Collaborate Climate

The Massachusetts Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness (MVP) Program supports municipalities with building climate resilience. In 2021, the State began to rethink and redevelop the program, hoping to provide communities with new processes, tools, and funding for building stronger communities.

 

The project team worked with the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs (EEA) to:

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•  Evaluate the original (MVP 1.0) program  with the help of 75 community evaluators throughout the state;

• Design the new program with the guidance of an Equity Council of environmental justice advocates;

• Create tools, process guides, and trainings to build the capacity of local community teams;

• Develop an online mapping tool for accessing and understanding community and climate data;

• Pilot the program with 30 communities, and roll out the revised program in 2026.

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This new program – MVP 2.0 – focuses on building community resilience through systems that support equity and inclusive governance. The program provides coaching to a team of residents and municipal staff to do climate resilience work, develop a better understanding of social vulnerability in their community, and design and implement a resilience project led and informed by people who have the most direct experience with vulnerability. Communities have used the program to launch a housing trust for climate-resilient affordable housing, build coalitions for food security, and turn an old landfill into an educational forest for youth programs, research, and developing forest management practices for community and ecological resilience -- among many other projects. 

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See more on the MVP 2.0 program here.

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