Grassroots Action Fund 2023 Grantees
Divest Oregon: Reinvest in a Fossil Free Future
Divest Oregon is a statewide grassroots coalition of individuals and organizations representing unions with PERS members, racial and climate justice groups, youth leaders, and faith communities with the goal of calling the Oregon State Treasury to account for its funding of climate devastation rather than prudent investing in a sustainable future. They are part of a national movement; a member of the Climate Safe Pensions Network and the Stop the Money Pipeline coalition.
Third Act Virginia
Third Act is a national organization that was started in 2021 by Bill McKibben aiming at people over 60 who have time, professional expertise, and money. Third Act Virginia is an active working group that focuses, by protests and letters, on four main banks that invest billions in new fossil fuel projects (Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Chase, and Citibank). They also rally in solidarity with other environmental, voting rights, and social justice groups.
Rivers & Mountains GreenFaith, Inc.
The purpose for which Rivers & Mountains GreenFaith is formed is to inspire and mobilize climate and environmental action among people of diverse faiths – including those who are spiritual but not religious – to end the age of fossil fuels and transition to a socially just and environmentally sustainable society.
Extinction Rebellion Phoenix
XR’s mission is to spark and sustain a spirit of creative rebellion, which will enable much needed changes in our political, economic and social landscape. They endeavor to mobilize and train organizers to skilfully open up space, so that communities can develop the tools they need to address the deeply rooted problems of the United States, Arizona and the Valley of the Sun. They work to transform their community into one that is compassionate, inclusive, sustainable, equitable and connected.
Society of Native Nations
Society of Native Nations has been focused on their Pipelines to Plastic project, which involves stopping buildout of petrochemical infrastructure including desalination plants, cracker plants, pipelines, LNG, and crude oil exports. SNN works with native communities, Dominican migrant communities, and with other migrants who have come from South America. They have a COVID mutual aid response as well, conducting 30 to 50 home drop-offs weekly of fresh produce, food, medical supplies, and sanitation supplies to elders and families, and feeding 50 to 80 homeless people every Saturday. STMP BIPOC & Frontline funding will be used to support both of these programs.
Earth Guardians
Earth Guardians train youth to be influential leaders in the intersections of environmental and climate justice. Using art, storytelling, on-the-ground projects, civic engagement, and legal action, they advance solutions addressing the critical issues we face as a global community.
Adamah (Jewish Youth Climate Movement)
Adamah cultivates vibrant Jewish life in deep connection with the Earth, catalyzing culture change and systemic change through Jewish Environmental Education, Immersive Retreats, and Climate Action.
Climate Safe Pensions for Wisconsin
CSPW’s strategy is to grow grassroots support for pension divestment from fossil fuels and to demand greater transparency from the Wisconsin SWIB board to remind them that they are stewards of “Our money, our future.” They hope to encourage Wisconsinites to gain a sense of agency and urgency about their future and to see that they can influence big financial systems for a big impact.
Vessel Project
The Vessel Project of Louisiana is a grassroots mutual aid, disaster relief, and environmental justice organization founded in Southwest Louisiana in response to several federally declared disasters, including hurricanes Laura and Delta, winter storm Uri, and the May flood of 2021. The Vessel Project realizes the intersectionality of the challenges that plague BIPOC communities and works holistically to achieve environmental and climate justice, voting rights, and access to housing, energy, clean water, safe fresh produce, and healthcare.
350 Colorado
350 Colorado (350CO) was created during a national campaign by 350.org in 2011 to develop a massive network of local grassroots groups organizing to solve the climate crisis. 350CO grew to become one of the largest local groups in the U.S. They have led a Fossil Free PERA campaign on Colorado state’s pension fund, and have developed a Local Government Fossil Fuel Divestment toolkit, completed in partnership with Boulder County’s Office of Sustainability and Resilience.
Carrizo Comecrudo Tribe of Texas
The Carrizo/Comecrudo people lived along the South Texas Rio Grande delta. Regardless of the lack of culture and tribal understanding, of written historical data, the so called dependency factor, apparent genocide and Christian conversion, the Carrizo/Comecrudo still survived the occupation of their homelands and spiritual souls. They fight for their sovereignty against multiple environmentally devastating projects, including LNG pipelines and Elon Musks’s spaceships.
Healthy Gulf, Gulf South for a Green New Deal
Healthy Gulf’s purpose is to collaborate with and serve communities who love the Gulf of Mexico by providing the research, communications, and coalition-building tools needed to reverse the long pattern of over exploitation of the Gulf’s natural resources.
TIAA-Divest
TIAA-Divest! was founded in 2019 by Bill Kish and Iris Marie Bloom, who met protesting against the opening of the Cricket Valley fracked gas power plant in low-income Dover, New York. When they learned that TIAA was a major investor in the Cricket Valley, they started the process of uncovering TIAA’s extensive holdings in fossil fuels and deforestation. The group has gathered momentum ever since, with university professors, doctors, students, and retirees joining the struggle. TIAA-Divest has teamed up with Action Aid, Stop the Money Pipeline, the Stop Land Grabs Coalition and As You Sow, among other vital partners. The coordinating committee members are all unpaid volunteers.
Reclaim Our Tomorrow (ROT)
TIAA-Divest has been at the forefront of corporate divestment initiatives for the past three years. TIAA has invested $78 billion in fossil fuels, including some of the most destructive companies on the planet (for example, the Adani coal operations). A public declaration of divestment would be a huge win for the climate movement, and that is our goal. TIAA-Divest partners with a range of climate crisis groups, including Climate Safe Pensions Network, Third Act, and STMP itself. Members work across groups to coordinate actions.
Tiny House Warriors
The Tiny House Warriors: Our Land is Home is a part of a mission to stop the Trans Mountain pipeline from crossing unceded Secwepemc Territory. Ten tiny houses will be built and placed strategically along the 518 km Trans Mountain pipeline route to assert Secwepemc Law and jurisdiction and block access to this pipeline.
350 Seattle
350 Seattle works toward climate justice by organizing people to make deep system change: resisting fossil fuels; building momentum for healthy alternatives; and fostering resilient, just, and welcoming communities.
Climate Organizing Hub
The Climate Organizing Hub was founded in 2022 as a climate action center to run campaigns against the fossil fuel industry by partnering with frontline community groups and individual activists. Our work is rooted in the belief that those most impacted by the effects of climate change need to be centered in the fight, and that the most meaningful way to stop the devastating impacts of climate change is to dismantle the fossil fuel industry.
XR-NYC
Extinction Rebellion NYC was born in December of 2018, inspired by Extinction Rebellion UK and the movement that began on October 31, 2018: 1500 people in Parliament Square in London announced a Declaration of Rebellion against the UK Government. Over the next few weeks, Extinction Rebellion UK blocked five major bridges across the Thames River, planted trees in the middle of Parliament Square, dug a hole there to bury a coffin representing the future, and super-glued themselves to the gates of Buckingham Palace as they read a letter to the Queen. In response to those acts of peaceful civil disobedience, new groups sprang up around the world from the Solomon Islands to Australia, from Spain to South Africa, from India to the US.
Fossil Free CA
Fossil Free California works to end financial support for climate-damaging fossil fuels and promotes the transition to a socially just and environmentally sustainable society. Together with allied environmental and climate justice organizations, we mobilize grassroots pressure on CalPERS and CalSTRS to divest their fossil fuel holdings. We support individuals and institutions (churches, cities, etc.) that want to purge their own portfolios of fossil fuels. Our efforts also include legislative and executive action to foster climate stabilization and develop a just, zero-carbon economy.
Banking on a Better Future
Banking on a Better Future (BOABF) is a non-for-profit run by a small group of core organizers that began in April 2021, plus a wider network of individuals and groups. Together they are demanding an end to all financial support for the fossil fuel industry. Their team includes two national student climate justice networks: Climate Strike Canada and Divest Canada Coalition. Both of these groups operate as informal networks that, together, connect nearly all youth climate justice groups in the country. BOABF is also collaborating with the wider National banks network which includes groups such as but not limited to: Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs, LeadNow, Stand.Earth, Greenpeace Canada etc.
Grassroots Action Fund 2022 Grantees
Climate Finance Action
We educate, identify, train, organize, and support stakeholders and community groups in multiple states to push public and corporate officials to use their considerable shareholder and investor power to pressure the largest drivers of the climate crisis to change their business practices to align with limiting global warming to 1.5ºC.
Climate First!, Inc.
Climate First! strives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and promote clean energy in the Mid-Atlantic region, by organizing grassroots campaigns that encourage corporations and local governments to think about climate first.
Climate Safe Pensions for Wisconsin
Wisconsin Retirement System (WRS) members are organizing a campaign to safeguard our pensions from fossil fuels, which threaten our financial security, as well as our water, our health, and our planet. More than 650,000 people participate in the WRS, including current and retired employees of state agencies, most local governments and school districts in Wisconsin.
Divest-Ed
Divest Ed disrupts the business-as-usual politics of the primarily class-privileged and white climate movement. Through political education, Divest Ed guides students to recognize the root of the climate crisis: capitalism and white supremacy. We strive to make sure the campus divestment movement is pro-Black, pro-Indigenous, class conscious, and anti-capitalist.
Divest Oregon
We are a statewide grassroots coalition of individuals and organizations representing unions with PERS members, racial and climate justice groups, youth leaders, and faith communities with the goal of calling the Oregon State Treasury to account for its funding of climate devastation rather than prudent investing in a sustainable future. 350PDX was the founding member of Divest Oregon in mid 2021 and the campaign formally launched in September.
New Mexico Climate Justice
New Mexico’s oil and gas production has grown 125% since 2010 and is poised for continued expansion. Unless this course is corrected, the volume of oil and gas extracted in New Mexico will increase more than 85% by 2030, and projected emissions from burning the oil and gas from new wells could amount to ten times Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham’s stated climate goal. New Mexico needs a clear plan to diversify the economy and wind down oil and gas extraction by 2030.
Oil and Gas Action Network
OGAN was founded in 2016, by social movement veterans who have deep experience organizing and campaigning. We focus on strengthening alliances across the climate and environmental justice movement and building grassroots power. Non-profit organizations should seek to facilitate and support grassroots movements that can scale up beyond staff-driven professional campaigns.
Quit RBC
#quitRBC is an Extinction Rebellion Canada initiative led by XR Montreal and allies from Québec, Sherbrooke, Rimouski, Ottawa, Vancouver, Nova-Scotia, New-Brunswick, Saskatchewan, Alberta, British Columbia, XR Youth, XR Elders and other affinity groups. We are students, parents, workers, citizens…In this campaign and elsewhere, our quest is for climate justice and an equitable ecological transition that includes everyone.
Seeding Sovereignty
Seeding Sovereignty, an Indigenous-led collective, works to radicalize and disrupt colonized spaces through land, body, and food sovereignty work, community building, and cultural preservation. By investing in Indigenous folks and communities of the global majority, we cross the threshold of liberation together.
Sunrise Kids NYC
The Sunrise Movement is a youth movement to stop climate change and create millions of good jobs in the process. We’re building an army of young people to make climate change an urgent priority across America, end the corrupting influence of fossil fuel executives on our politics, and elect leaders who stand up for the health and wellbeing of all people.
XR NYC
Extinction Rebellion NYC was born in December of 2018, inspired by Extinction Rebellion UK and the movement that began on October 31, 2018: 1500 people in Parliament Square in London announced a Declaration of Rebellion against the UK Government. Over the next few weeks, Extinction Rebellion UK blocked five major bridges across the Thames River, planted trees in the middle of Parliament Square, dug a hole there to bury a coffin representing the future, and super-glued themselves to the gates of Buckingham Palace as they read a letter to the Queen. In response to those acts of peaceful civil disobedience, new groups sprang up around the world from the Solomon Islands to Australia, from Spain to South Africa, from India to the US.
198 Methods
To save the planet, we need more than one solution. Inspired by Gene Sharp’s classic non-violent movement text and updated for the modern era, we’re a force for powerful, digitally supported, direct action to save the climate
350 Colorado
350 Colorado (350CO) was created during a national campaign by 350.org in 2011 to develop a massive network of local grassroots groups organizing to solve the climate crisis. In tandem, the climate crisis brought tragedy to thousands of Colorado homes. Years of record breaking wildfires, floods, and temperatures, combined with Colorado’s hydraulic fracturing (fracking boom), made it clear that a strategic investment in 350CO was necessary to advance local and national climate goals.
350NYC
350NYC is a local affiliate of 350.org, a global grassroots network working in over 188 countries to prevent climate catastrophe. 350NYC focuses on campaigns in New York City and New York State, and also participates in global climate actions. We host and participate in events, meetings, rallies, and protests in coalition with allied organizations working to create a sustainable and just future for everyone.
350 Seattle
350 Seattle works toward climate justice by organizing people to make deep system change: resisting fossil fuels; building momentum for healthy alternatives; and fostering resilient, just, and welcoming communities.
350 Wisconsin
350 Wisconsin (formerly 350 Madison) mobilizes grassroots power to change hearts and minds, laws and policies, and humanity’s massive systems to make transformational progress toward environmental justice and solving the climate crisis by 2030.
2021 Grantees
Climate Finance Action
We educate, identify, train, organize, and support stakeholders and community groups in multiple states to push public and corporate officials to use their considerable shareholder and investor power to pressure the largest drivers of the climate crisis to change their business practices to align with limiting global warming to 1.5ºC.
Visit the Climate Finance Action website
Climate First!, Inc.
Climate First! strives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and promote clean energy in the Mid-Atlantic region, by organizing grassroots campaigns that encourage corporations and local governments to think climate first.
Visit the Climate First!, Inc. website
Earth Guardians Bay Area
Earth Guardians is an intergenerational organization with youth at the forefront that trains diverse youth to be effective leaders in the environmental, climate and social justice movements across the globe – using art, music, storytelling, on the ground projects, civic engagement and legal action to advance solutions to the critical issues we face as a global community.
Check out the Earth Guardians Bay Area on Instagram
Earth Guardians
Earth Guardians is an intergenerational organization with youth at the forefront that trains diverse youth to be effective leaders in the environmental, climate and social justice movements across the globe – using art, music, storytelling, on the ground projects, civic engagement and legal action to advance solutions to the critical issues we face as a global community.
Visit the Earth Guardians website
Fossil Free California
Fossil Free California works to end financial support for climate-damaging fossil fuels and promotes the transition to a socially just and environmentally sustainable society.
Together with allied environmental and climate justice organizations, we mobilize grassroots pressure on CalPERS and CalSTRS to divest their fossil fuel holdings. We support individuals and institutions (churches, cities, etc.) that want to purge their own portfolios of fossil fuels. Our efforts also include legislative and executive action to foster climate stabilization and develop a just, zero-carbon economy.
Visit the Fossil Free California website
IIYC 5280
The International Indigenous Youth Council seeks to organize youth through education, spiritual practices and civic engagement to create positive change in our communities. Through action and ceremony, the IIYC commits to building a sustainable future for the next seven generations.
Check out IIYC 5280 on Instagram and Twitter.
IIYC Twin Cities
The International Indigenous Youth Council seeks to organize youth through education, spiritual practices and civic engagement to create positive change in our communities. Through action and ceremony, the IIYC commits to building a sustainable future for the next seven generations.
Visit the IIYC Twin Cities website
Last Real Indians (LRI Media)
LRI is a media movement grounded in our pre-contact ways of life. We are independent media with direction. We are an adaptation of our story-tellers. We are content creators of many origins with a vision of returning Indigenous peoples of all “races” to a state of respect for generations unborn. We are a confluence of the waters of many peoples flowing quiet and mighty. We are taking our place, telling the world.
Visit the Last Real Indians (LRI Media) website
Minnesota Interfaith Power & Light
MNIPL is an interfaith community co-creating a just and sustainable world. We work in partnership with faith communities to build transformative power and bring the lights of people’s unique gifts to addressing the climate crisis.
At MNIPL we work to build the interfaith climate movement in Minnesota by empowering faith communities across the state to take action that is authentic, effective, and energizing in their context.
Visit the Minnesota Interfaith Power & Light website
New Mexico Climate Justice
Visit the Minnesota Interfaith Power & Light website
Oil and Gas Action Network
OGAN was founded in 2016, by social movement veterans who have deep experience organizing and campaigning. We focus on strengthening alliances across the climate and environmental justice movement and building grassroots power. Non-profit organizations should seek to facilitate and support grassroots movements that can scale up beyond staff-driven professional campaigns.
Visit the Oil and Gas Action Network website
Rising Tide Chicago
Visit the Rising Tide Chicago website
Seeding Sovereignty
Seeding Sovereignty, an Indigenous-led collective, works to radicalize and disrupt colonized spaces through land, body, and food sovereignty work, community building, and cultural preservation. By investing in Indigenous folks and communities of the global majority, we cross the threshold of liberation together.
Visit the Seeding Sovereignty website
Society of Native Nations
The Society of Native Nations (SNN) is an organization founded by a small group of Native people in Texas with members in many states that are dedicated to advocating for our people and the earth by helping to protect and preserve our native culture, spirituality, teachings, medicine, and way of life. Each of our founding members has experience working with our people and other organizations that bring a unique set of values and perceptions to SNN. Exposure and witness to racism, appropriation, and exploitation of our way of life have compelled each of us to stand united against social and environmental injustice. Our teachings tell us that Creator tasked Native people to be the “keepers of the earth.” We believe we are environmentally conscious through our DNA and because our lifeways and culture parallel the health of Mother Earth. Through ancestral memories, prayer, and determination, we strive to help bring a positive change to our people and Mother Earth.
Visit the Society of Native Nations website
Sunrise Kids NYC
The Sunrise Movement is a youth movement to stop climate change and create millions of good jobs in the process. We’re building an army of young people to make climate change an urgent priority across America, end the corrupting influence of fossil fuel executives on our politics, and elect leaders who stand up for the health and wellbeing of all people.
Visit the Sunrise Kids NYC website
Womxn from the Mountain
Womxn from the Mountain are cultural educators inclusive of all women from all backgrounds including those that identify as women.
We believe that to transform towards a healthy future in education, media, and for future generations for girls and Womxn, there needs to be an inclusive and more realistic approach to education now. This directly means preparing the next seven generation for the social justice and environmental issues they are facing now.
Visit the Womxn from the Mountain website
350 Madison
We are the Madison, Wisconsin, local action group of the international organization 350.org. Started by Madison area climate activists in January 2012, 350 Madison plans and participates in local, national, and international actions to raise awareness of the pressing need to address climate change. We are helping build a global movement that is creating the political will necessary to pass international climate legislation that will effectively return our planet to a stable climate. We help unite the message of many groups that are working for a livable climate into one specific goal: we need to get below 350 parts per million (ppm).
350NYC
350NYC is a local affiliate of 350.org, a global grassroots network working in over 188 countries to prevent climate catastrophe.350NYC focuses on campaigns in New York City and New York State, and also participates in global climate actions. We host and participate in events, meetings, rallies, and protests in coalition with allied organizations working to create a sustainable and just future for everyone.
350PDX
350PDX exists to address capitalist and political systems where profits trump people, false climate solutions are written by those protected from climate chaos, and the climate movement is steeped in white supremacy culture. We solve these problems by centering the needs of frontline communities in our campaigns and programs, while being co-conspirators in the fight for social and racial justice.
350 Seattle
350 Seattle works toward climate justice by organizing people to make deep system change: resisting fossil fuels; building momentum for healthy alternatives; and fostering resilient, just, and welcoming communities.
Zero Hour Arkansas
We, the youth, believe that #thisisZeroHour to act on climate change. We cannot afford to wait any longer for adults to protect our right to the clean and safe environment, the natural resources we need to not just survive, but flourish. We know that we are the leaders we have been waiting for!
Check out Zero Hour Arkansas on Instagram