HNP wins Innovative Partnership Award for State Funding Readiness Project
By Taryn Akiyama, Director of the State Funding Readiness Project
We are thrilled to announce that Hua Nani Partners has received the Innovative Partnership Award, one of the Climate Leadership Awards rewarding exemplary leadership in response to climate change. We are honored that the State Funding Readiness Project (SFRP) has been recognized as a leading edge climate initiative measurably addressing greenhouse gas reduction goals and climate adaptation and resilience activities.
The Climate Registry presented the Innovative Partnership Award to SFRP during their annual Climate Leadership Conference held May 21-23 in Cleveland, Ohio. Lirio Hittle, Hua Nani Partners Advisor, accepted the award on behalf of the whole SFRP team.
Launched in early 2022, the State Funding Readiness Project is a collaborative partnership led by Hua Nani Partners, with support from the U.S. Climate Alliance, to strengthen subnational leadership and unlock the full potential of federal climate investments. Through our unique, cross-sectoral model—funded by philanthropy, managed by a women-owned small business, and guided by a non-profit alliance—we empower subnational climate leadership to channel federal funding to ambitious, equitable climate projects.
SFRP provides fast, free, and flexible technical assistance to subnational jurisdictions preparing and applying for funding from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) in ways that reduce greenhouse gas emissions and advance climate equity priorities. As of May 2024, we have completed 35 projects with 23 subnational jurisdictions across the United States, helping them:
Craft strong applications, collectively requesting over $2.3 billion in federal funding
Successfully secure over $800 million in federal climate dollars ($1 billion pending)
Identify over 100 funding opportunities and over 80 technical assistance resources
Map over 420 stakeholders and 80 workforce initiatives
SFRP is unique in its ability to deliver and streamline surge capacity and individualized services at no cost to jurisdictions increasingly faced with capacity and resource constraints. Unlike public procurement processes, which can take upwards of many months, our open, rolling intake process can deploy assistance on demand in a matter of weeks. Our program’s flexible model, consisting of Strike Teams of technical experts, is highly responsive to the diverse range of jurisdictional needs and the ebb and flow of federal application timelines.
SFRP strives to maximize its pro bono support to underserved jurisdictions that need it most. To date, 100% of SFRP-supported grant applications have been for Justice40-eligible programs—a federal directive requiring at least 40% of overall benefits to flow to disadvantaged communities. It is also through this same lens that we prioritize assistance to under-resourced jurisdictions, such as those with high climate ambition but low capacity and limited or no access to outside technical assistance. In this way, we embed climate equity into our core framework in order to benefit under-resourced communities who stand to gain the most from federal climate investments.
For more information about the State Funding Readiness Project and our service offerings, please visit our website at https://statereadiness.org/ or reach us at info@statereadiness.org.
