Build Media Capacity
Provide. Grow. Amplify. Influence.
Our communications programming aims to shift media coverage of the climate crisis:
- to center equitable solutions created by frontline communities and
- to increase our grantees’ influence with key audiences.
Well-Rounded Support
We support climate changemakers, innovators, and solutionaries in multiple ways as they lead and advance bold solutions within their communities. We provide communications training, digital capacity, marketing services, and access to major platforms that amplify our grantees’ work.
As their visibility heightens, so does their social, emotional, and logistical demands. That’s why we also offer wellness support. It helps our grassroots partners better navigate these demands, build cultural power, and ultimately grow their influence.
The Solutions Project makes it possible for climate justice leadership to manifest our dreams of transformation and justice — this support lives in our communities, in our renewable energy initiatives, and in our growing capacity to amplify the stories we have been weaving for generations!
– Elizabeth Yeampierre, Executive Director, UPROSE
Provide. Grow.
We help make sure our grantees have the core communications infrastructure to be able to shift narratives and amplify their own work.
We listen and provide them with the practical tools they need. This may include covering the costs for a publicist or videographer, co-creating strategies, or designing shareable graphics for a big campaign. Our staff provides coaching, aligns production, and matches media opportunities to our partners’ strategies and our shared narrative so we grow together in our reach.
Photo: Sarah Shanley Hope with Quest Solar at the Nathan Cummings Foundation
Amplify. Influence.
Through a mix of celebrity engagement and media partnerships, we use our relationships to amplify our grantees’ messages, stories, and efforts.
We do this by leveraging connections with influential people who reach millions through digital and earned media, and their creative projects. Through these high-trust relationships, we open opportunities for scaled resources and audiences to support grassroots climate justice solutions. We have relationships with artists such as Mark Ruffalo, Don Cheadle, and Regina Hall; industry leaders like Seventh Generation, a Unilever Company; powerful media outlets like TIME Magazine and TED; and allies across philanthropy and government who mobilize to support collective impact.
Photo: Mark Ruffalo with Elizabeth Yeampierre, Executive Director of grantee UPROSE
We Get Results
In 2021, we brought climate justice solutions to the center of the public dialogue.
Our support helped to increase the influence of 65 grantees. They had over 350 media hits and broadcast events viewed by more than 25 million people with more than 8 billion potential impressions.*
Our support advanced narratives that showcased frontline climate solutions — spotlighting grantee innovations in crisis response, policy, and campaigns for community control. Our independent media tracker also showed a major increase in news coverage of clean energy with an equity lens and a focus on communities of color. This follows a year-over-year increase in coverage of women spokespeople and equity issues in clean energy since our 2017 baseline report.
*Coverage includes media views, an estimate of individual interactions with content, in addition to possible impressions based on the outlet’s unique views per month.
Clean energy media coverage 2019 – 2021
For a long time, environmental justice was kept separate from the environment at large. It’s become “mainstream” only recently, so it just wasn’t something the general public – including reporters — really knew about. We see that slowly changing, and we’re seeing more environmental reporters become more sophisticated in their understanding of environmental issues and how they impact communities of color.
– Yessenia Funes, Journalist, Atmos and The Uproot Project, a Solutions Project partner