Oakland, Westernport, and Cambridge selected for first cohort designed to help municipalities move resilience priorities toward implementation-ready projects

ROCKVILLE, MD (October 28, 2026) – The Montgomery County Green Bank (MCGB) today announced the inaugural cohort of its Municipal Resilience Program (MRP), selecting three Maryland municipalities to participate alongside Montgomery County in the program’s first cohort: the Town of Oakland (Garrett County), the Town of Westernport (Allegany County), and the City of Cambridge (Dorchester County). Developed in partnership with Quantified Ventures (QV) and The Nature Conservancy in Maryland and D.C (TNC), the MRP provides structured technical assistance, community-based resilience planning, and a clear pathway from resilience priorities to implementation-ready projects.

The three communities, in addition to Montgomery County, represent a range of climate challenges, community contexts, and stages of project development. Together, they will demonstrate how a common resilience framework can respond to different local needs while building the project pipeline, partnerships, and financing approaches needed to grow the municipal resilience market across Maryland and strengthen MCGB’s work in Montgomery County.

“Communities know where their resilience needs are. The challenge is turning those needs into projects that can attract capital and move toward implementation,” said Stephen Morel, CEO of the Montgomery County Green Bank. “MRP is designed to help close that gap—advancing real projects for participating communities while building a stronger municipal resilience market in Montgomery County and across Maryland.”

“Climate change is hitting Maryland communities right now,” said Humna Sharif, Climate Resilience and Adaptation Director for TNC in MD and DC. “More intense storms and sea level rise are impacting daily life and threatening the safety of communities all across the state. The Municipal Resilience Program has been designed to provide communities with a real pathway to implementing resilience projects that tackle climate change impacts head on.”

About the Inaugural Cohort

The Town of Oakland enters the program with existing planning and infrastructure initiatives and a goal of more systematically identifying and prioritizing resilience investments. Key areas of concern include intense precipitation and localized flooding, aging municipal infrastructure, water-supply reliability, and impacts to transportation and essential services. Through MRP, Oakland will build on its existing planning and capital efforts to prioritize resilience projects and develop clearer pathways toward implementation.

The Town of Westernport enters from a different starting point: the community is still recovering from significant flooding in May 2025 that damaged homes, businesses, public infrastructure, and essential services. Westernport has made clear it wants the Community Resilience Building process to be a pathway toward tangible projects — not another planning exercise — and has specifically identified the program’s project-development and financing-readiness components as critical to defining implementable responses to the flood risk it continues to face.

The City of Cambridge brings a third distinct context from the eastern shore of Maryland, Cambridge faces growing climate risks from sea-level rise, tidal flooding, and coastal storms due to its low-lying location along the Choptank River. In the West End, elevations of just 2 to 4 feet above mean high water leave homes and infrastructure vulnerable to frequent nuisance flooding and damaging storm surge events. Rising water levels are also reducing the effectiveness of the City’s stormwater system, increasing flood risk and threatening long-term community resilience. Through MRP, Cambridge wants to advance the City’s flood resilience design toward a community-supported plan that is ready to compete for construction funding and move into implementation.

Building the Municipal Resilience Market

MRP is part of MCGB’s broader Protecting the Path to Net-Zero resilience strategy and was developed with philanthropic support to help address a persistent market gap: moving municipal resilience priorities from planning to projects that can attract funding and financing. While the program is rooted in Montgomery County, MCGB welcomes collaboration with municipalities across Maryland where partnerships advance resilience project development, financing readiness, and resilience finance innovation.

Through the inaugural cohort, participating municipalities will receive direct project-development and financing-readiness support. At the same time, the program will help build the project pipeline, partnerships, and financing approaches needed to grow the municipal resilience market across Maryland and strengthen MCGB’s resilience work in Montgomery County.

Future MRP cohorts will continue to welcome municipalities across Maryland, expanding the pipeline of resilience projects and helping identify approaches that can be replicated in Montgomery County and other communities.

From Resilience Priorities to Implementation

Through the MRP, participating municipalities will complete The Nature Conservancy’s Community Resilience Building (CRB) process, engaging municipal staff, residents, and community partners to identify climate hazards, assess vulnerabilities and strengths, and surface priority resilience actions. TNC leads this process, which has been implemented by over 500 other municipalities across 14 states.

Quantified Ventures then supports the transition from priorities toward defined projects – assessing project-development needs, evaluating implementation barriers, and identifying potential funding and financing pathways.

MCGB contributes a resilience-finance and market-development perspective throughout, helping evaluate which projects may be positioned for financing and where other forms of capital — including grants, public funding, philanthropic resources, private investment, or blended structures — may be more appropriate.

The program is designed to position municipalities to pursue implementation funding through local, state, federal, philanthropic, private, and other sources. Participation in MRP does not guarantee financing. Projects emerging from the program will be evaluated for the funding and financing pathways most appropriate to their needs, which may include grants, public funding, philanthropic resources, private capital, blended structures, and, where appropriate, available MCGB capital. Any potential MCGB financing would be subject to applicable funding restrictions, geographic eligibility requirements, and separate approval processes.

About the Montgomery County Green Bank MCGB is a publicly chartered 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation dedicated to accelerating affordable energy efficiency, clean energy, and climate resilience investment in Montgomery County, Maryland. mcgreenbank.org

About Quantified Ventures QV is a climate and environmental finance firm that designs and implements innovative financing solutions for water infrastructure, natural climate solutions, resilience, and community development. quantifiedventures.com

About The Nature Conservancy The Nature Conservancy is a global conservation organization working to protect the lands and waters on which all life depends. TNC leads the Community Resilience Building process used in the MRP. nature.org

Media contact: Tyniah McDuffie, Director of Communications and Community Engagement