Grantmaking
Current Grantee Partners
Grantmaking Model
We support groups in the US South that are building power to meet our shared goals of rapidly transitioning to cleaner, renewable energy in ways that equitably redistribute leadership, ownership, and benefits to disinvested communities; and stopping the expansion of dirty energy industries, breaking their political, economic, and social stranglehold, and reducing their pollution and other direct harms to communities.
Our grantmaking also aims to increase the positional power of women of color and other frontline leaders and resource them to succeed and thrive, disrupting the systemic racism that tilts the playing field toward predominately White-male-led organizations.
Our grants are:
Multiyear general support: Recognizing grantees’ expertise and maximizing their flexibility and financial security.
Multipronged: Supporting constellations of groups engaged in many tactics and levers of change.
Multisolving: Supporting groups working across multiple interconnected issues.
Power Building Approaches
Grantee partners are building people, economic, and cultural power to address our shared goals using several key strategic approaches:
Accessing finance and other economic tools to accelerate an equitable and just energy transition
With billions in new federal climate funding coming available, grantee partners are working to shape how those and other funds and financing opportunities flow, and lining up projects that simultaneously reduce climate pollution and build wealth, health, and resiliency in communities that have borne the brunt of dirty energy and systemic disinvestment.
Shaping, winning, and implementing strong and equitable clean energy policies
Photo courtesy of Coalition for Environment, Equity & Resilience (Texas)
Electric utilities and state regulators across the South are overhauling rules governing energy, often in response to storms or statewide climate commitments, creating historic opportunities for advocates to help design more equitable energy frameworks. New clean energy industries are also opening shop in the South, bringing with them the opportunity for workers and communities to broker policies for equitable hiring and community benefits. Groups need more resources to engage in an ever-growing number of policy processes to advance solutions that benefit Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities.
Making climate justice movements more powerful, collaborative, and inclusive
Organizations across the South are becoming increasingly sophisticated about coalescing in movement formations, coordinated tables, and coalitions, boosting their power far beyond what single organizations could do alone. White nationalist and anti-democratic forces are responding to this growing power, using everything from violence to grievance narratives to intimidate people and fracture multi-racial coalitions. Burnout is also threatening movement health. Groups are working to build collaborative infrastructure, develop pipelines for new leaders, normalize healing justice and security practices within and among their organizations, and access other tools to help their movements thrive.
Strengthening and flexing people power through increased civic engagement
Change at scale requires governmental action. To shift policies and budgets in response to public demands, government leaders need the political will to overcome powerful incumbents, wealthy opponents, harmful ideologies, and other barriers. Grantee partners are working year-round to disrupt growing anti-democratic forces and build political will for a rapid clean energy transition through community organizing and civic engagement.
Motivating people to action through emotion, connection, values, and expanded imagination
Dirty energy industries understand the importance of winning the hearts and minds of the public and spend significant amounts to promote and maintain positive narratives about their harmful products. Stories and messages rooted in lived experience and cultural identity have proven effective in countering harmful messaging and building alignment toward positive visions of change. Grantee partners are connecting with people through arts, culture, and storytelling, and working in coalition to promote new narratives about what’s possible.