Climate Ready America Looks to Expand Nationwide After Demonstrating Success in the Southeast
More than 226 resilience projects and growing partnerships demonstrate a scalable model that could help communities across the U.S. prepare for climate impacts.
September 9, 2026
Building on a successful Southeast launch, Geos Institute is expanding Climate Ready America nationwide to help communities prepare for climate impacts that increasingly threaten homes, infrastructure, public health, local economies, and natural resources. While local leaders recognize the need to prepare for these impacts, many struggle to access the expertise, funding, technical assistance, and partnerships needed to take effective action. Climate Ready America is being built to close that gap.
Developed by Geos Institute with support from Walmart Foundation, Mosaic Fund, and CO2 Foundation, Climate Ready America is building a nationwide climate services system designed to connect communities with the resources, knowledge, and support they need to reduce climate risks and strengthen resilience. Following a successful demonstration phase in the Southeast, the initiative is now preparing for expansion into additional states, and ultimately nationwide implementation.
Since launching in late 2023, Climate Ready America has delivered real world climate support to communities in Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Florida—states facing significant climate risks and rapidly growing populations. Through its innovative Navigator Network and collaborative partnerships, the initiative has helped communities accelerate planning, secure resources, and implement practical climate solutions.
Climate Ready America takes a systems approach to resilience, aligning organizations, service providers, government agencies, researchers, funders, and local leaders into a coordinated network. The initiative reduces duplication, identifies gaps, strengthens partnerships, and helps communities access proven solutions more efficiently.
At the center of the model are Navigators—experienced climate professionals embedded within trusted state-based partner organizations. Navigators work directly with local governments, community organizations, and other stakeholders to identify priorities, connect communities with resources, facilitate partnerships, and support project development.
Navigators are supported by Climate Innovation Centers, statewide hubs that bring together climate expertise, tools, training, funding opportunities, technical assistance, and a staffed Help Desk. These Centers create a coordinated support system that enables communities of all sizes to access the services they need to advance local climate action.
Climate Ready America’s impact to date includes:
- More than 226 community climate resilience and mitigation projects initiated
- Support provided to 64 communities and jurisdictions
- More than $7 million in funding and pro bono services leveraged
- $548,000 directed to 34 community projects
- Development of ClimateInsights, an AI-powered climate planning and resilience support tool
- Creation of the first Climate Innovation Center, scheduled to launch in Georgia through partnerships with the Georgia Conservancy, University of Georgia, and a Leadership Circle of climate service organizations
- Engagement of more than 280 government staff and elected officials in resilience planning conversations
- Training provided to more than 130 local government staff and officials in climate resilience strategies and solutions
- Partnerships developed with organizations positioned to host Climate Innovation Centers and/or Navigators in 46 states and three U.S. territories as funding becomes available
Over the past two years, we’ve seen communities across the Southeast turn climate concerns into meaningful action,” said Tonya Graham, Executive Director of Geos Institute. “Through the support from Climate Ready America, local leaders have secured resources, built new partnerships, and advanced projects that make their communities more resilient. The lessons we’ve learned and the outcomes we’ve achieved in the Southeast demonstrate the value of this approach and its potential to help communities across the country prepare for a changing climate.”
Climate Ready America’s value extends beyond individual projects by also helping organizations better understand the challenges communities face and where additional support is needed. “Hosting a Climate Ready America Navigator has strengthened our ability to connect what we do with real-world community needs,” said Andrew Predmore, Executive Director, Shi Institute for Sustainable Communities at Furman University. “The Navigator works directly with local leaders in South Carolina to identify challenges, opportunities, and emerging priorities. That on-the-ground engagement not only helps communities advance their resilience projects, it also informs our work, ensuring it is relevant, actionable, and responsive to the needs of the people we serve.”
“We were drawn to Climate Ready America because it transforms investment into lasting community capacity,” said Brooks Nelson, Director, Walmart Foundation. “This model helps communities move from planning to implementation while building the partnerships and local leadership needed for long-term success. That combination of immediate action, measurable outcomes, and scalability makes it a powerful model for expanding climate resilience across the country.”
With strong results emerging from the Southeast, Climate Ready America is now working with partners across the country to expand the initiative and ensure communities everywhere can access the support needed to prepare for a changing climate.
Geos Institute is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization with a mission to build innovative systems to help communities access the support services they need to address the climate crisis, regardless of their size, location, or wealth. For more information on Geos Institute and Climate Ready America, see www.geosinstitute.org.
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Media Contact
Tonya Graham,
Executive Director, Geos Institute
tonya@geosinstitute.org
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Briana Carbajal (they/she) was born and raised in South Central Los Angeles. In 2019, Briana was an active Youth Climate Councilmember working with the City of Los Angeles. Their purpose was to inform Mayor Garcetti of the concerns raised by young voices in their neighborhood and propose solutions to work toward resolving them. Briana holds a dual BA degree in Political Science and Geography/Environmental Studies from the University of California, Los Angeles.
Michelle Lewis is a community engagement and outreach associate for the Heat Policy Innovation Hub. Before her work at the Nicholas Institute, she served as the Agent of Thriving for Climate and Environmental Justice at the Ormond Center at Duke Divinity School. She earned her doctoral degree from Emory University’s Candler School of Theology. Lewis holds a Master of Environmental Science from Yale School of the Environment and a Master of Divinity from Yale Divinity School, along with a certificate from Yale Institute of Sacred Music and the Arts. She studied film at Regent University, where she completed a Master of Arts in communication. Lewis has worked in both rural and urban contexts and has led community-based participatory research. Her research has focused on how faith communities connect with the environment through their existing cosmologies, the effects of green space on patient outcomes, and the environmental theologies of Black coastal communities.
Lauren Graham is a strategic ecosystems thinker and cross-pollinator who creates impact in the areas of climate and democracy by transforming how mission-driven organizations are designed, led, and evolved. She holds Master’s degrees from University of Pennsylvania in Nonprofit Leadership, Yale in Environmental Management, and Stanford University in Sociology and teaches Strategic Management and Leadership for Nonprofits among other courses at the University of Pennsylvania School of Social Policy & Practice. Lauren is founder of Velvet Frame, a social impact strategy and communications consultancy for mission-driven organizations, and has extensive nonprofit experience including roles as Chief of Staff for Hunger Free America and Director of Innovation for Climate Access.
Robert Macnee, Ph.D. is Deputy Director of Resilience Services at Climate Resilience Consulting, where he helps governments, institutions, and communities reduce climate risk in equitable and practical ways. He holds a Ph.D. in Environmental Management focused on climate change impacts on health and communities, and brings over a decade of experience spanning economic development, resilience planning, and implementation.
Samantha Medlock is President of Climate Risk Advisors, helping communities and organizations advance equity, sustainability, and resilience. Her career began chasing floods as a local official in Texas Flash Flood Alley—a hands-on experience that still shapes her approach to climate and disaster risk management.
Jim is a multilingual world traveler. Based in Bavaria during the 1970s, Jim spent most of this period in India, Afghanistan and Nepal, where he founded and operated a charitable medical clinic serving Tibetan Refugees. He settled in Oregon in 1983 on a forested ranch in the Umpqua National Forest.
Dr. Micah Hahn is an Associate Professor of Environmental Health in the Institute for Circumpolar Health Studies at the University of Alaska-Anchorage. She received her joint PhD in Epidemiology / Environment and Resources from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and her MPH in Global Environmental Health from Emory University. Subsequently, she was a postdoctoral fellow for the CDC Climate and Health Program, and in this position worked collaboratively with the CDC Division of Vector-borne Diseases and the National Center for Atmospheric Research. Her research focuses on understanding the health impacts of climate change and working with communities to develop locally-relevant adaptation and resilience-building strategies. Dr. Hahn is also on the Management Team of the Alaska Climate Adaptation Science Center.
Michael is a former Founding Principal of Resilient Cities Catalyst, a global non-profit helping cities and their partners tackle their toughest challenges. He is currently the Executive Director of Climate Resilience Academy at the University of Miami.
Dr. Quintus Jett is a consultant, educator, and strategist for public causes. He has a doctorate in Organizations & Management from Stanford University, and a two-decade faculty career which spans schools, departments, and programs of business, engineering, liberal studies, divinity, and public and nonprofit management. Following Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Dr. Jett launched a volunteer project in New Orleans, which enlisted residents, students from over a dozen colleges and universities, and hundreds of others to field map the city’s Gentilly district, Lower Ninth Ward, and New Orleans East. Dr. Jett is an innovator in higher education, bridging the divide between academic research and the other priorities of the modern university, including student access and diversity, community engagement, and providing foundations for life-long learning in today’s rapidly changing world.
Scott is Monfort Professor of Atmospheric Science at Colorado State University. He has written about 100 publications in the peer-reviewed climate literature, is a former editor of the Journal of Climate, and served for five years as founding Science Chair of the North American Carbon Program.
Linda has many years of experience in disaster preparedness and resilience. She has been an elected official on the Linn County Iowa Board of Supervisors, Chair of the Metropolitan Planning Organization, the East Central Iowa Council of Governments, the statewide Mental Health Developmental Disability and the Linn County Board of Health. Langston is a former president of the National Association of Counties (2013-2014).
Ken works with families and organizations as a mediator, organizational consultant, trainer and facilitator. Along with his passion for helping people prepare for and reduce climate change, Ken also volunteers as a mediator through Mediation Works and is passionate about supporting youth through mentoring with Boys to Men of Southern Oregon.
Matthew is a retired high school teacher who was once honored as Oregon High School Social Studies Teacher of the Year. Before his teaching career he was in the restaurant business in Portland. He is also a lawyer who has been a member of the Oregon State Bar Association since 1980.
Andrea is the Resilience Policy Advisor for the North Carolina Office of Recovery and Resiliency. She works across state agencies and with local governments to increase the state’s resilience to the impacts of climate change.