United States Office of Enforcement and June 2006 

Environmental Protection Agency Compliance Assurance 

Office of Environmental Justice (2201A) 

http://www.epa.gov/compliance/environmentaljustice/grants/ej_smgrants.html

 

Environmental Justice 

 Small Grants Program 

 FACT SHEET 

Background

The EPA’s Office of Environmental Justice (OEJ) 

established the Environmental Justice Small Grants 

Program (EJSG) in fiscal year (FY) 1994. The purpose 

of this grant program is to support and empower 

communities that are working on local solutions to local 

environmental and/or public health issues. Summaries 

of all the EJSG projects funded in FY 2005 and prior 

years are available on the OEJ website 

http://www.epa.gov/compliance/environmentaljustice/gr

ants/ej_smgrants.html . Below is a summary of the 

number of grants and total program funding for every 

year since 1995. 

 

Year Total Funding Number of grants

1995 $3,000,000 170 

1996 $2,800,000 152 

1997 $2,700,000 139 

1998 $2,500,000 134 

1999 $1,490,000 95 

2000 $899,000 61 

2001 $1,300,000 88 

2002 $1,113,000 74 

2003 $930,000 55 

2004 $423,545 17 

2005 $625,000 25 

 

 

This year, the EJSG Program is designed to assist 

recipients in building collaborative partnerships that will 

help them understand and address the environmental 

and/or public health issues in their communities. 

Successful collaborative partnerships with other 

stakeholders involve well-designed strategic plans to 

build, maintain and sustain the partnerships, and to 

work towards addressing the local environmental 

and/or public health issues. 

The New Request for Applications period will be 

open from June 22, 2006 to 11:59pm October 23, 

2006. 

Request for Applications 

On February 1, 2006, OEJ released the Request for 

Applications (RFA) for the EJSG Program. The EJSG 

Program is of a national scope, and therefore, the 

purpose of the RFA was to make one grant award per 

region. The RFA closed on March 31, 2006; however, 

the EJSG program was cancelled and no awards were 

made because OEJ did not receive enough applications 

to meet its national program objectives. 

On June 22, 2006, a new announcement for the 

EJSG will be released. Significant changes to the RFA 

have been made in an effort to solicit more applications. 

Some of these changes include: 

• The definition of “eligible applicant” 

• The contents of the application package 

• The format of the workplan 

• The Threshold Eligibility Criteria 

Any organization that applied under the earlier RFA 

must submit a new application. 

Eligible Applicants 

An eligible applicant MUST BE either: 

(1) a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization as designated by 

the Internal Revenue Service; OR 

(2) a non-profit organization, recognized by the state, 

territory, commonwealth, or tribe in which it is located. 

In addition, an eligible applicant must be able to 

demonstrate that it has worked directly with, or provided 

services to, the affected community. An “affected 

community,” for the purposes of this assistance 

agreement program, is a community that is 

disproportionately impacted by environmental harms and 
risks and has a local environmental and/or public health 

issue that is identified in the proposal. 

A “non-profit organization,” means any corporation, 

trust, association, cooperative, or other organization 

that: 

(1) is operated primarily for scientific, educational, 

service, charitable, or similar purposes in the public 

interest; 

(2) is not organized primarily for profit; and 

(3) uses its net proceeds to maintain, improve, and/or 

expand its operations. 

The focus of this assistance agreement program is to 

build the capacity of community-based organizations to 

address environmental and/or public health issues at 

the local level. Therefore, for this assistance 

agreement program, the term “non-profit organization” 

EXCLUDES: 

• colleges and universities; 

• hospitals; 

• state and local governments and federallyrecognized Indian tribal governments; 

• quasi-governmental entities (e.g., water districts, 

utilities)*; 

• national-, multi-state-, or state-wide- organizations 

with chapters; 

• non-profit organizations that engage in lobbying 

activities as defined in Section 3 of the Lobbying 

Disclosure Act of 1995; and 

• those non-profit organizations which are excluded 

from coverage under paragraph 5 of OMB Circular 

A-122 (see OMB Circular A-122, paragraph 5 at 

http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/circulars/a122/a12

2_2004.html

* Generally, a quasi-governmental entity is one that: (1) has a close 

association with the government agency, but is not considered a part 

of the government agency; (2) was created by the government 

agency but is exempt from certain legal and administrative 

requirements imposed on government agencies; or (3) was not 

created by the government agency but performs a public purpose and 

is significantly supported financially by the government agency.

For More Information

If you would like more information about the EJ Small 

Grants Program, please call the Office of Environmental 

Justice’s 24-hour hotline (1-800-962-6215) or visit the 

website at: 

http://www.epa.gov/compliance/environmentaljustice/gra

nts/ej-cps-grants.html

EPA's Commitment to Environmental 

Justice

On November 4, 2005, United States Environmental 

Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Stephen L. 

Johnson issued a memorandum reaffirming EPA's 

commitment to environmental justice for all people, 

regardless of race, color, national origin, or income. 

Environmental justice means not only protecting 

human health and the environment for everyone, but 

also ensuring that all people are treated fairly and are 

given the opportunity to participate meaningfully in 

the development, implementation, and enforcement 

of environmental laws, regulations, and policies. 

Because minority and/or low-income communities 

frequently may be exposed disproportionately to 

environmental harms and risks, EPA works to protect 

these and other burdened communities from adverse 

human health and environmental effects of its 

programs, consistent with existing environmental and 

civil rights laws and regulations, as well as through 

the implementation of Executive Order 12898 

("Federal Actions to Address Environmental Justice in 

Minority Populations and/or Low-Income 

Populations," Feb. 11, 1994). 

The memorandum identified eight national 

environmental justice priorities and directed the 

integration of environmental justice considerations 

into EPA's planning and budgeting processes, 

including into the Agency's Strategic Plan for Fiscal 

Years 2006-2011. This cooperative agreement 

program (Program) focuses on one of those eight 

priorities, which is the use of collaborative problemsolving to address local environmental and/or public 

health issues. Each remaining priority involves a 

specific issue, including: (1) reducing asthma 

attacks; (2) reducing exposure to air toxics; (3) 

increasing compliance with regulations; (4) reducing 

the incidence of elevated blood lead levels; (5) 

ensuring that fish and shellfish are safe to eat; (6) 

ensuring that water is safe to drink; and (7) 

revitalizing contaminated sites (please note that this 

Program cannot be used to fund Brownfields 

projects). 

EPA will continue to fully implement its programs, 

policies, and activities to ensure that they do not 

adversely affect populations with critical 

environmental and/or public health issues, including 

minority and/or low-income communities.