to get staff and organizations thinking about climate resilience. Session participants also voiced the need to continuously monitor and evaluate the program throughout administration to ensure continuous improvement, accountability, and adaptive management.
6. Remove power dynamics between TA providers and recipients, starting with the language of “assistance.” In many cases, recipients hold the needed expertise to implement projects, and the purpose of TA providers should be to empower the recipients to make decisions and move the project forward on their own terms and at the pace that they are comfortable.
7. Secure adequate funding and resources to provide the level of TA required throughout the duration of the program, AND beyond. Participants voiced the importance of ensuring there is sufficient funding to provide sustained support and capacity building. It is counterproductive and harmful for organizations to go through the work of receiving grants/TA, only for the program to be discontinued the following year.
8. Compensate TA recipients. It takes capacity to build capacity. TA providers need to recognize the amount of time and resources it takes for small community-based organizations to receive technical assistance, and TA providers must ensure TA recipients have the resources to participate in the TA program.

Participants in the TA Session: Building it Better

Participants in the Building it Better session at the National Adaptation Forum self-reported the organizations they represent and engagement or leadership in the following technical assistance programs. The findings outlined above are related to experiences from the perspective of the participants in the session and those engaging in or leading technical assistance programs.

Federal/national programs, including:

• Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities
• Environmental Protection Agency Programs
  • EPA Community Change Equitable Resilience
  • EPA Recreation Economy for Rural Community
  • EPA Local Food Local Places
• National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Office of Coastal Management and Digital Coast
• Bureau of Indian Affairs
• Fish and Wildlife Service
• Environmental and Energy Study Institute
• Department of Housing and Urban Development Climate Change Initiative TA Program

State agency programs, including programs housed within:

• California’s Strategic Growth Council (SGC)
  • BOOST
  • Transformative Climate Communities
  • Regional Climate Collaboratives
  • Partners Advancing Climate Equity
• California’s Office of Planning and Research
  • Extreme Heat Program
  • Regional Resilience Program
• New Jersey Resilience Accelerator
• Minnesota Pollution Control Agency
• Maine Coastal Program

Others included:

• Greenlining Institute’s Equitable Electric Mobility Community of Practice and Greenlining the Block
• Bay Area Climate Adaptation Network’s TA Services
• Farallon Strategies Technical Assistance Programs
• Climate Resilience Consulting Technical Assistance Programs
• ESRI’s Resilience Cohort Program
• Climate Resolve’s Ready for Tomorrow Program
• Climate Smart Communities Program
• WCS Climate Adaptation Fund
• BuyIN TA Program Support
• MAPC’s Programs for Boston Area
• Lake Superior Climate Champions – Lake Superior Climate Champions