A Vision for Climate Funding

Climate change demands the attention of every foundation, and must be addressed on a number of fronts.

We’re calling on the foundation world to diversify its strategy by helping to build a people’s movement from the bottom up that puts pressure on governments, corporations, and other power structures to act on behalf of the people, not the fossil fuel industry and its allies.

We imagine a powerful coalition of progressive funders coordinating our work on multiple fronts to meet the challenges of the climate crisis:

• building a genuine democracy more powerful than the lobbyists;
• committing to justice so communities of color and working class communities no longer bear the ecological and health consequences of our dependence on fossil fuels;
• partnering with labor and neighborhood economic development programs to create new jobs with dignity and comparable pay for workers displaced by the post-carbon economy (like coal miners);
• divesting from fossil fuels and invest in locally generated, locally owned energy;
• creating people-centered food, health, and housing sectors;
• developing local leadership and electoral power in communities on the frontlines; and
• offering a vision of a better future by accelerating the establishment of a new economy of empowered workers and entrepreneurs with access to working capital.

If we work together, funders working in public health, democracy, social justice, environment and economic development can help build the new power we need to create a resilient and fair economy.

Foundation staff and trustees are invited to contact us to discuss the possibility of sharing ideas and working together.