Supporting the Health and Environmental Funders Network in a regional collaboration to equitably implement federal infrastructure funding

The Foundation's initiative, Equitably Reconnecting Communities in Small and Midsize Cities, was designed to: (1) build capacity in local government agencies to attract federal transportation funding and to design community-led transportation projects that promote health, wellbeing, and equity; (2) identify and address inequitable federal, state, and local transportation policies and systems; and (3) document and disseminate learnings about how to implement equitable transportation projects that increase access to opportunity, all in order to restore community connectivity through equitable implementation of transportation funding in small and midsize cities that have been historically divided or harmed by transportation infrastructure.This project aims to advance equitable implementation of historic federal public infrastructure resources in ways that foster community-led planning and projects, while building local and regional capacity for centering racial and health equity in the development of public infrastructure. Philanthropy, government, and community-based organizations at the federal, state, and local levels have struggled to engage each other on ways of ensuring that federal public infrastructure resources are invested in ways that promote racial and health equity. Through a series of regional meetings, this project will connect those key audiences to each other and to equity-centered approaches and emerging best practices.