Climate Justice

Decades of environmental racism have resulted in communities of color suffering disproportionately from environmental hazards, which can make them most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Consequently, the impacts of climate change can exacerbate existing inequalities in our society.

In Greater Boston, marginalized communities are exposed to far more environmental risk factors, including exposure to pollutants, extreme heat, flood risk, and poor access to food, transit and healthcare. In Massachusetts, communities hit hardest by the COVID-19 pandemic had some of the highest rates of asthma and respiratory disease in large part due to exposure to pollutants. Combating and building resilience to climate change requires an equity-centered approach that takes the disproportionate effects on historically marginalized communities into account.

What You’ll Support: Organizations accelerating the adoption of solar energy, creating more energy efficient and health-promoting affordable housing, and helping weatherize homes to be more resilient to extreme weather in communities that are the most vulnerable to climate change in and around Greater Boston.

Capital Good Fund

What will my DAF funds support?

Expand Capital Good Fund’s DoubleGreen loan portfolio in Massachusetts, which finances solar installation and home weatherization for homeowners, focusing on families with lower-to-moderate incomes, living in minority communities, and with less-than-perfect credit.

  • Capital Good Fund is a Rhode Island-based, nonprofit CDFI that helps people fix their finances and break the cycle of poverty by offering small loans and personalized financial coaching to families. Their mission is to create pathways out of poverty and advance a green economy through inclusive financial services. Capital Good Fund’s products and services are designed to serve low-to-moderate income households and underbanked populations.

  • In addition to focusing on low-income, underbanked, minority communities, Capital Good Fund seeks to provide financial services that substitute the predatory lending industry. By providing equitable loans, Capital Good Fund can strengthen a family’s ability to weather financial shocks without becoming caught in a debt-trap and support credit and asset-building. Forty percent of its clients are Black/African American and approximately one-quarter are Hispanic.

    • 90% of its clients are classified as low to extremely low income (defined as less than 80% of Area Median Income)

    • Majority of borrowers are people of color (40% Black, 25% Hispanic)

    • 10% of borrowers do not have a credit report, and 49% of borrowers are considered “deep subprime” with a credit score less than 580

    • Issued 2,561 equitable loans and financed over $5 million in loans in 2021

    • Almost $3M in solar loans financed

    • Coaching team served 125 households in 2021

    • 10,000 clients served since founding

    • 100% on-time payment track record to its investors

    • Citizens Bank

    • JP Morgan Chase

    • Miami Foundation

    • Rhode Island Foundation

    • United Way of Greater New Bedford

Capital Good Fund In Action | Doreen L. (Woburn, MA)

With temperatures rising, Doreen L., 62, of Woburn, MA just couldn’t face another summer of using window unit air conditioners to cool down her family’s home. “I said that’s it, I will find a way to get central air,” she recalls. Since she lost her job due to COVID in October of 2020, she had trouble getting a loan. She turned to Capital Good Fund, which granted her a DoubleGreen zero-interest loan of more than $9,000 that she has seven years to pay off. “Capital Good Fund helped my finances and lowered my stress level big time,” she says. “They make it easy for people who have situations in their lives – It’s just wonderful.”

Massachusetts Housing Partnership (MHP)

What will my DAF funds support?

Lending within MHP’s Green and Healthy Housing Programs. These programs create incentives for developing affordable housing properties with green building certifications, and health-promoting design and operational features. Funds will be lent to developers of color or in state-designated Environmental Justice (EJ) communities, which are low-income neighborhoods with significant proportions of minorities and non-English speaking households. This designation recognizes that the need for environmental justice – the principle that all people have the right to be protected from environmental hazards and to live in and enjoy a clean and healthy environment – is greatest in communities of color and low-income areas.

  • MHP is a statewide, nonprofit quasi-public organization that works with communities to create innovative policy and financing solutions that provide affordable homes and better lives for the people of Massachusetts. MHP’s work is focused in four main areas: helping communities build more affordable housing through technical assistance, financing rental development, helping low- and moderate-income families buy their first home, and analyzing MA housing data. In recent years, MHP has also placed a strong focus on green and healthy homes, and roughly half of MHP’s lending today goes towards highly energy efficient and climate resilient developments.

  • Since 1985, addressing racial and economic inequities has been at the core of MHP’s mission.  MHP’s ONE Mortgage program was designed to eliminate racial bias in mortgage lending and has enabled more than 10,000 low-income households of color to become homeowners.  MHP’s financing and technical assistance has resulted in thousands of affordable housing units being built in communities throughout Massachusetts and given more choices to households of color about where to live, work and raise children.  MHP’s analysis and public testimony has called out communities with restrictive zoning that excludes new residents by race and income.  MHP’s current goals include reaching 1,500 new households of color with its first-time homebuyer program, increasing the supply of affordable housing with an emphasis on sustainability in Environmental Justice communities, and expanding its financing and technical assistance for emerging affordable housing developers led by Black, Indigenous, and other People of Color.

    • Since the launch of its Green & Healthy Housing Programs in 2019, MHP has committed over $125 million in financing for 30 affordable housing properties with over 1,500 rental housing units.  These properties are designed and constructed to high performance building standards, including LEED Gold and Passive House, or with research-based, health-promoting features.

    • Nearly 2/3 of these units (944) are located in Environmental Justice communities.

    • Residents of these properties will be more prepared for and resilient to the effects of climate change and will benefit from built environments that are designed to promote their overall health and well-being.

    • 100% on-time payment track record to its investors

    • A+ credit rating from S&P

    • MHP’s multifamily loan programs have had no delinquencies or loan losses since their inception in the early 1990s.

    • Bank of America

    • Barr Foundation

    • East Boston Savings Bank

    • The Hyams Foundation

    • Santander Bank

    • TBF

    • TD Bank

    • Webster Bank

MHP In Action | Frost Terrace (Cambridge, MA)

Developed by Capstone Communities and Hope Real Estate Enterprises (HRE), Frost Terrace involved the renovation of three homes and the construction of a new building into 40 affordable apartments in Cambridge. MHP provided a $5M loan, the first it has made to HRE, a minority-owned company. With financing incentives through MHP’s Green Building Certification Program, Frost Terrace achieved LEED Gold certification from the U.S. Green Building Council for the newly-constructed 28-unit part of the development. Built with sustainable, high-performance materials, the new building has surpassed LEED Gold minimum standards for energy and water efficiency. Located in the Porter Square neighborhood, it is within walking distance of public transit and open space and offers its residents a community room, bike storage, and a kids’ homework and rec room.

Sunwealth

What will my DAF funds support?

Expand solar access, green jobs and energy savings for affordable housing, schools, houses of worship, municipal buildings, nonprofits and businesses, with a particular focus on projects delivering benefits to low-income people and communities.  Sunwealth will deploy capital to a pool of community-based solar projects in Greater Boston and beyond, delivering savings to communities and jobs and revenues to local solar developers and installers, providing a national model for inclusive investment in renewal energy. Note, recoverable grants to Sunwealth will be intermediated by Capital Good Fund, who will use these funds to make a six-year investment into Sunwealth’s Solar Impact Bond.

  • Sunwealth is a Cambridge-based public benefit corporation changing who benefits from renewable energy by changing the way we invest in it. The company focuses on community-based projects on rooftops, parking lots and open spaces in the built environment that have been overlooked and underserved by mainstream solar financiers and developers. The company has been recognized by the Clean Energy States Alliance (CESA), the Solar Energy Business Association of New England (SEBANE) and Environmental Finance for its innovative work to bring clean energy to low-income communities and underserved markets.

  • Sunwealth is focused on addressing the structural and systemic barriers to solar deployment in communities that could benefit most from the clean energy, green jobs and savings it provides. The company’s diverse leadership team has built a staff that comprises >50% women and >35% people of color; developed underwriting practices that go beyond traditional credit scores; partnered with and supported minority- and women-led solar development and installation partners; and advocated for policies that increase solar access for low-income people and communities in Massachusetts.

    • ~40% of installations benefit low-income people or communities

    • Completed 91 low-income community solar projects comprising 6.2MW in 2021

    • Has provided $50M in lifetime energy cost savings to customers — or 50 cents in savings for every dollar invested

    • Funded over 340 green jobs in 2021

    • Has delivered targeted returns to investors with no defaults since inception

    • 80% of every dollar invested creates jobs and revenues for local solar developers and installers

  • 400+ investors, including:

    • Boston Impact Initiative

    • Calvert Impact Capital

    • CT Green Bank

    • Devonshire Foundation

    • Reinvestment Fund

    • Sierra Club Foundation

    • Tides Foundation

    • Trillium Asset Management

Sunwealth In Action | Solar Access Program (Dorchester, MA)

In recent years, more than 100,000 solar arrays have been installed on Massachusetts homes and businesses, but the Commonwealth’s lower-income communities have experienced little of that growth. Sunwealth partnered with Dorchester-based developer Resonant Energy and Dorchester Bay Economic Development Corporation to create the Solar Access Program (SAP), which allows any building -- regardless of the owners’ income or credit score -- to host solar panels at no cost in exchange for clean power and energy savings. SAP recently completed its third round of projects, solarizing six homes and installing 55 kW of solar, which will deliver $137,000 in lifetime savings to participants.

LEGAL AND PROGRAM DISCLAIMER: This website displays information about opportunities to deploy your donor advised fund assets via recoverable grants. The opportunities presented are not investments. Unless otherwise noted, investments and impact-first investments for the purposes of this website refer only to impact-driven recoverable grant opportunities in the DAF context and include capital with the possibility of principal return but do not include investment capital in pursuit of profit. DAF assets described and utilized pursuant to the descriptions in this site will be used exclusively for charitable purposes. Any return of capital, up to the principal amount of the initial disbursement, will be redeployed exclusively for additional charitable impact. This site is premised on this understanding of investments and impact-first investing from DAFs. 

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