Five Ways Funders Can Accelerate Equitable Climate Action
By Jillian Du
This decade marks a significant moment of opportunity for climate action. Every day, the growing climate catastrophe is worsening the material conditions of frontline communities. Without transformative action, today’s nascent policy landscape will offer little protection or worse, deepen inequalities.
Yet, like never before, we are seeing frontline communities and grassroots groups create, pass, and champion equitable policies for climate and clean energy. A new wave of federal-level momentum on infrastructure and national uprisings in defense of Black lives, combined with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, points to a landscape ripe for climate, economic, and racial justice.
This is our call to action for funders: Let’s step boldly into this opening to redefine what is possible now. It is our imperative to find ways to strategically extend today’s single moment into sustained momentum.
“This is our call to action for funders: Let’s step boldly into this opening to redefine what is possible now.”
Based on interviews with local and national grassroots leaders of today’s climate justice movement, the Equity Fund’s new report – Accelerating Equitable Climate Policy: A Landscape Analysis – identifies five key ways funders can make the most of the opportunity before us and ultimately, accelerate equitable climate action:
1. Support organizing and base building to build power
The climate movement is powerless without a strong base. Building grassroots power is critical not only for policy wins, but also for sustaining advances towards a broader, more transformative vision. When political tides shift, a strong, organized base is what will hold politicians, utilities, and regulators accountable. That’s why the Equity Fund prioritizes supporting organizing capacity first and foremost. In addition to the Equity Fund’s grantees and state coalitions, promising examples such as the Green New Deal Network and the Movement for Black Lives’ Red, Black, and Green New Deal point to what’s possible when a broader, diverse base champions climate justice.
Increasing resources to communities of color, BIPOC-led multi-issue organizing, and base-building advocacy will ensure they have a voice in climate policy conversations, holding policymakers to account and thereby creating more durable and equitable climate action.
2. Invest in building in-house policy capacity, directly connected to organizing and movement
Community-based organizing groups must be equipped with the right skill-sets to lead on sophisticated strategies necessary for today’s politically-complex world. For many, this means renewed and increased investments in policy capacity.
Historically, policy capacity within grassroots groups has remained underfunded and overshadowed by larger, traditional environmental groups. Without in-house capacity, many of the frontline groups involved in our study reported that they must rely on short-term, external policy consultants often disconnected from organizing. This makes centering and advancing equity more difficult, as it does not always address the need for deeply intersectional policy and analytical support.
Given today’s climate landscape, there is an important opportunity to ramp up investments in frontline and grassroots groups to increase their policy capacity. Funders can ensure these investments are effective by focusing on long-term capacity rooted in social justice movements. A key piece involves providing sufficient general operating or lobbying eligible resources so that movement organizations have the ability to engage fully in policymaking. Too often we in the funder community expect under-resourced groups to deliver policy wins with restricted or 501(c)(3) funding only.
3. Advance strategies that align mid- and long-term planning agendas
In order to take advantage of the opportunities before us to create space for the next set of big climate wins, we need aligned agendas and intentional mid- and long-term planning. However, our analysis found that many state-level groups lack time or investments in spaces for coordination, alignment, and long-term planning.
This is in part because many groups are tied to short-term grant cycles that only support responses to immediate opportunities and do not allow for planning three to five years ahead. Multi-year funding that supports flexible, long-term planning and agendas offers key resources to building policy solutions from the ground up, rooted in long-term change. Investing in long-term planning means that groups can set the agenda themselves, instead of only responding to near-term attacks.
4. Tailor strategies regionally and avoid one-size-fits-all approaches
While on the whole, more resources and policy capacity are needed, specific needs vary by state. Some regions may need a focused approach on base-building, whereas other regions may need targeted efforts to build coalitions and coordinated platforms for policy development. When asked about specific policy capacity needs, our study participants covered a wide range depending on current capacity, relationships with state lawmakers, and how their state tables function.
Those needs included policy language and communications, policy ideation and strategy, policy and equity analysis, financial and budget policy, and legal capacity. While there is a breadth of support that is needed, our study gives philanthropic partners clear entry points for how to tailor support for frontline and grassroots groups.
5. Support a pipeline of intersectional policy talent
Lastly, we can set frontline and grassroots groups up for success by building a deep bench of diverse and intersectional expertise. This means intentionally expanding what constitutes expertise for the climate movement, and directly elevating the lived experience of BIPOC community members and folks from frontline communities. For many multi-issue organizing groups, success in their policy efforts is determined by how the work is rooted in community, people, and the movement. Ensuring that people with experience working in and with frontline communities are connected to climate opportunities – and retained – will be essential.
Philanthropy is well-positioned to help cultivate a pipeline of diverse policy practitioners, organizers, movement-builders, and more. Funders can support capacity-building programs that integrate broad perspectives – from public health to social justice – and foster our next generation of talent.
The time is now to increase efforts to fund and elevate community organizations engaging in equity-centered local, regional, and state policy efforts. By doing so, funders can accelerate and sustain the momentum needed to win environmental, economic, and social justice.
Jillian Du is the research & engagement strategist at the Equity Fund.
