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Coalition for Clean Air

Conditional whole-organization value of a $100,000 unrestricted gift

Research time: ~15 min on GPT-5.6 Sol Medium
  • Research — organization and evidence review.
  • Modeling — cost-effectiveness analysis.
  • Historical estimate for research done before time tracking.

Published: September 8, 2026.

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Summary

What do they do? CCA's whole portfolio includes freight and vehicle policy, climate, monitoring and education. This model quantifies only hypothetical future charging-allocation and implementation capacity while retaining all gift costs. It does not credit a new gift for old policy passage or already submitted comments. More

Why this approach interests us

  • Current CCA policy work supports charging infrastructure that could bring clean truck and bus operation forward. A matched CARB zero-emission substitution model supports the physical mechanism.

Our main reservations

  • The health-per-truck anchor is a coarse ratio from a historical forecast, not a measured marginal effect. Future decision influence, actual deployment, competing projects, cost and residence shares are judgments.

What do you get for your dollar?

Central donor estimates are $1.24 billion per 10 US QALYs, $12.4 billion Bay and $124 billion SF. The favorable joint case is $811,000 US, $3.60 million Bay and $23.2 million SF; its net resource numerator is nine times the gift. This model finds no demonstrated bargain. Inspect formulas, inputs and sources.

central donor cost / 10 qalys
$124B SF / $12.4B Bay / $1.24B US — Same $100,000 gift: 0.0000080411 SF, 0.000080411 Bay and 0.000804110 US QALYs. All assumed in California; regional health is nested.
whole-gift boundary
$100,000 once — 40% assigned to future charging-related capacity, 60% other portfolio work with unquantified health. All-in staff cost includes shared delivery operations.
recipient
Coalition for Clean Air · EIN 23-7120567 — Official general donation form and FY2024–25 Form 990 identify the recipient; not a current IRS-status audit or a restricted Bay offer.
central net resource numerator
$110,000 — Gift plus zero assumed net public resource difference and $10,000 net private resources. Separate target gross envelope $160,000 before subtracting alternative-project resources.

1. What do they do?

CCA's whole portfolio includes freight and vehicle policy, climate, monitoring and education. This model quantifies only hypothetical future charging-allocation and implementation capacity while retaining all gift costs. It does not credit a new gift for old policy passage or already submitted comments.

Fund additional future capacity

40% of the gift at $200,000 per all-in staff-year buys 0.2 nominal staff-years. Funding additionality discounts replacement of existing support.

Change a distinct decision

Two opportunities per staff-year and 10% incremental change probability yield 0.02 expected changed decisions after 50% funding additionality. Probability already conditions on coalition work.

Enable earlier clean operation

A nominal 100-vehicle project enables half its vehicles earlier; the alternative forgone supplies 25 equivalent clean vehicles. Charger installation alone is not a health outcome.

Count finite net health

Only three earlier operating years after two years' delay count, followed by finite avoided-death survival. Displaced-project health remains lost if target deployment fails.

Scope of this review. Target, displaced and independent-harm geographies are separate. Bay includes SF. Do not duplicate the same decision, vehicle operation or pollution-mediated death across CCA, SPUR, Brightline or other coalitions.

2. Monitoring and information sharing

California clean-transportation allocation and implementation

CCA primary CEC comment and commission participation record. July 8, 2026 CCA comment prioritizes cleaner heavy-duty infrastructure. August 28 CEC report lists CCA among many participants.

Our assessment. Supports actual current organizational work, not decision success, funding additionality or exclusive attribution.

Mixed California medium/heavy-duty vehicles

CARB 2019 proposed Advanced Clean Trucks forecast. 18 annual avoided deaths in 2030 and visually approximately 60,000 ZEVs provide an order-of-magnitude annual health scale.

Our assessment. Not a current regulatory forecast, per-truck experiment or structural marginal derivative. Old baseline, geography, stock and health timing differ from new charging projects; explicit transfer factor does not resolve uncertainty.

South Coast medium/heavy-duty fleets

CEC 2026 replicable infrastructure blueprint. Identifies infrastructure, purchasing, turnover and cost constraints on acceleration and possible local traffic burdens.

Our assessment. No measured charging-adoption elasticity. Actual clean operation and independent displaced alternative are required.

Whole organization

CCA FY2024–25 Form 990; visually checked pages 1 and 10. Revenue $2,149,048; expense $2,452,895: program $1,479,082, management/general $647,639, fundraising $326,174.

Our assessment. Reconciled accounting and recipient identity, not current marginal cost or health allocation. No second overhead penalty.

Selected South Coast pollution episodes

UCI port-terminal blueprint alternative. Primary caveat says two high-pollution months cannot be annualized.

Our assessment. Not used as the numerical anchor; no inspection/maintenance effect imported.

3. Qualitative assessment

Current CCA policy work supports charging infrastructure that could bring clean truck and bus operation forward. A matched CARB zero-emission substitution model supports the physical mechanism.

Key reservations

  • The central $124B SF estimate is a very uncertain partial-health result, not an assessment of every benefit of CCA.
  • No measured marginal decision effect, complete project cost, actual clean-operation increment or alternative-project health.
  • Historical mortality/fleet ratio is coarse and nonstructural. Current diesel standards, grid supply, fleet mix and epidemiological timing can materially alter it.
  • Bay/SF shares are separate analyst assumptions; statewide externalities may benefit nonclients, but geography must follow exposure.
  • Public and private costs are present-value real-input scenarios; transfers and overlapping assets must not be counted twice.

Benefits not included in our estimate

  • Other CCA education, monitoring, climate and policy health
  • Nonfatal respiratory/cardiovascular morbidity
  • Noise, collision, congestion and construction harms except displacement/independent-harm stresses
  • Climate effects outside the air-pollution death branch
  • Medical spending and general fiscal opportunity costs

4. What do you get for your dollar?

Future net clean-vehicle years, not enacted-policy totals

The model's central result is 1.5 net earlier clean-vehicle years and 0.000225 avoided deaths before finite survival and event-time discounting. Every marginal input is a judgment; the historical regulatory study supplies a coarse matched health scale only.

A better life is our comparison unit of 10 additional quality-adjusted life years (QALYs), potentially spread across people. These are uncertain estimates, not measured returns or verified donation offers.

How we calculate the estimate

Whole-gift capacity and displacement bridge: Staff = gift × charging allocation / all-in staff-year cost. Changed decisions = staff × distinct opportunities × incremental CCA change probability × funding additionality. Regional Q = (target accelerated vehicles × target share − displaced equivalents × displaced share) × annual death prior × transfer × finite survival tail × discounted acceleration-year sum − independent harm × harm share.
Central 0.2 staff-years → 0.02 expected changed decisions → 1 target and 0.5 displaced vehicle-equivalents → 0.000804110 California QALYs at gift.

Model inputs and assumptions
Charging allocation / all-in staff-year cash
40% / $200,000 (range: 20–60% / $150,000–$300,000). Staff cost includes related research and shared operations; not employee salary or functional-accounting ratio. Entire $100,000 stays in numerator. Analyst marginal judgment.
Distinct opportunities / incremental decision change
2 per staff-year / 10% (range: 1–4 / 2–25%; null retained). Probability already measures added CCA effect conditional on coalitions and agencies. No second coalition-credit multiplier and no duplicate projects. Unmeasured attribution prior.
Financial additionality
50% (range: 0–80%). Whether added staff work occurs rather than replacing funding. Distinct from decision attribution. Analyst judgment.
Nominal vehicles / actual earlier clean operation
100 / 50% (range: 25–500 / 20–80%; failed-deployment harm). No named project offer. Includes vehicle availability, utilization, attrition and already committed baseline deployment. Prospective project archetype.
Alternative clean-vehicle-equivalent fraction
25% of nominal project vehicles (range: 16–50%; pessimistic exceeds target enabled share). Independent of target success. Alternative need not literally buy trucks; same finite health scale represents forgone project health. Analyst opportunity-cost judgment.
Annual mortality / transfer factor
0.0003 death per vehicle-year / 50% (range: 0.00005–0.0005 / 25–80%). 2019 CARB ACT Table V-3: 18 deaths in 2030; Figure IX-1 roughly 60,000 ZEVs. Ratio is not a measured marginal derivative. Transfer aggregates modern baseline, grid, duty-cycle, exposure and timing mismatch; no inspection proxy. Coarse historical model-informed prior.
Acceleration window / start delay
3 years / 2 years (range: 1–5 / 1–4 years). Count earlier operation only until no-gift adoption catches up. Events at year midpoints; 3% discount. Finite counterfactual judgment.
Utility / competing mortality / finite tail
0.7 / 8% yearly / 10 years (range: Favorable 0.8 / 5% / 15 years; short-tail stress 3). 3.962 central QALYs at event. Separate from operating window; no statistical-life dollar conversion or repeat survival credit. Analyst health judgment.
Target and displaced Bay / SF shares
Both 10% Bay / 1% SF (range: Favorable target 20% / 3%, displaced 10% / 1%; zero-SF stress). Historical air-basin pattern is only loose context; not SF city data or a guaranteed nine-county exposure map. All modeled health assumed California residents. Unmeasured residence allocation.
Target / alternative real project costs
Public $2M / $2M; private net $1M / $0.5M per changed decision (range: Larger favorable projects; extra-public-cost stress). Net real inputs at gift date; transfers excluded, public-paid assets not charged again privately. Private amounts include capital timing, energy and maintenance savings. Unpriced present-value judgments.
Independent donor harm diagnostic
Zero (range: 0.01 US QALY with zero additionality). Separate from lost alternative-project health; survives no staff activity and uses its own geographic partition. Hypothetical sensitivity.

Same $100,000 gift in all eleven scenarios

  • central: SF donor: $124,361,032,873/10 QALYs. US/Bay/SF QALYs: 0.000804110401 / 0.0000804110401 / 0.00000804110401. US/Bay donor prices $1,243,610,329 / $12,436,103,287 per 10 QALYs. Expected net public resources $0; net private $10,000. Total net resource numerator $110,000; target gross envelope $160,000. US/Bay/SF net-resource prices $1,367,971,362 / $13,679,713,616 / $136,797,136,161 per 10 QALYs.
  • favorable joint: SF donor: $23,158,051/10 QALYs. US/Bay/SF QALYs: 1.23375792 / 0.277595531 / 0.0431815271. US/Bay donor prices $810,532 / $3,602,363 per 10 QALYs. Expected net public resources $0; net private $800,000. Total net resource numerator $900,000; target gross envelope $4,900,000. US/Bay/SF net-resource prices $7,294,786 / $32,421,271 / $208,422,458 per 10 QALYs.
  • pessimistic harm: SF donor: No finite positive ratio. US/Bay/SF QALYs: -7.37149394e-9 / -7.37149394e-10 / -7.37149394e-11. US/Bay donor prices No finite positive ratio / No finite positive ratio per 10 QALYs. Expected net public resources $0; net private $133. Total net resource numerator $100,133; target gross envelope $100,800. US/Bay/SF net-resource prices No finite positive ratio / No finite positive ratio / No finite positive ratio per 10 QALYs.
  • no funding additionality: SF donor: No finite positive ratio. US/Bay/SF QALYs: 0 / 0 / 0. US/Bay donor prices No finite positive ratio / No finite positive ratio per 10 QALYs. Expected net public resources $0; net private $0. Total net resource numerator $100,000; target gross envelope $100,000. US/Bay/SF net-resource prices No finite positive ratio / No finite positive ratio / No finite positive ratio per 10 QALYs.
  • no policy effect: SF donor: No finite positive ratio. US/Bay/SF QALYs: 0 / 0 / 0. US/Bay donor prices No finite positive ratio / No finite positive ratio per 10 QALYs. Expected net public resources $0; net private $0. Total net resource numerator $100,000; target gross envelope $100,000. US/Bay/SF net-resource prices No finite positive ratio / No finite positive ratio / No finite positive ratio per 10 QALYs.
  • no clean vehicle operation: SF donor: No finite positive ratio. US/Bay/SF QALYs: -0.000804110401 / -0.0000804110401 / -0.00000804110401. US/Bay donor prices No finite positive ratio / No finite positive ratio per 10 QALYs. Expected net public resources $0; net private $10,000. Total net resource numerator $110,000; target gross envelope $160,000. US/Bay/SF net-resource prices No finite positive ratio / No finite positive ratio / No finite positive ratio per 10 QALYs.
  • equal benefit displacement: SF donor: No finite positive ratio. US/Bay/SF QALYs: 0 / 0 / 0. US/Bay donor prices No finite positive ratio / No finite positive ratio per 10 QALYs. Expected net public resources $0; net private $10,000. Total net resource numerator $110,000; target gross envelope $160,000. US/Bay/SF net-resource prices No finite positive ratio / No finite positive ratio / No finite positive ratio per 10 QALYs.
  • independent donor harm: SF donor: No finite positive ratio. US/Bay/SF QALYs: -0.01 / -0.001 / -0.0001. US/Bay donor prices No finite positive ratio / No finite positive ratio per 10 QALYs. Expected net public resources $0; net private $0. Total net resource numerator $100,000; target gross envelope $100,000. US/Bay/SF net-resource prices No finite positive ratio / No finite positive ratio / No finite positive ratio per 10 QALYs.
  • short survival: SF donor: $292,857,397,990/10 QALYs. US/Bay/SF QALYs: 0.000341463117 / 0.0000341463117 / 0.00000341463117. US/Bay donor prices $2,928,573,980 / $29,285,739,799 per 10 QALYs. Expected net public resources $0; net private $10,000. Total net resource numerator $110,000; target gross envelope $160,000. US/Bay/SF net-resource prices $3,221,431,378 / $32,214,313,779 / $322,143,137,789 per 10 QALYs.
  • extra public resources: SF donor: $124,361,032,873/10 QALYs. US/Bay/SF QALYs: 0.000804110401 / 0.0000804110401 / 0.00000804110401. US/Bay donor prices $1,243,610,329 / $12,436,103,287 per 10 QALYs. Expected net public resources $20,000; net private $10,000. Total net resource numerator $130,000; target gross envelope $180,000. US/Bay/SF net-resource prices $1,616,693,427 / $16,166,934,274 / $161,669,342,735 per 10 QALYs.
  • no sf health: SF donor: No finite positive ratio. US/Bay/SF QALYs: 0.000804110401 / 0.0000804110401 / 0. US/Bay donor prices $1,243,610,329 / $12,436,103,287 per 10 QALYs. Expected net public resources $0; net private $10,000. Total net resource numerator $110,000; target gross envelope $160,000. US/Bay/SF net-resource prices $1,367,971,362 / $13,679,713,616 / No finite positive ratio per 10 QALYs.

Uncertainty. Scenarios are not confidence intervals and central is not a calibrated expected value. Failure to enable clean operation retains displaced-project harm. Null and negative health have no positive ratio. Favorable prices remain far above $100,000/10 QALYs without threshold tuning. Whole-organization unquantified benefits could change overall value.

5. Funding and previous grants

Conditional research; independently audited model. No verified extra decision capacity or project-level deployment/exposure counterfactual; no donation recommendation.

Official general giving is available. Current work motivates prospective capacity but no specific marginal staffing offer or affected project is verified. Existing mandates, already adopted funding and other advocates form baseline; old ACT passage earns no new-gift credit. Zero central public net cost is an equal-real-cost reallocation assumption, not measured free public resources.

This review does not establish a verified marginal funding offer or a complete history of grants.

Donate

Opens the organization’s giving page. A general donation may not fund the specific activity modeled here; confirm allocation with the recipient.

6. Sources

  1. FY2024–25 Form 990; visually checked pages 1,10. CCA. Primary organization filing or disclosure. Published: Period July 2024–June 2025; prepared May 7, 2026; retrieved: September 8, 2026.
  2. July 8 2026 comment TN271317. CCA/CEC docket. Primary organization filing or disclosure. Published: July 8, 2026; retrieved: September 8, 2026.
  3. 2026–27 commission investment plan TN272245. CEC. Primary agency study or docket; access limits stated in title. Published: August 28, 2026; retrieved: September 8, 2026.
  4. Proposed ACT ISOR; matched zero-emission substitution, historical forecast. CARB. Primary agency study or docket; access limits stated in title. Published: October 22, 2019; inspected V-1 to V-6, VI-2, IX-3 to IX-7; retrieved: September 8, 2026.
  5. Replicable MDHD infrastructure blueprint, CEC-600-2026-017; page33. CEC. Primary agency study or docket; access limits stated in title. Published: April 2026; retrieved: September 8, 2026.
  6. Port Terminal Blueprint alternative examined; two high-pollution episodes cannot annualize. CEC/UCI. Primary agency study or docket; access limits stated in title. Published: 2025; search-indexed primary caveats inspected, not full source; retrieved: September 8, 2026.
  7. Official donation form and EIN. CCA. Primary organization filing or disclosure. Published: Undated; accessed September 8, 2026; retrieved: September 8, 2026.

Annual expenses: years and sources

Average annual expenses (three consecutive fiscal years): Not available. Organization size is separate from the modeled cost-effectiveness of a donation.

Coalition for Clean Air

Three years of organization-level expenses have not yet been verified for this report. No other organization or fiscal sponsor budget has been substituted.