Announcing our Spring 2024 Grants

This spring we’re excited to announce over $18 million in multiyear grants to more than 50 groups — our largest docket ever. Like our grantee partners, we feel a sense of urgency to ensure that our democratic form of government not only survives but is strengthened in ways that build trust, bring more people into the governing process, and help accelerate an equitable transition to cleaner energy.

Many of our grants are going to groups that are educating and mobilizing voters, countering white supremacist backlash and anti-democratic legislation, and building powerful multiracial coalitions. We are also supporting groups working toward cleaner and more resilient energy systems rooted in community needs and priorities. The work happening now to turn new federal climate funding into tangible projects that reduce pollution, improve infrastructure and climate resilience, and create economic opportunity in disinvested Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities will endure no matter what happens in November. Finally, to make way for more renewable energy, our spring grantmaking also includes a deepened commitment to groups fighting oil, gas, and biomass expansion, from local efforts to challenge permits to utility reform to state and federal policy campaigns.

In addition to the new grantee partners listed below, we also made renewals and supplemental grants to numerous current grantee partners.

Georgia

B.O.S.S. - Black Owners of Solar Services, a community of African American entrepreneurs, financiers, veterans, attorneys, engineers, contractors, developers and other peer partners working in the solar photovoltaic (PV) space, is piloting a program that will serve as a national model for supporting minority-owned businesses and entrepreneurs in entering the clean energy industry, helping build capacity for equitable implementation of the Inflation Reduction Act and other clean energy programs.

Black Too Earth connects Black people with Black environmental organizations through site visits and volunteer opportunities, inspiring and celebrating its community while investing in underrepresented organizations. The organization is mobilizing its base of Black environmentalists to support the last intact Gullah community on the Atlantic Coast from being displaced due to environmental and legislative threats.

Dialogue Collaborative, a project of Georgia Alliance Education Fund, is working to foster collaborative conversation in our communities to empower and inform Georgians and increase voter participation. It aims to create spaces that empower and inform and to bridge the participation gap in civic engagement through fact-based education and research with strategic, creative, and integrative communications strategies.

Equity for All, Inc. is an organization led by young people for young people that seeks to mobilize the unorganized organizer and those who feel they have no voice in the political process. It is committed to creating an active ecosystem of young people passionate about justice-centered policies that are empowered to exercise their political agency. Its “We Outside” program engages prospective voters where they are, at bike shows, strip clubs, festivals, brunches, car washes, and more.

Freedmen Green Bank and Trust is a nascent green bank that is providing financing for greenhouse gas reducing technologies and projects within low-income and disadvantaged communities.

Georgia STAND-UP was created to address longstanding tensions between southern labor unions and the Black community arising from the South’s history of racial segregation and discrimination. STAND-UP emphasizes base building to achieve power for Black working families, youth, and women, and is creating grassroots networks and infrastructure to support long-term structural change focused on reducing inequality, improving wages, and securing benefits for working families.

Girl Plus Environment is a national community dedicated to sharing educational resources, tools, and information that ignite enthusiasm and active participation among Black and Brown girls, women, and non-binary individuals in the realm of climate and environmental justice.

Green The Church taps into the power and purpose of the Black Church and expands the role of frontline faith communities as catalysts for environmental and economic resilience. Its programs empower community advocates and galvanize local leaders and communities, addressing issues specific to populations historically disengaged from conversations around pollution and health, climate change, and sustainability and energy efficiency.

Grist is a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future. In its reporting on energy issues in Georgia, it will deploy new forms of community-centered journalism, conduct trainings for local journalists and residents, and create partnerships that deepen trust and accountability of the news media.

HBCU Green Fund advances sustainability at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and in the communities they serve. It aims to empower HBCUs to become resiliency hubs and sustainable development anchors, working towards justice and equity for people of African descent. Its West Atlanta Project provides training, mentorship, and internship opportunities to prepare HBCU students for careers in the renewable energy and sustainability sectors.

Klean Energy Kulture is a nonprofit music and entertainment company that produces clean energy lifestyle campaigns, using Black pop culture to activate demand for clean energy. Its Electrify the Club campaign engages high profile music artists at Atlanta’s most popular clubs to generate buzz around electric vehicles and renewable energy.

Peach Concerned Citizens, Inc. unites activists, community organizers, faith leaders, citizens, social justice leaders, and legislators to improve overall civic engagement and quality of life of all citizens Crawford, Macon, Peach, and Taylor counties. It focuses on economic justice, climate justice, and social justice, while ensuring voter education and rights for everyone during elections. Its Future Leaders Development Program incubates youth economic and community leaders.

Louisiana

Broad Community Connections​ organizes community residents and businesses across New Orleans’ Broad Street to catalyze economic development and revitalization in ways that center Black and Brown people and their vision for the future. Its leadership in urban planning and community economic development efforts will allow it to pursue local and federal dollars for community-led climate resilience projects.

Feed the Second Line’s “Get Lit, Stay Lit” initiative is a block-by-block approach to resilience that supports small businesses and restaurants to serve as resilience hubs with solar and battery storage. The resilience hubs reduce energy bills for small businesses,​ provide reliable energy during black outs, and generate job opportunities in solar installation.

Thrive New Orleans​, a workforce training and small business development center committed to advancing racial equity, is developing a workforce development curriculum for solar and battery installers and energy raters that would provide career opportunities in the clean energy industry for low-income, people of color. Its workforce development programs provide wrap around services to ensure successful completion and placement in jobs.

North Carolina

Down East Coal Ash Environmental and Social Justice Coalition began after a Duke Energy coal ash pit spilled over into the Dan River, dumping 39,000 tons of toxic sludge into the waterway. In the ten years since the spill, it has successfully held Duke Energy and the NC Department of Environmental Quality accountable for the largest coal ash clean-up in the US, and held key roles in transformative campaigns to reduce fossil fuels and aim for 100% renewable energy in the state.

Robeson County Cooperative for Sustainable Development works to protect the quality of rural life in Robeson County and Southeastern NC and promote responsible and creative solutions that improve the lives of people and the places they live. It is working to build an inclusive, community-based, intergenerational, and multiracial base in the four-county region of Robeson, Scotland, Hoke, and Richmond Counties and advance environmental, climate, energy, and disaster justice and sustainable development.

Texas

Organized Power in Numbers works at the intersection of worker power and modern digital and data-driven organizing to help movements reach millions of people, invite them into movement, and level up campaigns that win for workers, their families, and their communities across the South and Southwest. In Harris County, they are co-chairing Power Up Harris County and will be reaching 4 million low-wealth and working-class residents through digital organizing that feeds into in-person community engagement and organizing. 

Ruido Studios serves as a hub for fostering innovative communications and digital strategies in South Texas, aiming to shape the narrative of the Texas-Mexico border by nurturing emerging digital media creators and organizations, with a goal to reclaim ownership of the popular story about the region. Ruido Studios plans to partner with climate and environmental justice organizations in South Texas to strengthen the communications capacity of frontline leaders, providing them the staffing and tools to amplify their stories.

South Texas Environmental Justice Network supports the leadership of frontline BIPOC communities in South Texas, challenging the status quo and corporate power to build a future centered on the social and environmental health of local Native and BIPOC communities living in reciprocal relationships with the natural environment. It aims to end environmental, social, and economic injustices through community building, empowerment of marginalized voices, and systemic change in the region.

Texas Youth Power Alliance was founded in 2018 by the largest youth civic engagement organizations in Texas - Jolt Initiative, MOVE Texas, Texas Rising and Youth Rise Texas. With a shared purpose of harnessing the full power of young people in Texas - especially young people of color – TYPA is a collective of state-based, homegrown groups that is committed to engaging and empowering young people to become bold, progressive, and transformative leaders.

Regional and National

Black Girl Environmentalist (BGE) is a national community dedicated to empowering Black girls, women and gender expansive people in the climate movement. BGE creates pathways for emerging climate leaders of color to thrive across environmental disciplines. Their BIPOC Climate Creator program aims to partner with frontline organizations in the Gulf South to empower those directly experiencing pollution and health impacts from fossil fuels to be the dominant narrative in environmental education.

Deployment Gap Model Education Fund is a public education and analysis project that helps organizers, advocates, and others prioritize key geographies for clean energy deployment and shut down of fossil infrastructure.

Gulf South Fossil Fuel Finance Hub connects the Gulf South frontlines with national and international finance campaigns targeting banks, asset managers, private equity firms and insurers. It currently includes 35 active organizations and over 100 Gulf-based frontline activists, organizers, national and international finance campaigners, LNG experts, fossil finance experts, researchers, lawyers and advocates.