Spring 2022 Newsletter
Letter from the Co-Directors
Dear Friends,
“Veil Girl", created by digital collagist Divine Agbeko. See more of her work here.
In this moment when long-held rights to make decisions about our bodies and health are being eviscerated, white supremacist violence is escalating, voting protections are being rolled back, and climate pollution is increasing, it can be difficult to not let the grief and despair overwhelm us. Over the last few weeks, we’ve been on the road with our staff meeting with grantee partners where they live and work. Being able to get a deeper understanding of these organizations’ vision, successes, impact, commitment and perseverance has inspired and motivated us more than we dreamed it could. Their collective efforts building multi-racial alliances to boost civic engagement, flex political power, and build cleaner and more equitable economies is exactly what’s needed right now.
The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recently highlighted the importance of social movements led by those most impacted by disparity and the political participation of women, people of color, and other marginalized groups in achieving global climate goals. We’re grateful to be able to support more than 90 organizations working at this critical intersection of climate, racial and gender justice across the U.S. South. Keep reading to meet our newest grantee partners and hear from some leaders on the ground—we hope they will make you feel inspired and hopeful, too.
In gratitude for your continued support,
Melanie Allen & Erin Rogers
Co-Directors, The Hive Fund
Welcoming Our spring 2022 Grantee Partners!
The Hive Fund’s Spring 2022 grants docket represents intensified support for organizations working year-round to increase civic and political engagement in the U.S. South—a region with outsized global warming pollution and erosion of rights, but also a legacy for galvanizing social progress. There is no road to climate progress or holding on to our democracy that does not go through the South.
Grantee partners led by women, people of color, and those on the frontlines are organizing, holding rallies and events, conducting trainings and actions, producing art and sharing stories, educating and mobilizing voters—all to boost participation at the polls, elevate justice to the top of decision-makers’ agendas, decrease the influence of dirty industries, and expand our imaginations about what’s possible, what we’re fighting for, and how we can win.
Voices from the Field
Listening and Solidarity Tour: What Leaders are Telling Us
When we met with our Participatory Decision-Making Working Group last fall, they reflected on how isolated and disconnected some of them feel in doing this work in the best of times, and shared that 18 months into COVID that feeling was especially strong. This discussion sparked an ambitious idea: a listening and solidarity tour to go see about our people. This spring, Hive Fund staff put that idea into action, heading out to meet with nearly all of our 90 grantee partners in person in the places they live and make a difference. We’re learning about grantees’ work and how we can be better funding partners. We’re also ground-truthing and refining our collective 2030 goals and gathering input on the most important strategic pathways for reaching them. All of this will set the stage for our three-year anniversary look-back and look-ahead report coming out later this fall.
During our visits, we’ve shared tears with leaders who get emotional about their profoundly personal connection to the work, and witnessed the strong bonds that form and the joy and love that grow through collaboration. We’ve met with grantee partners who are pulling together to stop the expansion of polluting facilities, protect themselves and their neighbors from violence and displacement, foster a culture of civic engagement, and lay the building blocks for a clean and equitable economy.
Isabel Araiza (right), For the Greater Good
One of our early stops was Corpus Christi, Texas, where we visited grantee partners who are effectively challenging new oil and liquified natural gas export terminals, and re-building lost community-based culture and power. As Isabel Araiza from For the Greater Good said, “Our fight is about more than stopping the oil and gas industrial build-out. At the root, there is an exploitative relationship between the powers that be, the people, and the environment. The real fight is to expand our imagination about believing we deserve better.”
In San Antonio, we heard from Jenn Longoria with Jolt about how Hive Fund support to an ecosystem of organizations has led to better collaboration. The trust that groups have been able to build when not competing for funds, she told us, has helped their collective statewide civic engagement efforts grow by “leaps and bounds.”
We also visited grantee partners in Atlanta, Georgia who are using civic engagement and community organizing to leverage federal dollars flowing for infrastructure and the regenerative economy to transform communities.
“We might feel good about the green economy,” Joel Alvarado of Partnership for Southern Equity told us, “but what good is the green economy if the same people are being hurt from it and the same people are benefitting from it? That is part of the challenge. We can’t allow for the old values to have a new veneer and us to just be okay with that. If we’re going to transition from fossil fuel, we also have to transition from the values that allowed that inequity to occur.”
Our partners in Georgia also reflected on the importance of investment in experimentation and innovation. “It is okay for people to design a program and it not work the way they thought it was going to work,” said Christina Cummings of Partnership for Southern Equity, “and that is fundable. What you learn from that process....is how to do it better. There should be more space for that innovation and that creativity to shine through because those are the ideas and the solutions that are going to save our planet, that are going to liberate our people, and that are going to leave something behind for our children and generations that we’re not going to meet.”
We’ll be continuing to visit and learn from partners throughout the summer, so stay tuned for more inspiring stories and photos to come!
Don’t Miss
Congratulations to Jalonne White-Newsome on her appointment as the White House’s top environmental justice official!
New Hive Fund Advisory Board member Sherri White-Williamson highlights the challenges facing communities long burdened by the pollution of industrial hog farms as North Carolina adopts biogas as a climate solution
Colette Pichon Battle of the Gulf Coast Center for Law & Policy gave a powerful interview about her climate activism and its root in her community’s losses in Hurricane Katrina in an episode of On Being with Krista Tippett.
Hive Fund Advisory Board member Jacqui Patterson’s Chisholm Legacy Project just released a new report on climate and gender justice. Don’t miss Jacqui’s cameo on Tonight with John Oliver’s Environmental Justice episode.
new roles, new faces
Please join us in welcoming three new Advisory Board members, Tamara Jones, Bakeyah Nelson and Sherri White-Williamson. We would also like to thank Advisory Board members Felicia Lucky and Frances Roberts Gregory for stepping up to lead as co-chairs, and share our deep gratitude to the Hive Fund’s inaugural co-chairs Chandra Farley and Jane Breyer for their leadership and service. Finally, we’d like to introduce our new strategic communications director, Julian Foley, who is joining our team after working with us as a consultant for the last two years. You can learn more about these amazing women on our Advisory Board and Staff pages.
Thank You
We’re grateful for the partnership and support of all of our funders, and welcome our newest supporters: Rihanna’s Clara Lionel Foundation (read our announcement here), Gelman Giving, Zegar Family Foundation, Sobrato Philanthropies, and the Resourcing Justice Fund, a fund of Tides Foundation. Because of your partnership, we are able to expand our grantmaking to support a more robust ecosystem of groups addressing urgent community needs and building the foundation for long-term change.
You can find a more complete list of our funding partners here.