Coasts
Connect shoreline protection to tourism revenue, tax base, property value, and public access.
Resilient California Summit 2026
RCC at the Resilient California Summit 2026
Local projects, global expertise, and capital aligned to move climate solutions into implementation.
Explore the workCalifornia in practice
Since 2019, RCC has worked across California to move high-impact climate resilience projects from planning into implementation.
Translate global solutions into local action
Climate change is accelerating unevenly across the world. Coastal erosion, extreme heat, wildfire, and flooding are not unique to California, and cities around the world have already tested approaches that can save communities years of trial and error.
RCC brings that global perspective home. Open international processes, cross-border partnerships, and direct peer exchange give California communities access to a wider range of tested solutions.
Read the full approach
A sand retention design tested on a reef in Australia may hold lessons for a beach in Southern California. A fire management practice developed over generations by Indigenous communities may offer more relevant guidance for a fire-prone foothill town than a purely technical model. A financing structure used in another country's coastal cities may point to a workable approach for funding adaptation at home.
The value of this exchange runs in both directions. California has as much to teach through its own pilots and policy experiments as it has to learn. RCC builds bridges through competitions, partnerships, and knowledge exchange so communities can work from the widest possible body of experience.
- Mediterranean Climate Action Partnership
- Binational Resilience Initiative
- RE:BEACH Oceanside
- Los Angeles Wildfire Resilient Recovery
Move projects from design to ribbon
A strong plan still needs coordination, funding, and capacity to become a built project.
Permitting, uncertain federal funding, and stretched municipal teams can slow even the most established resilience efforts. None of this is a failure of will or vision. It reflects how much work a single project requires.
RCC acts as a connector and facilitator, identifying funding sources and channeling public and philanthropic dollars toward the organizations doing on-the-ground resilience work. Catalytic funds are paired with technical support so smaller investments can unlock larger capital sources.
Read the full approach
California has committed billions of dollars to climate resilience through state budgets and bond measures, and philanthropic funders have committed hundreds of millions more. Yet the money and the projects that need it frequently fail to connect.
RCC identifies pre-development dollars that traditional funding sources rarely cover, pairs them with direct technical assistance, and helps public, philanthropic, and private funds reinforce one another instead of operating in isolation.
Build capacity that stays local
A coastal community managing erosion and flooding faces different priorities than an inland community facing extreme heat or drought. A rural county may face the same hazards as a major metro region without the same funding, staffing, or grant experience.
RCC strengthens the institutions already doing the work. Seed funding, hands-on technical assistance, and peer networks are matched to the specific hazard and capacity gap each community faces.
- Direct technical support
- Practical help shaped around local hazards, project readiness, and staffing constraints.
- Peer learning
- Access to experience and knowledge that larger, better-resourced places have already developed.
- Durable local funding
- Structures that reduce how much capacity must be rebuilt during every grant cycle or staff transition.
Read the full approach
Successful local resilience building does not require starting from scratch. It depends on investing in the existing infrastructure of local governments, nonprofits, Tribal communities, and community organizations.
RCC brings outside expertise and funding connections to the table while strengthening the local knowledge and institutions that will carry resilience work forward after any single project is complete.
Show what resilience is worth
Quantifying resilience means putting a number on what a community stands to lose from a climate hazard and what it stands to gain from investing in protection. That evidence helps decision-makers weigh, compare, and act.
Heat
Show the health and economic costs of delaying cooling infrastructure.
Flooding
Compare repeated damage with the cost and benefit of upgrading stormwater systems now.
Read the full approach
For decades, the case for resilience projects has often rested on hazard maps and risk projections alone. Preventive investment can be a hard sell because the payoff is a disaster that never happens, while the cost of rebuilding is easy to see after the fact.
RCC builds the economic case for resilience directly into project funding strategy. A healthy beach, a cooler neighborhood, and a functioning watershed can be translated into terms that funders and elected officials can act on.
This evidence base helps California communities compete for funding, plan with confidence, and make the case for resilience investment on equal footing with other public priorities.
From local challenge to built resilience
Learn about RE:BEACH