The Kresge Foundation in Troy, Michigan, has announced grants totaling $1.5 million to advance policy solutions aimed at improving climate resilience and reducing health risks from climate change in low-income communities across the United States.

Awarded through the foundation's Climate Change, Health & Equity Initiative, the planning grants will support the efforts of fifteen community-based nonprofits, working cross-sectorally with a range of partners, to develop multiyear plans that address community-defined health and climate priorities. Following the planning phase, Kresge will invite up to twelve of the organizations to apply for multiyear implementation grants.

Planning grant recipients include Catalyst Miami; Coalition of Communities of Color in Portland, Oregon; Eastside Community Network in Detroit; Homewood Children's Village in Pittsburgh; and Partnership for Southern Equity in Atlanta. The grantees will be supported by the Institute for Sustainable Communities, which serves as the national program office for the planning phase of the Climate Change, Health & Equity initiative's community-based strategy.

"High heat, more volatile and extreme weather events, and rising sea levels degrade air and water quality, threaten food supplies, and put people's homes in danger," said David D. Fukuzawa, managing director of the foundation's health program. "Low-income communities and communities of color are disproportionately at risk due to existing social, economic, and health inequities, and the dangers to which they are exposed will only become worse in the coming years. We at Kresge fully recognize that climate change is the newest — and arguably most important — social determinant of health."

For a complete list of grant recipients, see the Kresge Foundation website.

(Photo credit: Kresge Foundation)