Climate Action Fund Grants

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7 Directions of Service

$8,200 to support a 10-person Gulf South delegation traveling to North Carolina to join the Indigenous-led Water Walk series of events along the proposed route of the Southgate extension of the Mountain Valley Pipeline, which has already been reduced to less than half its planned length due to local resistance. The delegation from the Gulf South is from communities impacted by LNG terminals and will be participating along with a coalition of Indigenous water protectors and landowners that would be impacted by the Southgate pipeline.

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Protect Our Water, Heritage, Rights (POWHR)

$10,000 to support a weekend of structured training for 70+ new and long-serving organizers and frontline community members mobilizing to stop the Mountain Valley Pipeline, which threatens the land, air, and water of communities along its entire 300-mile route in Appalachia, including crossing over nearly 1,000 streams and wetlands. The training was followed by a mass mobilization at the White House on June 8 uplifting youth and elder voices from Appalachia and Indigenous leaders resisting the Mountain Valley Pipeline Southgate extension.

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Start:Empowerment

$7,500 to support the Climate Justice Community School series of programs that provide BIPOC youth and communities access to environmental justice education, mentorship, and the ability to build up and out their organizing skills. The Earth Month Convergence featured more than 20 speakers and trainers, as well as hundreds of participants, including young BIPOC environmental justice organizers, voices from the Global South and Indigenous artists and the Youth Environmental Justice Vanguard Program provides ongoing mentorship opportunities and $500 stipends to participants to develop and implement community-led solutions.

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Carrizo Comecrudo Tribe of Texas

$10,000 to support Carrizo Comecrudo Tribe of Texas’ Bridges to the Ancestors youth-led run/walk, a 10-day journey across west Texas and down to Rio Grande Valley, including hosting town hall meetings at frontline community stops along the route, to further raise awareness about LNG’s impacts and build alliances. The Rio Grande Valley LNG and Texas LNG export terminals, if built, along with the Rio Bravo pipeline, would spew as much greenhouse emissions as approximately 40.4 million cars on the road per year, impact sacred Indigenous sites, pave over a “greenfield” of undeveloped wetlands, pollute nearby wildlife refuges, and divide a national wildlife corridor, transforming sites near the Port of Brownsville into industrial-scale export hubs complete with storage tanks, flare stacks, and explosion risks.

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Students for a Free Tibet

$7,500 to support the Tibet Climate Crisis campaign, including a conference and week-long direct action camp in India, as well as SFT bringing a delegation of Tibetan youth to the COP27 climate negotiations in Egypt. These activities are preparing young people to take action, offering training for trainer tracks for Tibetan youth to become direct action trainers themselves, creating healing spaces, and building community with organizers from other social justice movements and Indigenous water protectors from around the world.

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Keepers of the Water Council

$8,000 to support efforts to strengthen Indigenous community-based monitoring strategies through direct outreach to Indigenous communities impacted by coal and tar sands across Alberta, Canada, as well as through several smaller community meetings and a larger gathering for 50 Indigenous participants. Keepers of the Water gatherings are vital to ensure that Indigenous communities are supported in addressing the impacts of fossil fuel extraction and to help strengthen community-based monitoring strategies that support environmental review submissions and legal proceedings in the pursuit of environmental justice.

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Fossil Free Media

$7,500 to support a frontline delegation from the Appalachia region to Washington, D.C. for a People vs. Fossil Fuels rally outside the Capitol to demand that U.S. Senators and Representatives stop Senator Manchin’s proposed dirty infrastructure bill that would fast-track fossil fuel projects, including the fracked gas Mountain Valley Pipeline, and undercut basic environmental protections. The Mountain Valley Pipeline alone would lead to annual emissions equivalent to 26 coal plants and threaten the land, air, and water of communities along its entire 300-mile route, which would cross over nearly 1,000 streams and wetlands.
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Earth Guardians

$10,000 to support Earth Guardians’ Indigenous Youth Initiative, which is led by Indigenous youth on the frontlines of climate and social justice movements, including the fossil fuel fights, across the U.S. and Canada. Funds supported travel and participation costs for the weeklong Indigenous Youth Leadership Training.

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West Virginia Rising

$5,000 to support a mass mobilization and communications effort to spotlight Senator Manchin’s role in profiting off of dirty fossil fuels while blocking clean energy and just transition efforts in Congress that are critically needed. The mobilization took place at a coal plant that burns 500,000 tons of coal waste per year with Senator Manchin’s family business supplying the coal waste, which has been highlighted prominently by the New York Times and other publications.

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Defund Climate Chaos Street Art Project

$10,000 to support the Street Art Project to Defund Climate Chaos, a joint initiative of Indigenous, climate justice and low-wage workers movements, along with prominent art collectives (including BIPOC artists), organizing #DefundClimateChaos art actions in support of climate justice campaigns and movement building, building skills for ongoing actions, and helping to tell the stories of defunding and divesting from fossil fuels and creating positive alternatives.