Applications Invited for Climate Justice Resilience Fund Grant 2024

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About the Organization

The Climate Justice Resilience Fund (CJRF) makes grants that support women, youth, and Indigenous Peoples to create and share their own solutions for climate resilience. CJRF puts people, their rights, and their lived experience directly at the center of climate action.

CJRF pools funds from private foundations and philanthropists. To date, our core grantmaking pool has received funding from the Oak Foundation, The Kendeda Fund, the Robert Bosch Foundation, and Mackenzie Scott.

Vision: We envision a world where those hit hardest by climate change lead the way to a more just and equitable future for everyone.

Mission: To empower women, youth and Indigenous Peoples on the front lines of climate change to create and share their own solutions for resilience.

About the Grant

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. We put people, their rights, and their lived experience directly at the center of climate action. We 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, we fund locally led, rights-based initiatives to help communities reduce risk, manage shocks, rebound, and continue charting their path to development. From 2016-2022, CJRF pooled over US$25M and deployed over US$21 million through more than 40 major grant partnerships, primarily in East Africa, the North American Arctic, and the Bay of Bengal. We invite you to read more about these partnerships and the impact of our first six years in our 2023 evaluation.

Fund Transition:

While we are proud of the work we accomplished from 2016-2022, we also recognize that philanthropy is a deeply flawed system rooted in hierarchies of power that do not traditionally empower those on the frontlines of the climate crisis. With this understanding, in 2021, CJRF’s Review Board, comprised of our funders and other grantmakers, decided to shift CJRF’s governance model. In 2022, they officially handed off power from a funder-led board to a board comprised of activists and practitioners, with the aim of bringing our own grantmaking processes in line with our belief that people facing the problems and doing the work should be calling the shots. Our board now consists of people with intimate knowledge of the realities of the climate crisis and of philanthropy that centers people with lived experience. You can read more about this transition and our board members on our blog.

CJRF’s 2024-25 Grantmaking Strategy: Our new board has been diligently working since 2023 to transition our 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. We will undertake a series of initiatives that will allow our 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

We 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 spacesfor 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. We 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 (see CJRF’s Intersectionality Statement for more background on our approach).
• A clear articulation of how your work supports people to build climate resilience.

If you are found eligible during CJRF’s initial applicant screening, you will be invited to submit a short proposal that addressesthe following questions:

• What connection, network, or space do you plan to create or strengthen using this funding, and why is that connection, network, or space important to the field of climate justice?
• How does the connection, network, or space you are seeking to create or strengthen advance your long-term vision, goals, and strategy?
• Why do you believe your organization or coalition is the right one to create or strengthen this particular connection, network, space, and why now?
• Who else will be involved in this connection, network, or space, and how will you facilitate their meaningful participation? Intended Outcomes: CJRF will judge success of grants under this theme by the existence, strength and sustainability of relationships and connectivity over the next five years.

Eligibility

• 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.

How to Apply

The application process has four steps:

• Eligibility Determination: Those interested in applying for CJRF grants under this call should express their interest by filling out this eligibility screening tool. This mandatory eligibility screening will enable CJRF staff to ensure that only applicants that meet basic eligibility requirements spend the time to apply for a grant. Applicants that do not fill out the eligibility screening will not be considered.
• Invitation to Apply: Applicants that complete the eligibility screening and are found eligible will be notified by CJRF staff. If confirmed, you will receive access to the application form where you can submit a short concept note and budget. Only applicants that complete the eligibility screening and receive the application form from CJRF will be considered.
• Application Screening: Concept notes and budgets will be screened by a review committee comprised of CJRF staff, board members, and external colleagues/peers in the climate justice space. They will screen for proposal eligibility, completeness, and relevance to the theme of this call for proposals (described below).
• Entry Into Applicant Collective: Applicants that move past the second screening will be invited to become part of the applicant collective voting process. Your application will be shared with other applicants as part of the decision-making process, though all identifying information such as organization name will be withheld from voters.

May 8: Expressions of interest screening tool closes.

Download an English version of this packet here

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