No single organization can tackle the climate crisis alone. To limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius and prepare for impacts that communities are beginning to experience today, stronger collaborations are needed, and more grassroots leadership must be supported. USCAN is supporting collaborations and grassroots leadership through its Member Empowerment Grants.

The purpose of the Member Empowerment Grants is to:

• Direct more funding to the grassroots climate movement—especially, but not exclusively, to frontline communities and those in the movement who are traditionally under-funded;
• Support efforts to build long-term grassroots power from the ground up, and more unity and solidarity, within USCAN and within the climate movement as a whole; and
• Foster collaborative approaches to overcoming shared barriers.

Congratulations to the 8 collaborative and 10 grassroots/frontline grants awarded in USCAN’s 2018 Member Empowerment Grant process.

Care About Climate (Collaborative Grant)

Care About Climate will partner with The People’s Justice Council, Georgia WAND Education Fund, and South Carolina Interfaith Power & Light to pilot an asset map project within the Building Grassroots Power Action Team that will improve communication among all USCAN actions teams and among over 175+ grassroots and grasstop groups.

Clean Air Coalition  (Grassroots/Frontlines Grant)

The grant funds will be used to support the organization’s efforts to advance climate and environmental justice in working-class and communities of color, continue organizing for the just transition of the NRG Huntley Coal plant in Tonawanda, NY and create and grow accessible, generational green jobs in the Western New York Region. 

Environmental Finance Center West (Grassroots/Frontlines Grant)

This funding will be used to support New Mexico Tribal efforts to: 1) better understand potential impacts of and vulnerabilities to climate change, 2) develop climate adaptation plans and 3) empower Tribal members to tell and share their own climate stories through digital storytelling training and production. While the initial focus of this proposal is New Mexico’s 220,000 Tribal members and 22 Tribes, the final product will be made available to Tribes throughout the United States.

Gasp (Collaborative Implementation Grant)

Gasp will work in partnership with Power Shift Network, Sierra Club, and The People’s Justice Council to host the inaugural Renew Alabama Environmental Justice Tour, a series of convenings throughout the state of Alabama to introduce and engage moral leaders and young organizers in the movement for environmental justice.

Georgia WAND (Grassroots/Frontlines Grant)

Funding will be used to create participatory education, public health, and policy campaigns in Burke County, Georgia. Georgia WAND is planning a public education campaign about the issues facing the Burke County community, focusing on how residents can be their own advocates around public health and climate awareness.

Kentucky Conservation Committee(Collaborative Implementation Grant)

KCC is partnering with three other USCAN member groups (Center for Biological Diversity, Dogwood Alliance, and the Livelihoods Knowledge Exchange Network) and and other key advocacy organizations working in this region to build strategies on addressing the impacts of climate change on biodiversity and water quality in the Upper Cumberland Watershed.

Kingdom Living Temple  (Grassroots/Frontlines Grant)

Funds will be used to engage grassroots communities, i.e.., students in renewal education and citizen science around the issues of populations and climate change. We will be working in the cities of Florence and Orangeburg, SC.  

New Jersey Organizing Project (Grassroots/Frontlines Grant)

This collaborative proposal continues to and expands the work of a subgroup of USCAN’s Socially and Economically Just Adaptation and Mitigation Action Team. The group is working together for just policies, programs, and practices for climate preparedness, adaptation, resiliency, and mitigation.

North Carolina Interfaith Power and Light (Collaborative Implementation Grant)

The Southeast Climate Action Faith Leaders Network is a collaborative effort building long-term grassroots power lifting up the principles and values of a just transition as we convene faith leaders throughout the Southeast region.

Ohio Interfaith Power and Light (Grassroots/Frontlines Grant)

Grant funds will be used to support Ohio Interfaith Power & Light in transforming its organizational mission, vision, and programming to strengthen their work towards intersectional justice, inclusivity, anti-racism, and grassroots movement building.

Physicians for Social Responsibility (Grassroots/Frontlines Grant)

Physicians for Social Responsibility Philadelphia (PSR), in collaboration with Earth Quaker Action Team (EQAT), will amplify the message of health in context of solar  energy jobs in underinvested Philadelphia neighborhoods.

Sol Nation(Grassroots/Frontlines Grant)

Funds will be used to support the annual Sol Summit, an outlet that equips marginalized communities with education, training and resources to address injustice specifically in the areas of climate, environmental, and economic impacts.

Sunrise Movement Education Fund (Alignment Convening Grant)

Funds will support an in-person convening and coalition-building to align environmental, labor, racial justice, and economic justice organizations around a popular platform to fight climate change, restore our environment, and guarantee good jobs for all.

Sustaining Way (Grassroots/Frontlines Grant)

Funding will support two efforts: 1) Sustaining Way’s multi-tiered workforce development  program that builds grassroots power through employing and training community members in sustainable practices, leadership, advocacy and personal skills all while developing the surrounding low-income community; and 2) strategic planning for proliferation of our replicable model throughout South Carolina and the Southeast enabling Sustaining Way to establish a network of grassroots communities.

The People's Justice Council (Grassroots/Frontlines Grant)

Funding will support startup expenses for Alabama IPL, a hopeful moral response to climate change, including the purchase of equipment for training and speaking events, the creation of initial marketing materials, and staffing costs for first year programming.

The Whitney M. Slater Foundation (Collaborative Implementation Grant)

Funds will be used to take follow-up measures after the completion of the Justice First Tour. These follow-up measures will include: convening two organizers from each of the 12 states that the Justice First Tour visited and participating in the 2018 Creating a Climate for Change Conference.

Wisconsin Green Muslims (Grassroots/Frontlines Grant)

Funds will be used centering equity in the 100% clean and renewable energy economy on the local level in Wisconsin. Through grassroots and community-led efforts in building large and diverse coalition, our collective work on climate, justice and jobs, grounded in energy democracy, will enhance capacity to successfully launch Wisconsin’s Just Solar guiding principles and programs.

Young Evangelicals for Climate Action (Collaborative Implementation Grant)

This member alignment grant will go directly toward offsetting the staff costs of participating in the work of the Equitable and Ambitious Climate Vision Action Team.  This grant will allow a more diverse, inclusive, and grassroots representation on the Action Team and will enhance the outcome of the Action Team’s work as a result.