Explore Our Community Action Grants

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Indigenous Environmental Network

$10,000 to support Indigenous Environment Network’s Emergency Mutual Aid Fund launched in response to COVID-19 to quickly move funds into the hands of community-based Indigenous individuals and organizations from the U.S. and Canada that are experiencing loss of income and financial hardship due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Small grants up to $2,000 are distributed to Indigenous individuals and organizations to be used for three purposes: 1) emergency purchase of essential provisions; 2) support with transportation for essential needs, such as medical and groceries; and 3) home business slowdowns in sales and other cash flow difficulties (“home business” is referring to things like quilting, regalia making, bead and quillwork, moccasin making, basket making, pottery, silversmithing, etc.).

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Appalachians Against Pipelines

$3,000 to support the Appalachian Climate Action Camp, a ten-day direct action training camp with an estimated 150 participants, along with trainers and panelist, coming from throughout Appalachia as an important component of the greater Appalachians Against Pipeline’s goal of stopping the Mountain Valley Pipeline and Atlantic Coast Pipeline – estimates are that the Mountain Valley Pipeline would emit almost 90 million metric tons of greenhouse gasses annually and the Atlantic Coast Pipeline would emit almost 68 million metric tons.

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Unist’ot’en Camp

$5,000 to support efforts to re-establish Indigenous governance over Wet’suwet’en territory and protect it from several proposals to construct oil and gas pipelines, including the 420-mile Coastal GasLink pipeline that would carry fracked gas from northeast British Columbia to LNG Canada, a massive proposed liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal that exemplifies the sector’s climate and human rights impacts. On February 6, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police used assault rifles, snipers, dogs, sound cannons and helicopters to carry out a five-day militarized police raid and remove peaceful Indigenous land defenders from their homes on unceded Wet’suwet’en territory.

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Keeper of the Mountains

$7,500 to support work towards healthier, more sustainable mountain communities and ending mountaintop removal coal mining in West Virginia through education & organizing, actions and land easements inspired Larry Gibson, the late founder and inspirational leader of Keeper of the Mountains, whose family has been able to protect their ancestral home on Kayford Mountain amidst 7,500 acres of MTR sites. KOTM also provides support in securing clean water for communities that have been abandoned by the coal industry.

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Amazon Watch

$40,000 to support amplifying the voices and solutions of Indigenous peoples in response to the Amazon fires as the best way to prevent the next catastrophe. This grant is supporting 6 Amazon-based organizations for the following: providing emergency aid and supporting Indigenous fire brigades and Indigenous communities marching hundreds of miles to the regional capital in Bolivia in response to the devastating fires in the Amazon region of that country; travel support for Indigenous women that are part of the Women Defenders of the Amazon Against Extraction to participate in the Minga Indígena, an international gathering to promote learning, discussion, and reflection among Indigenous leaders and share updates about how their communities and territories are developing alternative solutions to climate change; and legal and logistical support for the Kichwa people of Sarayaku refiling their historic case that found the Ecuadorian government guilty of rights violations associated with pursuing oil drilling activities without their consent and holding a community-wide assembly on their territory to report back on their work and to begin planning next steps towards securing permanent protection of their rainforest territory

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Fundo Socioambiental CASA

$50,000 to provide longterm support to Indigenous Peoples mobilizing to save their territories, including in response to the Amazon fires and the ongoing threat tied to Brazil’s Bolsonaro government slashing environmental protections, human rights standards, and the rule of law to benefit the very actors destroying the rainforest. Indigenous communities have fought back on many fronts – forming Indigenous fire brigades to directly put out fires, continuing to confront and stop illegal activities on their territories despite the great security risks of doing so, organizing peaceful mass mobilizations in the region, and holding emergency Indigenous assemblies to strategize and plan courses of action. CASA has an existing and robust network of local advisors across different parts of the Amazon and are able to get funds to Indigenous communities that are underfunded, as well as provide rapid response support to address threats to Indigenous leaders.

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Yayasan PUSAKA

$4,000 to support the Papuan Indigenous Peoples Action Week, with various dialogues and actions in Jakarta for communities and civil society organizations related to the lack of proper consultation in the permitting process for industrial plantations, which has resulted in deforestation, impacts on food production and livelihoods, and other human rights violations. Support went towards the overall event as well as travel support for 4 Indigenous Papuans from Sorong to go to Jakarta to participate in week of activities.

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Grassroots Consulting

$4,500 to support travel costs to participate in the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) annual meeting and the launching there of an updated report, ‘Who Watches the Watchmen?,’ to continue to publicly pressure the RSPO to enact meaningful change in the palm oil industry towards forest protection and upholding community rights.

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Sunrise El Paso

$5,000 to support a Latino/a youth-led community organizing and movement building strategy to resist a potential JP Morgan Chase buyout of the El Paso Electric Company through a private equity fund, which would likely lead to increased fracking, as well as address the overall threats of a privatized electric utility that only permits 3% renewable energy, a city government that allows for the El Paso refinery’s petroleum apparatus to emit toxic gases, and a new natural gas plant on the horizon. Resisting the JP Morgan buyout also provides an opportunity for a cultural shift towards the development of a localized version of the Green New Deal.

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RISE St. James

$5,000 to support community organizing and a multi-platform media campaign to block construction of a Formosa petrochemical complex in historic St. James parish, LA, which would cause a drastic downgrade in quality of life for a Black community already overburdened by air pollution, while also emitting 13 million tons of greenhouse gases annually, equivalent to three coal-fired power plants.