Frontline Organizations Play a Vital Role in Movement Ecosystems; Let’s Fund Them to Thrive

As the COVID-19 pandemic gathered deadly force in the spring of 2020, frontline organizations stepped up, organizing mutual aid hubs, distributing food and personal protective equipment, and checking on elders. These organizations—which work on environmental, climate, and other social justice issues—are well-positioned to support the needs of their communities. Led mostly by low-income people and people of color, and accountable to those they serve, frontline organizations are trusted messengers and leaders.

That leadership has proven essential in the pandemic and in other crises. For example, in Skagit County, Washington, promotoras from Community to Community worked to counter misinformation about COVID-19 among farmworkers. In San Antonio, Texas, the Society of Native Nations brought sanitation supplies to elders and the homeless. And in New Orleans, Louisiana, Healthy Community Services and other grassroots organizations are installing green infrastructure to mitigate flooding in low-lying neighborhoods.

In effect, frontline organizations are serving as first responders—meeting their neighbors’ immediate needs while working to prevent the next crisis by tackling systemic problems. They have an impressive track record of success at the local level and beyond.

Yet, frontline organizations are routinely overlooked by funders. A report by Building Equity and Alignment for Environmental Justice found that, in some regions, only about 1% of grants from the 12 largest environmental funders went to grassroots environmental justice organizations.¹ And, while climate change disproportionately affects communities of color (https://www.epa.gov/cira/social-vulnerability-report), The Solutions Project reports that half of philanthropic funding on climate issues goes to 20 national organizations, which are mostly led by White men (https://thesolutionsproject.org).

This is a system that is profoundly out of balance. As environmental grantmakers, we think of the movements we fund as an ecosystem. In a healthy ecosystem, a diverse array of actors function at various scales, forming an interdependent whole. While these movements are certainly diverse, their funding streams are more of a monoculture—supporting one type of organization while neglecting others, and weakening the system overall.

This needs to change. To meet the crises and opportunities of the 21st century, we must support thriving movement ecosystems that prioritize frontline organizations working at the intersection of environmental, climate, and social justice. Our foundations, and many others, have made a commitment to provide that support. Now we must put our commitments into action.

The Problems—and Solutions—Are Connected

The movement ecosystem approach is not new. Thirty years ago, delegates to the First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit drafted 17 Principles of Environmental Justice. The principles affirm the sacredness of Mother Earth, the interdependence of all species, and the right to self-determination, among other core values. Five years after the Summit, a diverse group of activists developed the Jemez Principles for democratic organizing, which call for inclusivity, just relationships, bottom-up organizing, and more. Together, these two documents illuminate the values of frontline environmental justice organizations.

Frontline organizations understand that the great problems of our time—racial injustice, economic inequity, environmental injustice, and gendered violence—are inextricably entwined. Consider the fact that Indigenous persons and people of color are more than twice as likely to die of COVID-19 as their White counterparts.² This disparity is rooted in racist policy and practice, including unequal access to health care and secure housing, and exposure to particulate matter from the concentration of polluting industries in communities of color.³ An effective public health response demands attention to these inequities and other social and environmental determinants of health.⁴

The same is true for climate change. While a growing number of people are affected by the destabilized climate, people of color and low-income communities still bear the greatest burden (https://www.epa.gov/cira/social-vulnerability-report). This means more suffering in communities that have long served as sacrifice zones—hosting the fossil-fuel infrastructure that would never be built in affluent White neighborhoods.⁵

An Effective Approach

For decades, frontline organizations have taken a holistic approach to these interconnected problems. It is an approach that is achieving simultaneous gains for people and the planet, at the local, state, and national levels.

In Los Angeles, California, Communities for a Better Environment and Esperanza Community Housing—long-standing environmental and housing justice advocates—along with Physicians for Social Responsibility-LA, successfully pushed the city to establish a Climate Emergency Mobilization Office. Now, these organizations are working to ensure that grassroots communities of color are at the forefront of climate disaster planning.

At the state level, New York Renews—a coalition of more than 200 organizations—was instrumental in the passing of New York State’s 2019 Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act. The act calls for 70% renewable energy statewide by 2030, and full carbon neutrality by 2040. Frontline organizations made sure the act addresses historic inequities, by ensuring that climate programs benefit disadvantaged communities.⁶

And frontline organizations are shaping national policy. The New York climate act served as a model for President Biden’s landmark Justice40 Initiative, which will direct 40% of infrastructure and clean energy investments to communities burdened with environmental injustice. A coalition of grassroots and national environmental groups coauthored the Equitable and Just National Climate Platform, a plan to tackle the climate crisis while advancing economic, racial, and environmental justice. The Platform’s authors are advising the Biden administration on the implementation of Justice40.

Shifting Support

Today, resources are beginning to shift, as foundations (including ours) direct more funding to frontline organizations. Earlier this year, the Donors of Color Network issued a challenge to climate funders, asking us to direct at least 30% of our grantmaking to organizations that are led by people of color and accountable to their communities while providing greater transparency in grant reporting (https://climate.donorsofcolor.org). A total of 16 climate funders have met the target or pledged to do so. Recently, the Bezos Earth Fund, which has drawn criticism for favoring national groups with multimillion-dollar reserves, announced significant new funding that includes support for environmental justice work. It is a step forward, but far less than what is needed.

There is much more we can do. Funders can support the full ecosystem of care and change: frontline organizations, national organizations, and movement networks. Multiyear general support grants can give grassroots groups the flexibility they need to raise funds and respond to emergent crises—as they have during the pandemic. Video application processes can make it easier for frontline groups to apply for grants. Review panels can be expanded to include activists with firsthand experience in grassroots work. And funders can leverage the power of intermediaries in service of and accountable to grassroots communities to complement direct grants to community-based organizations.

Importantly, we can ask whether our institutions live up to their professed principles and values—in our grantmaking, our investments, our hiring, and our way of being in relationship with each other.

The pandemic has illuminated our interdependence as never before. It has made visible the threads that connect our own health and well-being to that of others, known and unknown. And it has vividly shown our dependence on the first responders and other essential workers on the front lines of this—and every—crisis. It has underscored the critical, and fraying, ecosystem of care on which our lives depend.

The movement to protect our shared environment is also an ecosystem, and it is dangerously out of balance. For that movement to thrive, we must nourish those with deep roots in the soil of community—and strengthen the ties among all of the system’s diverse inhabitants. Frontline organizations are first responders, caring for their communities, and agents of lasting change. While philanthropy and government are beginning to understand the importance of this essential work, greater recognition—and more funding—must follow.