GGF Mapping - Abbreviated Version

Global Greengrants Fund Advisory Network

NORTH AMERICA

asia

EUROPe

Legend - GGF Network

africa

Thematic Global AB

Regional AB

OCEANIA

Partner Funds

SOUTH AMERICA

Global Advisor Networks

GGF by the NUMBERS

Global Greengrants Fund - Campaigns by Topic

Campaign Focuses include but are not limited to:

• Indigenous Rights
• Climate Justice
• Fighting Extractivism
• GEF UN Women Gender Justice campaign
• Corporate Accountability
• Just Transition
• Land Tenure
• Environmental Defenders
• Disability Rights
• Movement Building and Support
• Loss and Damage

Many of our advisory boards have a campaign focus such as 350.org, African Coal Network, Earth Island, Friends of the Earth International, International Rivers, our IFI board, Oilwatch International, Pesticides Action Network, and Rainforest Action Network-click here for Advisory Board Strategies/Campaigns.

Global Greengrants Fund - Just Energy Transition Campaign Example

Environmental Defenders

OilWatch

Life After Coal

Africa Coal Network

FY24

Central Asia

Indigenous Peoples

In 2021 GGF launched a Just Energy Transition Initiative to:

• Recognize and expand the strong partnerships between advisors, organizations, funds, and networks working on JT,

• support grassroots groups working for a just transition and moving away from the historical, colonial global legacy of an economy based on extracting fossil fuels at all cost, and

• move into a new clean energy future that is just, decentralized and centering human rights and universal access to clean energy.

Transformational Journey

Vision of the Transformational JourneyIn five years, Global Greengrants Fund will have transformed its culture, structure and processes to better embrace its values. It will be a decentralized network that is strategic and learning. We will achieve greater impact by sharing resources, shifting philanthropy and deepening collaboration in an intersectional ecosystem for the sustainable, long-term support of environmental justice movements. Specifically, What Will it Do?

• Build resiliency among IP & LC movements
• Enable us to absorb and distribute more funding
• Broader reach to better address global needs
• Grow organizational and network learning
• Grow philanthropic advocacy
• Implement our Ecosystem vision

Comms Spotlight

Vision and principles woven into Comms

Goals and Objectives

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Audiences

Outcomes for Philanthropy and for the Grassroots

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Summary of Global Greengrants Fund's Communications Strategy

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Messaging, Content, and Education

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Insights into our newly-formulated Comms principles, goals and objectives. developed by our Comms Team, B de Gersigny and Kim Kaletsky

Learning and Exchange

Our vision is to build an organization that is engaged in ongoing learning; as part of a decentralized ecosystem that is continually listening, sharing and testing our assumption. In five years, very strong network learning is happening, in that advisors, partners and funds regularly look to the network for learning and exchange on accompanying grassroots environmental justice agendas, and this learning is incorporated into the strategies and planning of the network, and backed by the organization as a whole. Decentralized learning has centralized implications, fully changing the nature of decision-making and how we plan.

Our Learning Focuses are multi-directional and include:

• Movements to movements/grantee partners to grantee partners
• Advisors from movements and grantees
• Advisors from advisors
• Staff from advisors and grantee partners
• Donors from advisors, movements, grantee partners
• Field Building and philanthropic advocacy
• A Resource Hub to: share information and learning from and by communities and grantee partners and convenings involving partner groups, to share reflections from advisors and allied funds from their learning initiatives, to learn about the strategies of advisory boards and allied funds, to better understand the environmental justice networks in which we operate, including the possibility of mapping overlapping networks with feminist and other human rights networks.

MENA ADVISORY BOARD Grantmaking Strategy: The MENA Advisory Board is one of GGF’s newer boards, having recommended grants for two years now. While the MENA Board considers applications from any country in the MENA region, they are primarily focused on Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, Tunisia, and Morocco. A main focus is on supporting grassroots groups working on climate change mitigation or adaptation measures. The goal is that with financial support, these groups can develop holistic advocacy campaigns for the adoption of local and national mitigation and adaptation policies. The Board also supports groups working on extractive industries including campaigns against coal and also air, land, and water pollution caused by other extractives like phosphate and other minerals. Water and solid waste management are two other sectors that have been supported by the MENA board, along with several biodiversity and conservation initiatives.

Audiences:

• Philanthropy: Large Foundations and Collectives of Funders, Bilateral funders and Multilateral mechanisms, Ultra-high-net-worth individuals/Major donors
• Prospective donors (foundations and individuals giving $10,000+)
• Grassroots organizations, movements, networks, and advisors: Changing the narrative, (identifying failure and learning as a critical find and frame new solutions from the grassroots). They see the need for a case that can better convince donors to give directly and how to do it.

Among our movement strengthening and objectives are:

• Increase local understanding of challenges and threats, people’s rights, who is responsible, the impacts, and what can be done about them.
• Ensure environmental justice and human rights abuses and the people affected by them more visible to the public, officials, media, and civil society. This is especially important to counter misleading industry and government claims.
• Connect impacted communities and build alliances and coalitions that center local leadership and demands, and that can mobilize resources, knowledge, strategies, and solidarity.
• Enusre new alliances, coalitions or networks are able to define common platforms and collective action.
• Take advantage of all available avenues to prevent or delay harmful development, exerting opposition at all stages through available legal, institutional, financial, and political processes.
• Seek justice and accountability from the fossil fuel and transition mining industry and the enabling political and financial systems that are responsible for the myriad of damages communities have suffered.
• Develop just economic and energy alternatives for host communities that respect local rights, livelihoods, and the environment, and that don’t enable the fossil fuel industry to offset emissions from dirty energy projects to other communities.
• Build safety and resilience by creating the capacity, connections, and support infrastructure communities need to resist backlash and defend civic space and rights to freedom of expression and associationInfluence public and decision maker narratives.

RAINFOREST ACTION NETWORK Grantmaking Strategy: Community-led solutions are key to preserving forests, protecting our climate and upholding human rights — this is a core principle at Rainforest Action Network. For more than 27 years, RAN has made direct grants to Indigenous and grassroots organizations that are working on the frontlines of the battle to save our planet. From plantation expansion into rainforests to mountaintop removal coal mining; from illegal animal poaching to illegal land grabs; from massive water-source contamination to massive carbon pollution from profit-driven land management — these communities know these threats because they live with their environmental impact and their cost in human rights violations and species extinction. As the latest UN reports on the climate emergency have confirmed, Indigenous and frontline communities are the best stewards of the world’s rainforests and the best organizers against climate change. RAN prioritizes the following activities and outcomes with their grantmaking: (1) Rapid response to emerging and/or long-term problems, primarily related to extractive industries that impact community land and traditional territories; (2) Including community meetings and organizing, mobilizations, action camps/workshops, delegations, etc; (3) Community-led solutions: such as agroforestry, patrolling and monitoring territory, participatory mapping and demarcation, improved communications systems, etc.; (4) Small to regional NGOs supporting frontline communities through coordinated efforts like field studies and via legal support, capacity support, media support, etc. to secure increased land rights and other favorable outcomes for communities, as well as to provide data to hold companies accountable and support larger campaign efforts to protect forests and keep fossil fuels underground; (5) Seed funding for new community-based organizations and networks; and (6) Travel and other opportunities that amplify community voices in regional, national and international forums and provide access to decision-makers.

NEXT GENERATION CLIMATE ADVISORY BOARDGrantmaking Strategy: The Next Generation Climate Board is an advisory board of youth activists who recommend grants to other youth groups around the world working on Climate Justice. Objectives are to (1) Support activities that spread awareness of climate change more widely across youth and the population in general (2) Raise the urgency for stronger climate action locally to globally (3) Build and strengthen the climate change youth movement with an increased visibility of women, LGBTQIA+ and Indigenous participation (4) Strengthen relationships between youth and youth networks (5) Enhance capacities for youth engagement on climate change issues in decision-making processes at all levels (6) Strengthen youth participation in actions and policies for climate adaptation and mitigation (7) Build the capacity of youth in advocacy and help them in getting their voices heard in better, stronger and more strategic ways on climate change issues (8) Increase resiliency in local communities dealing with the impacts of climate change, with youth as a catalyst for change.

INDIA ADVISORY BOARD Grantmaking Strategy: The India Advisory Board has been following a broad strategy of supporting grassroots environmental justice focusing on Adivasi (Indigenous) communities, Dalit (lowest caste), women, transgender people, and rural and remote populations. They grant across a range of environmental justice issues, especially those related to forest rights and governance; implementation of the Environmental Protection Act and other laws and Acts pertaining to livelihoods and rights; improved natural resource management, pollution and occupational health: sustainable use and conservation; livelihoods generation and maintenance (fisheries, sustainable agriculture) including, food sovereignty and safety, GMO-free campaigns, organic agriculture, and seed saving. The board is also starting to expand work on the social and human rights dimensions of India’s renewable energy transition. The India AB supports work to strengthen the role of village councils to exercise their rights over natural and common property resources, strengthen governance over those resources, and make decisions with respect to industry and development processes that affect communities.

FRIENDS OF THE EARTH INTERNATIONAL Grantmaking Strategy: FOEI’s has a two-pronged approach to its grantmaking recommendations. About 75% of the grantmaking budget is used to strengthen grassroots campaigns within the one of network’s four international program areas: (1) Climate justice and energy; (2) Economic justice and resisting neoliberalism; (3) Food sovereignty (4) and Forests and biodiversity. FOEI also has two cross-cutting thematic areas of work: (1) Gender justice and dismantling patriarchy and (2) Human rights defenders. In general, FOEI’s grantmaking seeks to create sustainable societies in three ways; (1) mobilizing/organizing, (2) resisting, and (3) promoting and transforming. FOEI promotes building new democratic structures, as well as influencing existing ones. It does this through raising consciousness about the issues, sharing knowledge and experiences as much as possible, and create new initiatives and solutions.

CENTRAL AFRICA ADVISORY BOARD Grantmaking Strategy: The Central African Advisory board makes grants to grassroots groups in Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Central Africa Republic, and the Republic of the Congo. The board prioritizes grantmaking that (1) Promotes Indigenous Peoples’ rights to territory, and access to healthy forests; (2) supports Indigenous Peoples and local communities in management of natural resources in the face of external pressures from extractive interests, wildcat loggers, cattle growers and agricultural interests; (2) Supports women’s organizations and gender rights in their active participation in environmental governance; (3) Advances community forest management through the pioneering work of communities that will help establish good governance and sustainable management practice, (4) Promotes free and prior consent and transparency around large infrastructure and megaprojects, helping communities resist efforts they have deemed too destructive, violate human rights, do not bring long-term wealth to the country, or are otherwise unjust, (5) Supporting local communities influence deliberations around international carbon trading frameworks and certification schemes (6) Supporting grassroots efforts to promote sustainable agroecology and agroforestry (7) Supporting youth, women, people living with disabilities and other underserved groups in their leadership, decision making and environmental actions.

In Africa, we are deepening our partnership with the Africa Coal Network, which groups leading anti-coal activists from NGOs and networks across the continent to discuss trends, policy, platforms, tactics and learning with respect to a transition away from coal, and justice for threatened or affected communities, and inclusive invoices, especially women and youth. GGF provided key grants for analysis and convening of the network in advance of COP27 in Egypt, to determine common platforms and just transition framing. GGF will continue our collaboration in solidarity with the Africa Coal Network to share their collective learning with our wider network of activists advisors working on coal and gas, to supplement their learning and convening needs, and to increase the grantmaking budget they have available to recommend to grassroots struggles through the continent.

Africa Coal Network

SOUTHERN AFRICA ADVISORY BOARD Grantmaking Strategy: The Southern Africa Advisory Board takes an environmental justice approach to ensure environmental health, sustainable livelihoods and people’s right to participate in legitimate governance processes that affect their lives. The board aims to grant 60% of their budget in relation to extractive industries, energy injustice, with a strong emphasis on helping communities to resist unwanted and unaccountable industrial mining, fossil fuel industries, and offshore drilling. The remaining themes are split fairly evenly between land rights; waste and pollution; increasingly livelihoods grants; and other important opportunities for environmental justice movements. Climate change and increasing risk of drought, flooding and disasters have shifted the board’s priorities towards wider issues including more post-disaster support. The region is seeing a rise in autocracy and closing of civil society space. Currently the board grants in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia and Mozambique, with a new advisor just starting in Botswana. On rare occasion, the board will give a grant to known groups in Malawi, Botswana, or Lesotho.

GGF is working in partnership with the Environmental Defenders Collaborative and other allies to increase the support we provide to legal solutions, digital security, violence prevention and safety and security of environmental defenders. In March 2022 in Uganda, we supported digital and physical safety training for a wide group of grantees working in the oil rich regions of the Albertine Rift and the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP), from youth activists to policy think tanks. Multiple grantees have faced threats across the zone. The training workshop was conducted by Ugandan consultant Yona Wanjala of Defenders Protection Initiative. EDC has also collaborated to provide legal support and training to activists in the zone. We are also working with Swift Foundation and others to learn about safety and security needs and solidarity for environmental defenders throughout the Andes, and support CASA and other partner funds in their work with frontline defenders.

FONDO SOCIO-AMBIENTAL CASA Grantmaking Strategy: Casa partners with GGF in Brazil for grassroots grantmaking across all their major programmatic axes. This includes the Amazon program focused on Indigenous Peoples, Afro-descendant and other traditional organizations and communities throughout Amazonia in support of Indigenous territorial governance and sustainable well-being, with some funding geared towards emergency support. They also have a focus on Rivers and Oceans: This includes grantmaking to communities working to preserve coastal biomes and improve the quality of life of coastal populations, as well as artisanal fishing communities facing strong human rights threats and displacement. Casa also has a robust urban grantmaking program looking at food systems, circular economies, and pressures on natural resources. Finally, Casa grants to expand the autonomy of community organizations, enabling communities to be protagonists of their socio-environmental initiatives, through their strengthening capacities funding.

ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE FUND SOUTH AFRICA Grantmaking Strategy: Launched in 2022, the EJ Fund of South Africa uses participatory grantmaking decision models to reach movements across South Africa working on environmental and climate justice, including a strong focus on just transition away from fossil fuels, power and representation, and grassroots solutions to new economic and environmental ways of being. Principles include community-led empowerment, building independence from outside funders, transparency and open communications, feminist principles, supportive and collaborative, mentorship and solidarity, alternatives, participatory grantmaking. The fund made its very first grants in 2023.

WEST AFRICA ADVISORY BOARD Grantmaking Strategy: The West Africa Advisory Board has long been committed to supporting the rights of communities affected by displacement, landgrabs, property destruction, contamination and other rights violations linked to the rapid expansion of extractive industries across West Africa. This includes communities affected by gold mining (Ghana, Burkina Faso, Mali) and oil drilling (Nigeria, Ghana) and other mineral, gem, coal mining operations and natural gas drilling. Currently ~60% of grants are related to this theme. Over the past five years, there has been an increasing number of grants related to climate change resilience, reforestation, women’s land rights, disability rights and climate change, fisheries and agroecology. Many of these grants are going to geographic areas most prominently affected by extractive industries and hence still related to communities experiencing this environmental injustice, but represent a wider approach to resistance and redress. WAAB grants emphasize advocacy, rights and leadership training, coalition work, community exchanges and forums that build solidarity, and pursue legal, media and networking approaches. A major focus in Nigeria is the Ogoni people of the Niger Delta and their 50-year struggle against oil giants, their spills and impunity. Another major focus is on communities affected by the Newmont and Ashanti gold mines in Western Ghana. Senegal is the most recent country, with focus especially on the economic and social rights of coastal communities, including those affected by offshore oil and gas.

INTERNATIONAL RIVERS Grantmaking Strategy: International Rivers is an international organization devoted to the right to healthy rivers and the rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities who are dependent on them. IR advocates to increase public voice in environmental decision-making on rivers and river ecosystems and protecting territorial rights and environmentally sustainable livelihoods for river-dependent populations. GGF raises funds for staff and allies across the International Rivers Network to get funds to communities working to protect rivers and their human rights. For example, the Africa Program recommends grants to local NGOs working on dam issues and their outreach in helping communities threatened by proposed dams understand their rights, with a strong focus on women’s rights. The Southeast Asia Program advises grants to small and emerging local groups and networks working to project riverine communities, with a focus on the Mekong. The Latin America Program supports river-dependent communities including Indigenous Peoples who are working to protect their river territories from major projects including dams, infrastructure projects and river diversion. The Asia Program, based in India, works to expand IR’s work in the Himalayan region. IR has a Women and Rivers Program creating a network of support of women leaders around the world working to protect rivers.

350.ORG Grantmaking Strategy: 350.Org works to build global grassroots movements to address the climate crisis through online campaigns, grassroots organizing, and mass public actions in over 188 countries. The grantmaking strategy of 350.org is designed to fund grassroots climate and environmental justice organizations around the world to support frontline campaigns to stop fossil fuel development, climate-impacted communities, campaigns that promote climate solutions, and under-resourced climate activist groups.

SOUTHERN CONE ADVISORY BOARD Grantmaking Strategy: The Southern Cone Advisory Board works in an environmentally and culturally diverse region that includes Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay. The board works within a strategic framework of stimulating participatory processes that strive for environmental justice, linked to sustainability, equity, inclusion, and diversity, and the goals of (1) Encouraging greater community participation; (2) involvement and protagonism in confronting socio-environmental problems; (3) strengthening grassroots groups or initiatives and local processes; (4) Inserting social and human rights perspectives within socio-environmental issues in public agendas; (5) Supporting concrete solutions and alternative models that seek environmental justice; (6) Raising awareness of socio-environmental conflicts and support the demands of affected groups; and (7) Supporting exchange and communication between different involved actors in order to strengthen their organizational capabilities; (8) Supporting processes of resistance and struggle for the reclamation and restitution of individual and collective rights; and supporting the search for processes of convergence between different sectors working on the structural and systemic causes of the current problems in the region.

Goals

Objectives

• Shift narratives, frameworks and priorities towards greater decentralized funding for environmental justice
• Advocate for the efficacy of decentralized, trust-based and decolonized approaches to philanthropy
• Push for systems change and environmental justice led by grassroots movements
• Amplify the role of Greengrants (and leadership) in the media
• Build GGF org materials that stand out, are engaging and embody the values of GGF

Build education and awareness of GGF and our practices, and increase the number of donors willing to explore and/or implement participatory and trust-based philanthropic models with the aim of influencing the philanthropic ecosystem to shift power and resources to the Global South grassroots.

• Uplift strategies of learning, change & movement-building over time
• Recognize the unique and powerful role of GGF, our network & AB's (our POV)
• Shifting Power & Resources - highlight the formation story of partner funds in the Global South
• Leverage our 30-year history
• Collaborate with advisors, grantees and communications practitioners in the Global South to produce communications uplifting local visions rooted in the grassroots
• Shift the field of philanthropy towards a deeper understanding of the root causes of the climate crisis and the grassroots solutions responding to address them

Collaborate with leaders from the Global South to develop a bold Strategic Communications campaign that showcases environmental justice movement building and highlights narratives of organizing and philanthropic solutions

FONDO ACCION SOLIDARIA (FASOL-Mexico) Grantmaking Strategy: FASOL seeks to support the priorities of grassroots, community-led groups to respond to challenges and to innovate local ideas that advance both the social and environmental health of their communities. FASOL’s priorities crosscut global and strategic themes. Global themes include access to clean water, clean energy, sustainable agriculture and food security, biodiversity protection, halting environmental destruction, addressing climate change, sustainable local economies, and community resource management. Strategic themes include popular education, strengthening civil society capacities, and advancing human rights. FASOL focuses strongly on sustainable agriculture and agroecology, and defense of territory for Indigenous peoples and local communities.

EAST AFRICA ADVISORY BOARD Grantmaking Strategy: The goal of EAAB is to support local communities and under-represented voices to uphold their rights, to network with others, to seek solutions and improve the sustainability of their environment, livelihoods, and cultural heritage. The board reaches grassroots communities throughout Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Madagascar. The board focuses on equitable access to natural resources, rehabilitation of the environment, and addressing environmental injustices. The board emphasizes Indigenous Peoples and local communities’ territorial rights to land and ecosystems; environmental justice in relation to the extraction of minerals, fossil fuels, logging and other national resources with respect to human rights and a sustainable environment; and sustainable livelihood opportunities for communities and groups. The board seeks to expand the opportunities for participation among under-represented groups in environmental solutions (youth, women, gender justice, Indigenous Peoples and people living with disabilities). The board has long supported women’s efforts to organize and influence local to global decisions.

SAMDHANA INSTITUTE Grantmaking Strategy: The Samdhana Institute makes grants in the Philippines, Indonesia, and the Mekong region and supports grassroots social and environmental organizations, groups, and communities in securing and defending their rights and building local autonomy, leadership, and opportunity to create conditions for protection of environment and culture and resilience in the face of climate change. The organization has several thematic areas of work including: conflict resolution related to land tenure; natural resource governance; Indigenous Peoples rights in climate mitigation; leadership and social inclusion of women, youth, elderly, and persons with disability within communities; and leadership development to strengthen communities’ right to self-determination. Strong grantmaking themes include Defense of rights and access to natural resources; Rights and access to renewal of resources in conflict areas; Advocacy with respect to land rights and land use policies on forests, climate, and natural resources; Village-based resource management (including economic activities); Disaster recovery, preparedness, loss and damage and resiliency; and preservation and restoration of culture.

PESTICIDE ACTION NETWORK Grantmaking Strategy: Pesticide Action Network (PAN) is a global network with five regional centers (Africa, Asia, Latin America, Europe, and North America) that works to strengthen civil society and international policy in support of safe, fair, ecologically-sound and resilient food and farming systems, and to reduce the use of chemical fertilizers, insecticides and herbicides. PAN works for environmental health and justice, and towards food sovereignty. PAN’s strategy rests upon community–based monitoring and international policy advocacy. PAN links communities most affected by pesticides and corporate control of farming with scientists in community-based monitoring, or ‘grassroots science,’ to build data, understanding and empowerment around pesticide issues. PAN links local, state and regional organizations as part of an international policy advocacy network that mounts policy change and public will campaigns toward fulfillment of our mission. PAN’s international work is guided by five common strategic objectives, which were developed by representatives from all regions at a strategic planning meeting: (1) Protect health and the environment by eliminating highly hazardous pesticides from the market and replacing them with sustainable solutions; (2) Resist development and stop the introduction and use of genetic engineering into agricultural production systems; (3) Promote empowerment of grassroots movements and citizens to fight agrochemical and seed corporations and challenge corporate globalization. (4) Increase public investment, development, adoption and implementation of non-chemical alternative pest management system.

PACIFIC ISLANDS ADVISORY BOARD Grantmaking Strategy: The Pacific Islands Advisory Board recommends grants in Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands, Tonga and occasionally Samoa. They grant to local groups working on a wider variety of socio-environmental issues, with strong focus on sustainable agriculture, urban waste and pollution, traditional culture and knowledge preservation, extractive industries (mining, forestry and agribusiness, and fishing), marine protection and rehabilitation, and forest protection. The major areas for grant making are to promote community-driven sustainable resource use and management; Community organizing and advocacy for environmental justice; Supporting communities in addressing impacts from climate change through adaptation, disaster risk reduction, and immediate response to climate events, as well as advancing the understanding of climate justice and the unique impacts to the Pacific Islands; and Capacity Building for environmental justice groups. The board has had a strong grantmaking to Indigenous Peoples, people living with disabilities, youth, and women’s organizations.

We have also established a new network of advisors in Central Asia. With recent grantmaking in Kazakhstan on coal struggles and green economy, while still in the pilot phase, we expect that the board will have a just transition focus for a significant portion of their grantmaking.

DISABILITY INCLUSIVE GLOBAL JUSTICE BOARD Grantmaking Strategy: The Disability-Inclusive Climate Justice Advisory Board was formed in 2022 and has just completed its first year of grantmaking. The Board is global in scope, and has advisors from three large disability rights organizations, CBM Global, International Disability Alliance, and Disability Rights Fund. The Board is focused on identifying and supporting groups working at the intersection of disability rights and climate justice. A big focus of the Board is to support learning grants and evidence-based knowledge as there is a lack of resources available on disability rights and climate justice. The Board also has a focus on supporting indigenous groups and on ensuring the inclusion and participation of people with disabilities in climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies. First year review: Yolanda Muñoz, Coordinator of the Disability Rights and Climate Justice Board, Global Greengrants Fund (GGF) shared how GGF managed to meet their grant making goals. GGF started including Antiableist grant making practices in 2018, and since then, the growth of fund increased from $37,500 to $626,500 by 2022. A special unit for disability was created. They started with a budget of $300,000 that had to distribute small grants between $5000 and maximum $15,000. Call for applications was launched, organisations applied and grant making goals were not only met but exceeded. Their budget has been increased for the this coming year. 92 applications were received and they supported 31 grants from the regular funding plus others from other budget lines. There is database of organizations interested, but there is also a need to help organisations ground their project to specific positive building topic.

INTERNATIONAL FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS BOARD Grantmaking Strategy: The IFI Advisory Board aims to support grassroots organizations, NGOs, and communities that are working to reform the projects, policies, and programs of international development finance actors, and address international finance-related issues. The Board supports a range of strategies that seek to change policies and practices of IFIs, investors, and governments by (1) Increasing public awareness on the role and impacts of international development finance; (2) Increasing public involvement in project development, monitoring and advocacy, including early warning systems; (3) Conducting legal and media advocacy around development projects; (4) Increasing the effectiveness of civil society organizations and networks; (5) Strengthening the links between grassroots groups and national and international activists; and (6) Contributing to social movement building, horizontal and vertical alliance building and networking to push for IFI/investors/government accountability. The board has collectively decided to be responsive to the needs and approaches developed by organizations around the globe leading the movement against unsustainable IFI investments. The advisors have further determined that they will fund groups attempting to achieve change through direct engagement with IFI bodies (through consultative processes, etc.), as well as groups that advocate for progress without direct engagement with IFI’s. The work of the groups will always be related to human rights, but should also include environmental justice.

We have funded Oilwatch’s capacity to support communities and learning across its network among a number of other initiatives with them. In FY22 and FY23 we provided funds to hire three regional coordinators, support for a strategic regional meeting in Latin America based in Venezuela, and funds to administer grantmaking rounds to get small grant funding into local community struggles. This grantmaking budget and general support will continue for the foreseeable future, as GGF is making a long term commitment to the network.

Annex0 Campaign

In FY24 we will continue to provide resources for just transition struggles including:

• our support to the Environmental Justice Fund of South Africa, a new fund that started making grants in 2023, that GGF helped to provide founding funds.

• grants to struggles along the Western Cape of Southern Africa and the coastline of Mozambique to fishing and coastal communities impacted by Liquid National Gas terminals.

• support Indigenous peoples defending their territory from fossil fuel extraction, for example our support in Canada to the work of the Wet’suwet’en Nation resisting expansion of the Coastal GasLink pipeline in Canada, and communities across India, Chile, Ghana, and many other places affected by pipelines and coal plants.

• support to Collectif Des Communautes Affectees De Bargny (Bargny Community Affected Group) who have been negatively affected by the Bargny Coal Plant in Senegal.

These are just a few of the many examples of Just Transition work we are funding this coming year.

ANDES ADVISORY BOARD Grantmaking Strategy: The vision of the Andes Advisory Board is one of sustainable societies, with natural and cultural diversity, gender equity, democracy, with active social participation and local sovereignty and autonomy in decisions. The advisory board grants throughout Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, and Perú. The board makes grants to Indigenous Peoples and local communities including Afro-descendant and small farmer organization/campesino communities, women and youth groups, both urban and rural. The advisory board prioritizes grants related to environmental justice that make environmental conflicts more visible to the public; strengthen processes that promote the articulation and the formation of networks for movement building based on grassroots leadership; support the building of political spaces and policies that defend the environment and human rights; encourage emerging, locally-led environmental protection initiatives; build processes of community resilience; collaborate with and support local action in the event of socio-environmental emergencies; and promote and defend the sustainable livelihoods of communities. Since its inception in 2001, the Andes Advisory Board has focused its attention on the social and environmental impacts generated by the region’s expanding natural resource extraction – especially mining and hydrocarbons - and other industrial development in the region including roads, dams, and other large infrastructure projects. In 2018, the board also began funding local fisherfolk and community associations working to promote sustainable fisheries and coastal conservation along the Peruvian coast.

A major hotspot for GGF funding in Just Transition work has been Southern Africa. GGF has been a backer and ally to the Life After Coal coalition in South Africa; a coalition which includes groundWork (longtime grantee and headed by Greengrants Board Member and advisor Bobby Peek), Earthlife Africa Johannesburg, and Centre for Environmental Rights (a longtime grantee). The coalition experienced a great triumph in December 2020 with the cancellation of the proposed Thabemetsi coal plant in Limpopo Province, South Africa. The coalition had been challenging the plant since 2016 and the ongoing court battle, bolstered by activists, proved too costly to the investors, resulting in the cancelation of the plant. Greengrants worked in partnership with groundWork and Life After Coal leaders to get timely funds to grassroots community groups that would have been most affected by the plant, such as Concerned Citizens of Lephalale. Such groups do not otherwise have ready access to funding but are nevertheless indispensable and anchor the wider movement. We also provided general support to the Centre for Environmental Rights during the years of contestation of the Environmental Impact Assessment for the coal plant.

Life After Coal

INDIGENOUS PEOPLES ADVISORY BOARD Grantmaking Strategy: The Indigenous Peoples Advisory Board will align with Indigenous Peoples unique way of life and being and their struggle for self-determination. The board will invest in healing- including traditional knowledge, stories and Indigenous languages among grantees while prioritizing this approach in actual funding practices. The board will help GGF networks share collective learning about inclusive grantmaking that supports the rights, self-determination and traditional governance and systems of Indigenous Peoples. The board will elevate Indigenous Peoples voices and representation especially with the increased threats culminating from extractive industries and other foreign developments. The boards approach to grantmaking will be based on reciprocity, which may include thought partnership and capacity-development resources. Relationship is at the core of this approach, encouraging systemic change in which the Indigenous communities take responsibility for one another. It is up to the community to determine the steps for true self-determination. Sizable grants and multi-year support will be available to Indigenous-led organizations for regranting to Indigenous institutions and as crucial points of reference in partnership and learning because they represent understandings, whether tacit or explicit, among the local governance structures of their relationship to each other with respect to the particular problems of collective action they face together.

We aim to:

• Connect philanthropy to grassroots solutions that tackle the root causes of the climate crisis and inequality, including colonialism, capitalism, and white supremacy culture.
• Inspire collective action and hope by uplifting stories of change and impact directly from grassroots movements.
• Provide politically informed and easily accessible content while avoiding alienation or preaching.
• Weave in an intersectional understanding of environmental justice while being mindful of not imposing Global North language onto grassroots movements - we are only free when all of us are free.
• Decolonize communications to avoid perpetuating systems of oppression, including the white gaze. We collaborate rather than compete, and shift from a US-centric to a globally aware and inclusive focus.
• Center learning as a tool of transformation and connection, we share both successes and failures while avoiding extractive learning, transactional relationships, and tokenism.
• Pass the mic to grassroots groups whenever possible to put things in their own words.
• Value agency and consent, consult with advisors and grassroots groups while avoiding excessive funder-imposed work.
• Invest in long-term relationships with advisors, grantees and funders because learning and changing takes time.
• Change the political analysis and narratives around climate change to emphasize just and community-driven Global South solutions, and ground our work in race, equity, and social justice.

EARTH ISLAND Grantmaking Strategy: For more than 30 years Earth Island (EI) has been a hub for grassroots campaigns dedicated to conserving, preserving, and restoring Earth’s ecosystems. They cultivate environmental leadership by acting as an incubator for new programs and providing long-term support for established environmental projects, giving crucial assistance to groups and individuals promoting ecological sustainability and environmental justice. Currently there are some 85 projects under EI sponsorship and more than one third are international in scope.  Earth Island’s Director of Operations coordinates EI’s Greengrants advising recommendations and she invites EI’s subset of international projects to advise funds by submitting project proposals crafted by grassroots partners.  Usually 10-15 out of Earth Islands 35+ international projects, such as the Borneo Project, Viva Sierra Gorda, or Women’s Earth Alliance, will advise Greengrants funds in a given year.  Depending on the number of proposals submitted, some organizations may advise on more than one grant in a single year.

GGF tagline | “Where change takes root” Our tagline, 'Where change takes root,' is more than just a catchy phrase - it encapsulates our core mission. We're dedicated to addressing the root causes of environmental injustice, and we believe that systemic change or true transformation is the key to achieving this. Our approach is broad and all-encompassing, as we tackle issues such as colonialism, extractive economies, and systemic separation. Through our work, we strive to plant the seeds of change and build a healthier, more just world for all. This overarching framing should underpin our core communications messages.

Outcomes for philanthropic audience:

• More funders shift philanthropic practices to be more participatory and grassroots determined
• Increased funding to the grassroots as the site of change and response to the climate crisis
• Increase the visibility of Global Greengrants philanthropic purpose, perspectives, and practices
• Cultivate relationships with prospective institutional funders and individuals that enable Greengrants to seek new resources for its work and/or to build connections for other intermediaries and grassroots groups to receive resources
• Maintain relationships with current institutional funders and individual major donors that enable Greengrants to request an increase in support for its work
• Become more informed about EJ work that requires direct support (like Just Transition, Loss & Damage)

Outcomes for Grassroots Organizations:

• Become integrated into the GGF network and learn from each other
• Have a platforms to uplift their work
• Have more say and influence on allocation of resources
• Access connections and resources to Global North funding

CENTRAL ASIA ADVISORY GROUP (IN PILOT PHASE) Grantmaking Strategy: In 2023, we began a pilot of a Central Asia Regional Advisory Board in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. With limited funding for environmental issues available in the region, the main goal of the grantmaking program is to contribute to the survival, support, preservation, and development of the environmental movement in the region. In addition to supporting existing environmental NGOs, the Board wants to support grassroots environmental initiatives, including groups working with or from traditional communities, women and people with disabilities on environmental justice issues. Several priorities have been identified in the region including support for environmental defenders, public monitoring and environmental impact assessments, travel grants for public participation in conferences and regional networks, biodiversity loss, just transition, water and waste management, and the use of pesticides/agrochemicals.

OILWATCH INTERNATIONAL Grantmaking Strategy: Oilwatch International is a network of organizations and communities in the Global South working to end the expansion of fossil fuel exploitation and usage. Oilwatch has members in over fifty countries around the world. It has three main regional networks in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. It also includes some global north members including Indigenous Environment Network in North America. GGF has given grants to many members of Oilwatch over the years. In 2022, Global Greengrants and Oilwatch entered into a global partnership to support grassroots groups working towards a just energy transition. This partnership increases funding to frontline communities in their activities to resist fossil fuels, create stronger networks and alliances between affected communities, and support their efforts to exact accountability for the harms suffered from fossil fuel development. Through the three regional Oilwatch Networks – Oilwatch Latin America, Oilwatch Africa, and Oilwatch Asia – advisors recommended $150,000 in grants throughout the world in the first year of the partnership (FY23). Grantee groups include Indigenous activists resisting oil exploration on their native lands, climate scientists and activists advocating for and educating on renewable energy sources, and mobilizing communities through awareness campaigns on the negative environmental and health impacts of unregulated extraction.

AFRICA COAL NETWORK Grantmaking Strategy: The Africa Coal Network (ACN) works with 55 organisations in 21 African countries to strengthen and support various national and grassroots coal struggles, bringing them together through various platforms. The Network strives to grow the demand for a coal phase-out – and other forms of dirty energy – for a just transition across Africa. The ACN calls for a just transition to a society based on clean air and water, renewable energy that is accessible and is based on social and gender justice.

We continue to support Indigenous peoples globally affected by the growth in massive scale hydroelectric dams (as a false solution to climate change), and the riverine and river-dependent communities who are displaced and impacted forever. GGF advisors have supported groups to explore community-owned renewables and energy alternatives. One example is InsPIRE Network for Environment (InsPIRE) in India received funds to develop a decentralized, community owned renewable energy system in the Pardhi Indigenous tribal village of Nasipur to support livelihood inititaves. The 5 kilowatt solar energy system was built to support the community owned ecotourism project. GGF has funded many such projects globally and advisors are working to increase the scope of grantmaking and learning approach on access to renewable solutions and energy alternatives throughout the areas where they grant.

FONDO TIERRA VIVA Grantmaking Strategy: Fondo Tierra Viva (FTV) strengthens the capacities of local organizations, indigenous and peasant communities, social movements, and their leaders in Central America to consolidate their social and productive, resource protection, and territorial governance processes in order to improve their livelihoods, influence decision-makers, and promote policies that favor the protection of ecosystem resources, access to resources by communities, and the sustainable growth in the region. Toward this goal FTV focused on two main objectives: (1) Contribute to strengthening the capacities of grassroots groups that work to protect the environmental resources of the ecosystems of the Central American region; and (2) Promote the empowerment of local groups that allows them to influence decision-makers on national policies that favor their livelihoods and contribute to the protection of the environment. Grants are generally given to organizations of rural actors who control and/or manage territories and natural resources and movement organizations and networks that connect theses struggles and provide technical support, resources, and capacity to groups on the ground. These include Indigenous Peoples, community forestry practitioners, and cooperatives of small-scale agriculturalists, ecotourism providers, and fisherfolk.