Working in Partnership
“We need to end the underfunding of communities of color once and for all, if we really want to control the climate crisis and create a viable future for all.”
Ashindi Maxton, Co-Founder of the Donors of Color Network
Several of our grantee-partners and frontline leaders of the climate justice movement asked us to administer and co-create these funds. We provided information, reviewed applicants, and awarded and raised money. This demonstrates the high level of trust that we have built across the climate justice movement in our philanthropic and narrative roles.
Grantee UPROSE Executive Director Elizabeth Yeampierre meets with U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm to discuss place-based approaches to implementing federal climate policy.
Photo Source: S&P Global Market Intelligence
Grantees Groundswell and the Partnership for Southern Equity asked The Solutions Project to join them in launching this program. It’s designed to increase access and funding for organizations led by Black and Indigenous people, and people of color, that are eligible for new federal Justice40 Initiative investments.
Our work included the review of more than 300 applications by seven independent reviewers. We awarded 52 projects for the first cohort. We committed $250,000 of our funding and raised an additional $1.25 million for the program. We also led media outreach with coverage in Bloomberg, CBS, Forbes, Reuters, The Guardian, The Hill, and TIME.
“It’s called the environmental Justice40 Initiative which means that 40% of the benefits and investments that are being negotiated in Congress right now should go to communities that are left behind.”
U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm
Funds were distributed evenly across four budget ranges to the 20 grantees.
We launched Communicating Our Power with Climate Justice Alliance (CJA) and Center for Story-based Strategy. The purpose of this fund is to build narrative power and communications capacity among grassroots organizations in frontline communities across the United States.
The two-year cohort provides 20 BIPOC-led grassroots organizations with the funding, training and infrastructure to support their communications and narrative strategies.
We awarded $4 million to 20 People of Color-led organizations across 16 states. This money was used to hire communications staff and participate in a two-year narrative fellowship. For most of the cohort, this is the first time they’ve had dedicated resources to hire communications staff and build their own narrative infrastructure — despite leading field-wide innovations and scaling climate justice solutions for years.
Bineshi Albert. Co-Executive Director of Climate Justice Alliance.
Climate Justice Alliance (CJA) asked The Solutions Project to host this fund. This program works to accelerate the flow of capital, land stewardship, and resources to the grassroots.
The Fund for Frontline Power is a $10 million autonomous fund fully governed by frontline leaders. They move these funds towards 13 solutions and strategies they believe are most important to achieve a Just Transition. We committed $1 million and raised another $3.1 million for this fund.