Mon, July 7 – Tulsa, OK 🇺🇸

Some cities are like engines—they burn fast, get loud, and leave a legacy of smoke behind them. But Tulsa? Tulsa was trying to become a circuit—a place where energy moved cleanly, intentionally, and with purpose. A city once powered by oil was now daring to rewire itself.

And that's where I came in.

Now, I’ve walked through the halls of the European Commission with solar lobbyists. I’ve drafted clean transit narratives on the back of napkins at bus depots in East L.A. But the Tulsa call? That one buzzed with voltage I hadn’t felt in a while. The city wanted more than EV chargers—they wanted transformation. They wanted to flip the script on who benefits from clean technology. And they wanted to do it fast.

This wasn’t just an infrastructure challenge. It was a resurrection.

🌆 Setting the Scene

Tulsa is a city of paradoxes. It gave the world the Black Wall Street and then bore witness to its destruction. It helped fuel America’s car culture but watched its public transit decay. And today, while it’s bursting with entrepreneurial spirit, there are still entire zip codes where clean air, good transit, and opportunity feel like luxury items.

The push for EVs had arrived in Oklahoma like a storm: high-level interest, new dealerships, and incentives galore. But when Kayla Jefferson, Tulsa’s Director of Sustainability, pulled up the city’s EV infrastructure map, one thing stood out: every charger in the city was concentrated in high-income, predominantly white neighborhoods.

Meanwhile, in North Tulsa and parts of East Tulsa—communities historically cut off by redlining and underinvestment—you couldn’t find a single fast charger. Not one. For the gig workers, retired veterans, single moms, and college students living there, the EV revolution wasn’t just out of reach—it was invisible.

That inequity? It wasn’t just unacceptable. It was fundable. But it would take precision, story-craft, and a whole lot of hustle to turn injustice into investment.

🎯 The Visionaries

Let me tell you about the firestarters.

Kayla Jefferson was the kind of public servant who didn’t ask permission—she asked for timelines. A Black urban planner with roots in Greenwood and a resume that included everything from climate resilience to community engagement, she was done waiting for the federal government to notice Tulsa.

Then there was Route Spark, a Tulsa-born startup building solar-integrated EV charging pods designed for dense urban blocks and underserved neighborhoods. Their founder, Darren Miles, used to be a mechanical engineer for an oil company. After watching his community flood during a freak spring storm, he quit and started designing tech that didn’t just serve customers—it served justice.

And finally, GreenRoots Tulsa, a grassroots environmental justice coalition with a tenacious crew of organizers, tribal leaders, and youth advocates. They weren’t here for a one-off pilot. They were here to reclaim the future.

Together, they dreamed up Tulsa ChargeNet—a decentralized, inclusive, and locally managed EV charging network. Not in luxury garages. In church lots, health clinics, schoolyards, tribal centers, and bus transfer stations. They weren’t chasing headlines. They were chasing air you could breathe.

They just needed a rainmaker.

💼 Enter Mr. Grant Money

I got the call on a Monday night. Kayla didn’t waste time on pleasantries.

“Mr. Grant Money, we have a model, a mission, and a missing $7 million. Think you can fix that?”

I smiled, leaned back in my chair, and thought about how the last time I helped an oil town turn clean, we ended up funding an entire solar fleet in the Texas panhandle.

“I don’t fix things, Kayla. I fund revolutions.”

The federal government was offering billions through the Charging and Fueling Infrastructure (CFI) Discretionary Grant Program, but the competition was cutthroat. We had to prove Tulsa’s case wasn’t just technical—it was moral. And we had to do it with receipts, data, and soul.

I built a funding framework: anchor the narrative in Justice40, show measurable impact across emissions reduction, job creation, and community health, and stack it with state energy match funds and philanthropic partnerships to reduce the federal ask.

This wasn't going to be a basic grant. It was going to be a movement in a PDF.

✍️ Crafting the Winning Application

Now here’s the thing about grant reviewers: they read a hundred proposals a week. You want yours to stick? You’ve got to make them feel it.

We opened with a map. Not of charger locations—but of emergency room visits for asthma. Of school absenteeism in high-pollution corridors. Of average household income per transit stop. Every pixel told a story: where investment went, and where it didn’t.

We detailed how the Tulsa ChargeNet would deliver 175 charging stations to underserved blocks. But we also showed how it would create 124 new jobs, 68% of which were reserved for BIPOC or low-income residents via a new training program at Tulsa Tech.

We shared stories—like a grandmother in East Tulsa who drove for a ride-share company to pay her mortgage, but had to park her EV across town just to charge. Or a Native youth program that wanted to switch to electric shuttles but had no grid access nearby.

And then we hit them with the kicker: Tulsa wasn’t asking to be the first. It was asking to be a model. A test case for how mid-sized cities in red states could lead a green revolution without waiting for federal pity.

We submitted. We prayed. We waited.

📢 The Approval & Aftermath

The award letter came on a Friday. I was in Albuquerque wrapping up a rail electrification pitch when Kayla called. She didn’t say anything at first. Just let the silence carry for a moment.

Then—“We got it. $7.2 million. Full funding.”

I’ll admit it—I did a fist pump in the middle of a coffee shop.

Within six months, Route Spark was deploying its first 50 stations. Kayla’s office had hired two dozen local residents as site managers. And the first solar EV charger in North Tulsa? It got inaugurated by a group of third graders from Booker T. Washington Elementary, who’d helped design its mural.

People started noticing. Des Moines called. Baton Rouge called. Even Sacramento called. They wanted to know how Tulsa—a city that once thrived on oil—became a blueprint for equitable electrification.

And every time, we told them: This is what happens when you stop waiting for change and build it.

🔑 Grant Money Takeaways

Every project I work on leaves behind a trail of wisdom. Here’s what Tulsa taught me—and what you need to know if you’re trying to fund your own leap into the future:

1. Don’t pitch a project—pitch a prototype.

2. Equity isn’t a checkbox—it’s a multiplier.

3. Data tells. But stories sell.

4. Be unapologetically specific.

5. Don’t wait for the grid to come to you.

👋 What About You?

Now I’m looking at you. What neighborhood in your city still breathes dirty air while watching others zip past in electric sedans? What dreams are waiting for funding—but lack a storyteller to make them undeniable?

Let’s be clear: funding isn’t magic. But strategy? Narrative? Vision tied to outcomes?

That’s power. That’s legacy.

You bring the idea. I’ll bring the juice.

Until next time,
– Mr. Grant Money

💬 Discussion Questions

1. Tulsa flipped its oil-based legacy into a clean-energy blueprint. What industries or identities in your city could be reimagined into something more sustainable?

2. Do you think EV infrastructure should be a government responsibility, a private-sector push, or a community-led effort? Why? Explore grant acquisition strategies that fund all three.

3. Where in your community is innovation being left out or underfunded? What would it take to bring equitable infrastructure to those spaces?

4. Have you ever experienced grant funding or tried to pursue it? What barriers did you face—and what do you wish you had known earlier? Check out the Mr. Grant Money blog for ideas.

5. If Mr. Grant Money showed up in your city tomorrow, what project would you want him to champion—and why does it matter?

➕ Ready to Build Your Own Charging Blueprint?

Looking to electrify your block, your town, your legacy?

👉 Start here.
You bring the spark.
Mr. Grant Money brings the strategy.

🔄 Want to read more community-powered breakthroughs like this?
Explore the full archive at the Mr. Grant Money Blog.

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