BY MUSA SHUBOMI TIMILEYIN
Applications are now open for the Climate Justice Resilience Fund (CJRF) under the theme Building connections, networks, and collaborative spaces for climate justice and resilience. The deadline is 8 May 2024.
The Climate Justice Resilience Fund (CJRF) is one of the first major philanthropic initiatives framed explicitly around climate justice, and one of the few that works internationally on climate resilience. They put people, their rights, and their lived experience directly at the center of climate action. They envision a thriving planet built on participation, equity, human rights and justice, where people who have been disproportionately affected by climate change issues are recognized and resourced to lead solutions and act at the emerging frontiers of climate justice. To this end, they fund locally led, rights-based initiatives to help communities reduce risk, manage shocks, rebound, and continue charting their path to development.
CJRF’S 2024-25 Grantmaking Strategy
The new board has been diligently working since 2023 to transition the governance and grantmaking systems. In late 2023, the board approved an 18-month strategy to deploy up to US$4M in funding by test-driving several different participatory grantmaking methods.
As a funder who has made grants via traditional philanthropic methods and structures in the past, CJRF is now investing in a period of exploration and learning. They will undertake a series of initiatives that will allow the staff and board to test several methods for participatory grantmaking over the course of 2024-25, including:
an applicant collective process, where applicants will select the awardees;
network-driven grantmaking processes, where current and past grant partners set strategic parameters, refer organizations for funding, or otherwise drive the grantmaking;
a re-granter collective;
potentially one or more other models
They are excited to officially launch the first of these participatory grantmaking pilots via this global open call for applications! This pilot will employ an applicant collective decision-making model, through which applicants will review proposals and decide on grant awards. Under this global call, CJRF will award four $200,000 USD grants. Grants are intended to be multi-year and flexible. If you are interested in being considered, please carefully review the following information regarding the process, criteria, eligibility, and more.
Open Call Theme and Criteria
In November 2023, CJRF held two workshops with grant partners, board members, and others in the climate justice movement to brainstorm about what a global open call for proposals could entail. From these workshops and subsequent board meetings came the decision to focus this first 2024 global open call on the following theme: Building connections, networks, and collaborative spaces for climate justice and resilience.
Through this theme, CJRF aims to equip organizations with the resources and tools to build relationships and structures for collective climate action. This collective action accelerates momentum for change across communities, countries, and the world. It strengthens movements by allowing like-minded local groups to learn from each other and partner for more impact
CJRF is prioritizing the social and relational aspects of movement building for this open call. Some examples include: building coalitions, partnerships, networks, alliances, and/or other relationships; facilitating conversations; creating shared advocacy plans and strategies; developing shared narratives or communications campaigns; skills and leadership development opportunities; organizational development; and healing work. They are seeking applications that can demonstrate the following:
A clear grassroots-led effort to build or strengthen climate justice movements by connecting diverse constituencies, movements, and/or organization types.
A compelling strategy for sustaining and supporting climate justice movements over the long term.
A clear strategy to strengthen the voices of marginalized peoples and enable local actors to influence national and international decision making.
A commitment to addressing intersecting forms of oppression.
A clear articulation of how your work supports people to build climate resilience.
Eligibility Criteria
Applications for this pilot are accepted in French or English; applications in other languages will not be considered.
Eligible applicants must have an annual organizational budget between $50,000 USD and $2 million USD.
Applicants must be constituent-led. For your group to be considered constituent-led by CJRF, at least 50% of your senior staff and board members should comprise the demographics your work aims to benefit. As an example, suppose a group wants to support Indigenous Peoples to work on climate justice. If they have five board members and three top staff members, at least four of those individuals (50% of eight total leaders) would have to be Indigenous. Priority will also be given to applications that demonstrate a specific mechanism for constituent ownership and accountability (e.g. elected governing body, membership rules).
CJRF will accept applications from organizations based in the Global South and from Indigenous-led organizations in the Global North. Specifically, CJRF will support organizations based in Eastern, Western, Southern, Central Africa; Asia and the small island states of the Pacific; South West Asia and North Africa; Latin America; the Caribbean and Central, Southern, and Central and North Asia.
CJRF will also support Indigenous-led organizations in Europe, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and the United States of America. Non-Indigenous groups in these regions are not eligible to apply.
Due to organizational constraints, CJRF cannot give grants to organizations based in Afghanistan, Belarus, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia, Syria, Ukraine (Russian-Occupied Territories), Yemen
Organizations must be formally registered with the local or national government as a nonprofit organization or charity.
