Leading with Equity in Adaptation Practice Program
Volunteer With Texas Gulf Coast Communities and Build Your Adaptation Skills
We are seeking 30 volunteer adaptation practitioners who want to share their expertise and provide technical assistance to build stronger, more resilient communities in the Upper Gulf Coast.

Equitable and effective climate change adaptation and climate resilience projects are community-owned, center local priorities, and are guided by residents’ lived experience.
Through the Leading with Equity in Adaptation Practice (LEAP) Program, ASAP is partnering with Houston Advanced Research Center (HARC) to recruit, train, and support teams of community leaders and climate adaptation practitioners as they implement community-led adaptation projects together.
- LEAP is an opportunity for us to dig deep in the Gulf Coast, a region that will greatly benefit from increased adaptation action and is home to close to 10 percent of the ASAP membership.
- LEAP advances ASAP’s Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion commitments by supporting relationships and collaboration between the adaptation practitioners in our network and leaders in environmental justice communities doing adaptation work on the ground.
- LEAP is an opportunity for ASAP to apply resources we have built together as a network over the past several years, including the Living Guide to the Principles of Climate Change Adaptation, Resilience Dialogues program resources, and Local and Regional Hubs program resources.
Contact ASAP's Acting Director, Rachel Jacobson (rjacobson@adaptpros.org), to learn more.
Get Involved
We are seeking 30 volunteer adaptation practitioners who want to share their expertise and provide technical assistance to build stronger, more resilient communities. Volunteers will join Community Teams throughout the Upper Gulf Coast working on community-led climate adaptation planning and action.
Community Teams will be located in frontline communities across the 9-county region of the Texas Upper Gulf Coast (Montgomery, Waller, Harris, Liberty, Jefferson, Chambers, Fort Bend, Galveston, and Brazoria counties).
Volunteering in the LEAP program is an opportunity to grow as a climate change adaptation professional and expand your network! You will:
- Build the skills, knowledge, and experience to ensure your climate change adaptation practice supports just, equitable, community-defined outcomes.
- Gain feedback to help your climate resilience products and services maximally support community-led climate change adaptation projects.
- Build relationships with community leaders and community-based organizations, opening doors for potential future partnership and collaboration.
Volunteers will join a one-day kickoff meeting (in person or virtually) the week of June 19, 2023; engage an average of 2-4 hours/month in LEAP meetings and project implementation activities between July 2023-Fall 2024; and join a ½ day program celebration in Fall 2024.
Thank You to Our Partners and Funders!
Houston Advanced Research Center (HARC): HARC provides independent analysis on energy, air, and water issues to people seeking scientific answers and operates as a research hub finding solutions for a sustainable future.
National Academies of Science Gulf Research Program: In supporting a safer, more resilient, and sustainable future for the Gulf and all those who call the region home, the Gulf Research Program uses science, engineering, and medical knowledge to empower its citizens and to enhance Gulf Offshore Energy Safety, Gulf Environmental Protection and Stewardship, and Gulf Health and Resilience.