Minority- and Women-Owned Business Support Grants

MassCEC may elect to award a portion of the MWBE Support Grant funds requested as a Planning Grant if the applicant’s proposed project contains sufficient detail to justify a Planning Grant but does not have sufficient scope to justify the entire amount of the award requested for implementation. Alternatively, applicants are advised to consider applying directly to MassCEC’s Equity Workforce Capacity and Planning Grants to fund planning prior to applying to future rounds of MWBE Support Grants for implementation funds.

Yes, applicants may apply for additional funds from MassCEC, so long as the proposed project is separate and distinct from the projects funded via prior support. Proposals suggesting upskilling or expanding an existing project, either in content or geographic/target population reach, that was funded previously by MassCEC may be viewed as separate and distinct. Proposals suggesting running additional cohorts of an existing project that received prior funding from MassCEC will not be viewed as separate and distinct.

Program costs may vary from year to year. Some examples include adding additional staff in year one or program plans that project to grow training cohort capacity across the grant years. These variations and others are acceptable and, in many cases, strategic. Applicants should detail the rationale and strategy in their proposal and budget narrative to ensure reviewers have clarity about their plans.

If your MWBE is planning to set up a job training pipeline for individuals from EJ Neighborhoods and other underserved populations to enter the clean energy sector, you may consider applying to the Equity Workforce Training Implementation RFP that is currently open. If the MWBE is interested in developing their own organizational capacity, the MWBE can apply for MassCEC’s Equity Workforce Capacity Grants, which are funding opportunities directed towards supporting individual MWBEs. The Equity Workforce Capacity Grants will be released in early 2023. The MWBE Implementation Support Grant currently open is NOT intended fund an individual MWBE.

Funding for partnerships will be more favorable during the scoring process as this grant is designed to stand up a support program for multiple MWBEs or creation of MWBEs in climate critical fields. Applicants must submit a budget that includes funds allocated per MWBE supported through the program. This grant is not intended to support an individual MWBE’s operations or growth. MassCEC will be releasing MWBE Capacity Grants that can support an individual MWBE’s operations or growth in early 2023.

The grant has $4,000,000 in funding available. The award potential is up to $1,000,000. We anticipate awarding four (4) to seven (7) MWBE Support Implementation grants of $250,000 to $1,000,000.  

The application form does support the inclusion of graphs and charts. Applicants should turn diagrams into a picture and embed them in relevant sections of the application form. Applicants should be mindful of word count limits and deduct the estimated number of words in a diagram from the affected word limit. Please note that supplementary attachment materials will not be considered during review.

Applicants must submit the application form in Word or PDF. The application form was created in Word, but applicants can certainly work in another program and save the final product as a PDF. The uploaded PDF should reflect the general format and word limits, but MassCEC doesn’t have any restrictions about how to produce the PDF. If applicants have technical difficulties, please contact worforce@masscec.com for troubleshooting.

MassCEC is compiling a list of potential applicants interested in networking and partnerships for the open Workforce Equity grants. View the list here. Sign up to the partnership list by sending your contact name, contact info, type of organization, and focus sector to workforce@masscec.com.

The Lead Applicant should be able to handle the administration of the contract if awarded by MassCEC. The Lead Applicant must meet all the eligibility requirements of the RFP.