Local leaders who want to act on climate change face a fragmented landscape of data, funding opportunities, training programs, and technical resources, and often lack staff capacity to navigate any of it. Climate Ready America is building infrastructure to help with that.
Geos Institute is one partner in a national initiative designed to organize and deliver climate support through locally rooted Climate Innovation Centers: virtual, statewide hubs where community leaders can access curated climate data, funding opportunities, training, technical assistance, and peer networking in one place. The model also includes a Navigator Network, composed of climate resilience specialists deployed directly to underserved, capacity-constrained communities to provide multi-year, hands-on support. Since launching a Southeast demonstration project in 2023, five Navigator FTEs hosted by in-state partners have helped advance more than 200 climate projects and secure over $7 million in funding and pro bono assistance across four states.
The next step in moving the effort forward is building a replicable web portal template that will allow Climate Innovation Centers (CICs) to launch quickly and consistently as the initiative expands state by state. This involves developing and testing a template with in-state partners, incorporating locally curated resources, an AI-assisted search function, a help desk staffed by human experts, an event calendar, networking tools, and a data collection system designed to support continuous improvement. A replication toolkit will accompany the template, enabling rapid deployment by in-state partners who know their communities best. The first Center is expected to launch in Georgia later in 2026, with South Carolina to follow.
The initiative is built on two observations about what prevents local climate action: communities can’t easily find and navigate the support that exists, and local leaders — particularly in politically challenging environments — often feel isolated and outnumbered. The Centers address both problems at once, giving leaders a trusted resource hub and connecting them with a network of peers taking action across their state.
The fragmentation of climate services is a real and underappreciated barrier to local action, and building shared infrastructure that reduces that burden for under-resourced (and all) communities is work that pays dividends across every climate initiative that follows.
Image info: Energy loss detected with an infra-red camera, December 2013. Dennis Schroeder, NREL. Climate Visuals.