The Hidden Genius Project

Creating a healthier, more equitable, and environmentally sustainable community.

The Climate Solutions Accelerator’s mission is to build a healthier, more equitable, and environmentally sustainable community by catalyzing local efforts to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions and address the impacts of climate change.

Given the urgency and complexity of climate change, the Accelerator firmly believes that everyone has a role to play in addressing climate change. The Accelerator’s constituents, therefore, include any person or organization in the nine-county Genesee-Finger Lakes Region who is willing to work toward solving climate change, regardless of socioeconomic status, race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, age, physical ability, and language. Furthermore, we are committed to centering equity in our work and prioritize climate solutions that accelerate emissions reductions while also addressing other key community concerns (e.g., health disparities, access to jobs, affordable housing). We are firmly committed to ensuring that ALL members of our community have opportunities to benefit from, and participate in, climate action at the local level. Building a powerfully diverse climate movement across the Genesee-Finger Lakes Region that bridges political, economic, geographic, and racial divides is therefore a critical goal of our work. 

One of the Accelerator’s primary roles in the community is to facilitate collaboration between entities that are working to address climate change and related concerns. By coordinating and aligning the efforts of many local organizations, the Accelerator increases the effectiveness and efficiency of our regional climate movement by bringing together cross-sector stakeholders to work toward equitable, intersectional climate solutions.

A Collective Impact Initiative brings together a wide and diverse group of stakeholders to tackle an urgent, yet complex problem (like climate change) that cannot be solved with a single solution or from within a single organization or sector, e.g., non-profit or government. The Accelerator has convened a steering committee for this initiative, made up of key decision-makers from a wide range of sectors, including government, business, health, housing, transportation, and agriculture. This steering committee is working with consultants from the Stockholm Environment Institute to develop a climate action plan for the nine-county Genesee Finger Lakes region, and a shared measurement system to assess progress toward achieving the plan’s goals. The Collective Impact steering committee and issue-based working groups will coordinate mutually reinforcing activities to reduce redundancies, break down silos, and maximize the efficient use of resources.

The Collective Impact process will allow our region to move quickly towards carbon neutrality, through coordinated, collaborative action to end our dependence on fossil fuels.​​These efforts to implement systems-level climate solutions will enhance the quality of life for our region’s residents in a variety of ways, such as improved public health, energy affordability, opportunities for green job development, sustainable transportation options, access to public greenspace, neighborhood stability/resilience, and home comfort.

Beyond the Accelerator’s primary collective impact initiative, other current programs include:

- Amped: a collaboration with nearly 20 prominent local institutions to promote beneficial electrification (the use of cleanly-generated electricity to meet energy needs) and encourage organizational leaders to electrify their buildings and vehicle fleets.

- Color Your Community Green: a volunteer-driven initiative that connects and organizes concerned individuals, by municipality or neighborhood, to form a network of climate-focused citizen action teams that (1) identify locally-relevant, high-impact climate solutions and develop implementation strategies using the CYCG “Toolkit,” and (2) advocate for environmental justice and equitable climate solutions to be implemented at the municipal level and in schools.

- HeatSmart Monroe: an initiative that educates, encourages, and incentivizes homeowners to transition from gas and oil heating systems to cleaner, greener heat pump heating and cooling systems.

- Connected Communities Resident Ambassador Program: outreach and education initiative in partnership with Connected Communities to help tenants, landlords and homeowners in the City of Rochester’s EMMA and Beechwood neighborhoods reduce their energy usage—and energy bills—by making weatherization improvements using NY State home energy efficiency grants.

Climate Solutions Accelerator

Terra Praxis designs and implements strategies that leverage science, technology and energy innovation for a prosperous planet

We co-founded TerraPraxis to design and implement strategies that leverage science, technology and energy innovation for a prosperous planet. Our mission is to innovate and accelerate scalable, equitable solutions for unsolved areas of the climate challenge. 

Our special focus is on enabling high-impact rapid transitions for neglected parts of the decarbonization challenge. 

We work with an extensive global network to define, incubate and initiate scalable strategies that fulfil the twin missions of prosperity and decarbonization. 

Terra Praxis

National Network of Abortion Funds

The Afiya Center works to Transform the lives, health, and overall wellbeing of Black womxn and girls.

The Afiya Center is a woman-centered organization that addresses the unique needs of Black womxn and transgender/gender non-conforming people (TGNC) through public health education, policy advocacy, and leadership development. We unapologetically advocate in the areas of HIV, maternal morality, abortion access and the decriminalization of Black bodies. Using a reproductive justice framework, we work to dismantle harmful policies and systems that directly impact the lives of Black womxn and girls.

The Afiya Center

Evidence Action scales evidence-based and cost-effective programs to reduce the burden of poverty. 

Evidence Action was founded in 2013 to address a big gap in the fight against global poverty – many of the most promising interventions are either implemented at a very small scale, or not at all. We set out to address this gap by building programs that would scale evidence-based and cost-effective interventions, leading to significant improvements in quality of life for hundreds of millions of people.

Our model worked. Since then, our interventions have reached more than 530 million people. This success is achieved through the dedication and talent of our staff, the hard work of our partners, and the commitment of our supporters.

Our Accelerator is the engine for our new program development. To find the most cost-effective solutions in the world, we explore untapped opportunities with the greatest potential for impact. Through a rigorous process, we test groundbreaking health and development interventions, selecting those with a proven ability to reduce the burden of poverty at scale. This focus allows us to maximize the impact made for every single dollar invested.

**Programs:**

**Safe Water Now**

We provide sustained safe water access to communities through water treatment – one of the most cost-effective ways to prevent childhood illnesses and death. Safe Water Now programming in Kenya, Uganda, Malawi, and India uses innovative, low-cost approaches like chlorine dispensers and automatic in-line chlorination. With local government and community buy-in, we reach nearly 10 million people with safe water access and have saved the lives of more than 15,000 children under 5 years old. Now, we are scaling in partnership with the Government of India to reach tens of millions more.

**Deworm the World** 

We help improve children's health, education, and long-term wellbeing by treating parasitic worm

infections at schools. In partnership with governments in Kenya, Nigeria, India, and Pakistan, Evidence Action designs, scales, and sustains cost-effective mass deworming programs. Since 2014, Deworm the World has helped governments deliver 2 billion deworming treatments to children, dramatically reducing worm prevalence and collectively increasing economic productivity by an estimated $23 billion USD.

**Equal Vitamin Access**

We combat the leading cause of childhood malnutrition and disability in low- and middle-income countries by helping to deliver essential supplementation. Equal Vitamin Access provides end-to-end support to governments in India and Malawi to address anemia by leveraging our school-based deworming platform to offer iron and folic acid supplementation cost effectively. In 2023 alone, our program reached 35.8 million children with weekly treatments, giving them a

better chance to develop into strong, healthy adults.

**Syphilis-Free Start**

We safeguard the health of pregnant women and their unborn children by enabling access to low-cost syphilis screening and treatment as part of prenatal care. We partner with governments in Liberia, Cameroon, and Zambia to prevent disability, neonatal

mortality, and stillbirths resulting from congenital syphilis. Syphilis-Free Start’s timely detection and treatment prevented 2,300 adverse outcomes such as blindness, neurological issues, and hearing loss between 2021 and 2023, including 1,300 lives saved.



Evidence Action

A hot plate of food when it’s needed most. For people fighting or fleeing disasters, we are here. 

Ten years ago, my wife Patricia and I had a big dream to start World Central Kitchen. We envisioned an organization that would create smart solutions to hunger and poverty, and for many years we saw an amazing impact through our clean cookstoves initiative, culinary training programs, and social enterprise ventures that empower communities and strengthen economies. But we had no idea we would one day be answering the call in Puerto Rico and around the world – “Food First Responders” serving millions of meals each year. In the process, we learned that a small NGO can change the world through the power of food.

Last year, WCK activated in response to dozens of disasters — some of them natural, and some man-made. From serving children in the shelters on our border with Mexico to making deliveries by lamplight to those keeping watch over beaches in Indonesia, our fight to feed the hungry has taken us to more places than we ever expected.

At the same time, WCK continues planting roots in the communities where we work. Our Plow to Plate program is helping to create food resiliency in the face of future disasters. In Haiti, aspiring chefs are obtaining the skills and confidence they need to elevate their careers and the country’s tourism sector.

With your help, we have shown that there is no place too far or disaster too great for our chefs to be there with a hot plate of food when it’s needed most.

I hope you’ll dream with us as we envision a world where there is always a warm meal, an encouraging word, and a helping hand in hard times. Thank you for taking this journey with us.

Join me in fulfilling the inspiring words of John Steinbeck: Wherever there’s a fight so hungry people may eat, we will be there.

We must be there.
- Jose Andres, founder

World Central Kitchen

FFI is an abolitionist org working to end immigration detention by following the leadership of detained immigrants. 

Freedom for Immigrants is an abolitionist organization that envisions a world without prisons or cages of any kind. We work to abolish immigration incarceration, recognizing we are part of a broader movement fighting for our freedom at the intersection of mass incarceration, immigration enforcement, and the deprivation of Black, brown, and Indigenous people’s autonomy. To empower our communities, we organize alongside and follow the leadership of currently and formerly incarcerated immigrants. We recognize our work is necessarily tied to broader efforts to eradicate white supremacy and the systems that sustain oppression. By cultivating the community-centered solutions that breathe life into our collective liberation, we actively build a future in which all people can move freely and thrive.

Freedom for Immigrants

Movement of Americans working together to end gun violence and build safer communities.

Everytown is a movement of Americans working together to end gun violence and build safer communities.

Everytown for Gun Safety

EJI is committed to ending mass incarceration in the US and challenging racial and economic injustice.

Founded in 1989 by Bryan Stevenson, a widely acclaimed public interest lawyer and bestselling author of Just Mercy, EJI is a private, 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that provides legal representation to people who have been illegally convicted, unfairly sentenced, or abused in state jails and prisons. We challenge the death penalty and excessive punishment and we provide re-entry assistance to formerly incarcerated people.

EJI works with communities that have been marginalized by poverty and discouraged by unequal treatment. We are committed to changing the narrative about race in America. EJI produces groundbreaking reports, an award-winning wall calendar, and short films that explore our nation’s history of racial injustice, and we recently launched an ambitious national effort to create new spaces, markers, and memorials that address the legacy of slavery, lynching, and racial segregation, which shapes many issues today.

EJI provides research and recommendations to assist advocates and policymakers in the critically important work of criminal justice reform. We publish reports, discussion guides, and other educational materials, and our staff conduct educational tours and presentations for thousands of students, teachers, faith leaders, professional associations, community groups, and international visitors every year.

Equal Justice Initiative

1258415673

1435915265

1737023302

We are a nonprofit, so instead of charging fees we rely on the generosity of donors like you.

Choose a donation for Every.org

2074652487

2516130445

2624895975

2883383521