The Just Returns Project report series finds that only 3% of climate funding from 50 influential U.S. foundations goes to grassroots climate justice groups—despite strong evidence that these organizations are delivering the most impactful, community-driven responses to the climate crisis.

>>> We invite you to examine and share the three reports in the series. 

• The first research brief, Put Your Money Where Your Mission Is: How to Make Your Investments Climate-Justice Aligned, illuminates the gap between foundations’ stated grantmaking missions and the outsized impact of their investments in propping up the fossil fuel industry. It provides recommendations to philanthropy on how to pivot their investment strategies to match their missions.
• The second brief, Put Your Money Where Your Mission Is: How to Make Your Grantmaking Climate Justice-Aligned, shows that climate grantmaking has disproportionately gone towards false solutions and Big Greens, despite the effective real solutions that grassroots organizations are implementing at a local and scalable level with fewer resources. It provides recommendations to philanthropy on how to match their grantmaking with real solutions to climate change.
• The third report, Voicing the Power of Climate Justice: Insights on the Impact and Sale of Grassroots Initiatives, shows the breadth and depth of grassroots achievements, which have impact across issue areas and sectors, confronting food systems, legacy pollution, economic equity, community development, social justice, and more, at the same time. More importantly, it quantifies the impact of grassroots climate solutions in a way that honors how grassroots want to qualify their impact.

Read the reports here.

It’s high time for philanthropy to move critical resources into the hands of those building resilient, community-rooted climate justice solutions.

Warmly,

Climate Justice Alliance