CARE (Community Action for an Improved Environment) – an effective model for community engagement on environmental and environmental health issues

Historically, EPA has funded programs in communities based on media (air, water, etc). For the first time, with CARE, the Agency has created a dynamic cross-programmatic grant program.

With CARE, EPA takes a comprehensive approach to address the full range of environmental and environmental health issues from various media. Further, and importantly, the CARE process supports community capacity building as a key step in a longer-term process to position communities to secure other resources for pursuing additional solutions to improve their environment.

CARE funds communities with a two year cooperative agreement at two levels: Level I - a Community-based assessment at up to $100k, and Level II, funded up to $300k and designed to effect a mitigation of hazards identified by the community

Over the past five years, CARE has funded more than fifty community-based projects. The eligible applicants are non-profit entities, local governments. Federally-recognized tribes, colleges and universities. The two classes of grantees most often found in the CARE program are non-profit organizations and local Public Health agencies.

How well does the program work? The National Academy of Public Administration produced a report on the CARE program in which they noted: “The CARE model has the potential to facilitate access into parts of local communities that existing EPA programs have had trouble reaching.” And. “Unlike most of EPA's other traditional grant programs, the CARE program awards cooperative agreements that require a close, ongoing relationship between the local grantee and EPA throughout the life of the grant.”