Ideas for Supporting Wide World Work on Climate Change
I feel very fortunate that my paid job is working in an organization
directly focused on climate resilience education, advocacy, and movement
building.
And I feel frustrated that so much of my work time is spent on building
capacity to actually take actions that will reduce carbon emissions and
eliminate oppression.
Everyone around me working in some way on climate and justice seems to also
be facing capacity constraints. This includes people working in social
justice non-profit organizations, large environmental organizations,
universities, and government staff.
There seems to be an enormous speed up happening. In the US historic levels
of funding for infrastructure and building climate resilient communities
are beginning to flow out from Federal and state governments, and from some
private foundations.
This is good news! There are starting to be many, many opportunities to
apply for funding for excellent projects - climate resilience hubs,
coalition building, workforce development (such as programs to teach people
to install solar power), all kinds of food and agriculture related
projects, and so much more.
But, this usually means that people have to develop complex grant proposals
in order to apply for funding. The proposals often take dozens if not
hundreds of hours to complete. They can involve extensive research,
discussing and coordinating with multiple partners, securing letters of
support, writing, editing, planning budgets.
Smaller groups, including "on the ground" or "community-based" or
"grassroots" organizations, and particularly groups that are in low income
communities of global majority and Indigenous people often find it much
harder and frankly often impossible to prepare the applications and secure
the funding than larger groups. Similarly government staff in smaller,
rural areas find it harder to prepare applications than larger areas.
It is difficult to shift the dynamics in order to stop the flow of money to
more well-resourced groups and areas, which tend to be whiter and more well
off.
In a recent example, a new program was developed which was designed to
bring funding to communities to build their capacity to go on later to
apply for and secure more funding. I was part of a local group that
developed an exciting proposal. We just learned we will not receive the
funding this cycle. Only 4-6 proposals out of the 45 submitted will be
funded.
I know we spent at least $20,000 collectively in staff time (if not
$100,000) preparing the application. We met in groups for months, we built
relationships, we spent hours and hours researching, writing, editing,
etc. We will likely re-purpose the application and use it to apply to
other sources of funding, but those will also likely be competitive. There
is almost never a guarantee of getting funding, and an enormous amount of
time is spent looking for funding.
Groups - especially smaller, grass-roots groups - but also including local
governments (especially in smaller, poorer cities) typically don't have
direct funding sources to do this kind of preparation for receiving
funding. Generally funding is tied to producing some kind of "deliverable"
result.
So everyone is now talking about building capacity within organizations and
communities because there isn't enough capacity to even apply for funding,
or to score competitively in order to be awarded the funding, or to manage
the projects and do all the reporting needed if funding is received.
Money helps build capacity if it frees up time of staff people that would
otherwise be spent on fundraising activities. Donations can make it easier
to pay staff people to develop plans.
Money in large enough amounts allows groups to hire more people which
greatly increases capacity (but can itself be a slow and difficult process;
it is not always easy to hire people with the skills needed). And it is
hard to hire people if you don't know if you will have enough money to pay
them for the next year, or the year after that.
Money that is received with no restrictions is the most useful. This means
direct donations or foundation grants that are received up front and can be
used to pay for whatever the group wants to use it for.
Government grant funding typically is only received as a reimbursement so
the groups need to have enough money available to pay for all the expenses
as they occur and then wait, often many months, for reimbursement. So large
amounts of unrestricted funds are needed in addition, in order to pay those
expenses and wait for reimbursement.
There is very good news now in the United States , with the intention to
invest in low income/global majority and Indigenous communities. More and
more frequently, ending oppression is being openly talked about and seen
as a necessary part of working to stop climate change.
What can RC'ers do?
- Understand what people working on the climate emergency are facing in
their working conditions.
- Build relationships with the people working in local governments and
organizations that are working to meet peoples' needs now. All of these are
going to become climate resilience organizations at some point.
- Consider your resources - do you have time, money, or particular
skills that could be offered to support the work that is likely already
happening or about to happen in your community?
- If you can donate money, find a group whose work you like and just
give them money to use as they want.
- Provide direct support as a listener, thought partner, counselor.
- As you build relationships with people, perhaps you will find ways to
offer helping on a particular project. Perhaps you could help write or edit
proposals. Perhaps you could research one particular topic. Perhaps you
could motivate 5 of your friends to start a monthly donation to a local
climate justice group.
- There is an incredible opportunity at hand for owning class people and
currently wealthy people to return wealth to the low income communities it
was originally extracted from. It is reemergent to give up wealth when it
was acquired through oppression and it keeps people locked in patterns if
they hold onto it.
- People can start to undo oppression by giving their money away and
letting other people decide how to use the money.
- Giving money is a key action at this time.
- Again, keep in mind that we know how to support leaders: Counsel them
well and do some of the work.
Ultimately we need to work for transformation of our societies, so that
peoples' real needs are met easily, quickly, seamlessly through coordinated
work across our societies. How do we get there from where we are at?
In the United States our systems are slow, difficult, and biased toward
wealthier, whiter, legal citizens, who speak English fluently and who are
already living or working in more well-resourced situations.
There is a huge need to revise the whole process of distributing money in
order to help money move out more quickly, with less "strings attached."
(strings attached means complicated requirements for how to apply for and
manage funding).
Some groups ( such as some private foundations) are starting to do give
money away with simpler applications and no reporting requirements. Perhaps
you can help this happen in your local community.
Thank you all for caring and acting.
Love,
Nancy Faulstich
Watsonville, California, USA
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