suma awarded $2.1M

Portland, OR – September 12, 2024 

Suma’s Transportation Decarbonization grant proposal for $2.1M in funding from Portland Clean Energy Fund (PCEF) was unanimously approved by Portland City Council on Wednesday, September 11, 2024. We are excited to be a part of this historic PCEF grant round, which awarded over $91M for climate action by low-income people, people of color, adults with disability and other frontline communities. Our grant will enable suma to expand the suma platform, a bilingual commerce app that frontline community members use to purchase and save money on essential expenses and to protect their privacy. 

“Suma wants to thank the many community members and grassroots partners who have helped us design, launch and grow the suma platform. We like to think of this PCEF grant as our seed round to scale our startup, after bootstrapping the platform with our former fiscal sponsor Verde and after a friends-and-family round with aligned foundations” said Jacqueline Gormley, suma Communication Driver.

With the new funding, suma expands clean mobility options on the platform with Lime, Lyft and the Portland Bureau of Transportation, deepens our longstanding grassroots outreach to frontline communities, and integrates new transportation subsidies and discounts to the platform. Suma also improves access for adults with disabilities by developing the suma platform’s first comprehensive accommodation for a specific disability community (e.g., deaf/hard of hearing, blind/visually impaired, mobility impaired, &c.) and integrating community-specific subsidy and discounts to the platform to meet their needs. 

For more information about the suma platform, our expanded clean mobility offerings, disability accommodation plans, or any other inquiries, please contact Jacqueline Gormley at jacqueline@mysuma.org.

About suma:
Suma is a tax-exempt nonprofit that imagines and builds an inclusive technology future with low-income people, people of color, adults with disability and other frontline communities. We believe that responsive technology investments and institutions can build community power to address climate change, poverty and racial injustice. Per its mission statement, and in solidarity with historic and emerging frontline leadership on technology issues, “suma creates platforms for digital organizing, enterprise and justice.” Visit mysuma.org for more information.