Frontline communities have been historically underfunded and underserved, especially when it comes to advancing environmental and climate justice. Outside of our own grant cycles, FRI collects and shares a range of external grant and federal funding opportunities with our extensive network of frontline communities. FRI’s grant resource list will be updated frequently, so please check back often for up-to-date information.
Open Funding Opportunities
| DEADLINE | Grant Title | Organization | Brief Description | Eligibility | Amount (USD) | Location(s) of focus |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 15-Sep-25 | Restoration Returns Grants | G20 Global Land Initiative | Funds field restoration projects that bolster community action, technical assistance, and capacity building. | 501(c)(3) nonprofit, grassroots organizations or indigenous communities focused on land restoration with an annual budget over 25,000 USD. | 17,000 | International |
| 18-Sep-25 (every third thursday) | The Emergent Fund | Emergent Fund | Provides funding for rapid-response and emergent organizing work in response to specific urgent crises or power-building opportunities on a rolling, monthly basis. | Frontline, community-based organizations with 501(c)3 or 501(c)4 status or fiscally sponsored projects. | 10,000-30,000 | United States |
| 29-Sep-25 | Legal Empowerment Fund | Fund for Global Human Rights | Funds organizations who use and shape the law to challenge land and environmental injustice in the Caribbean. | Grassroots organizations with a budget under 200,000 USD. | 10,000-30,000 | Caribbean region: Antigua & Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, St. Kitts & Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent & Grenadines, Suriname, and Trinidad & Tobago |
| 30-Sep-25 | Young Environmentalist Innovative Challenge (YEIC) | Kenya Community Development Foundation | Funds a youth-led project that produces a scalable environmental innovation to address climate change, sustainable agriculture and energy, land restoration, or circular economy. | Individuals or youth-led organizations (15-35 years of age) in Kenya. | Up to 1,500,000 KES (individual) Up to 5,000,000 KES (organization) | Kenya |
| 30-Sep-25 | Building Resilience in Agriculture | Building Resilience in Agriculture | Funds projects that apply science and innovation with measurable outcomes on the resilience of farms, farming communities, and natural ecosystems in the farming landscapes to the realities of changing climates and extreme weather events, with a focus on two or more of the following: soil health, climate mitigation or adaptation, watershed health, biodiversity, and improved livelihoods. | Projects with a predominant field or land component where solutions are applied and tested on a farm, in a farming community, or in a landscape adjacent to cultivated land. | Up to $150,000 | International |
| 1-Oct-25 | Rapid Response: Reinvesting in Racial and Indigenous Health Equity Research | Robert Wood Johnson Foundation | Soil Health: Build the health and fertility of the soil to support a healthy and productive ecosystem above and below ground. | U.S.-based organizations that have lost federal funding for health equity research. | 50,000-200,000 | United States and Territories |
| 9-Oct-25 | Professional Development Grants for Environmental Journalism | Journalismfund | Climate Mitigation and Adaptation: Increase resilience to climate change impacts, sequester carbon, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. | Incorporated legal entities, e.g., organizations or companies, who work with journalism or environmentalism. | Up to 84,000 Euros | Europe |
| Rolling until 15-Oct-25 | Exploring Equitable Futures | Robert Wood Johnson Foundation | Watershed Health: Improve watershed health through reducing nutrient runoff and the quantity of water needed for farms and communities to thrive. | Priority given to 501(c)3 nonprofit organizations. | Varied; no set award amount. | United States and U.S. Territories |
| Rolling | Latitude Fund | Jacob and Terese Hershey Foundation | Biodiversity: Protect and improve biodiversity across agricultural landscapes – examples include forest conservation and restoration, bees and other pollinators for crops as well as improving the soil microbiome. | Grassroots 501(c)(3) non-profits with budgets under 500,000 USD or fiscally-sponsored projects in Texas. | 2,500-7,500 | Texas |
| Rolling | National Grassroots Organizing Grant Program | Ben & Jerry's Foundation | Improved Livelihoods: Improve livelihoods in locally contextualized ways, ensuring farmers’ access to training, decision making and resources to implement sustainable agricultural practices and achieve improved farm performance. | 501c3 non-profits and fiscally-sponsored projects | Two-year grants of up to $30,000 per year | United States |
| Rolling | Mobilize Power Fund | Third Wave Fund | Funds gender justice organizations to adapt or pivot work when met with urgent, time-sensitive opportunities or threats to their organizing and movement building. | BIPOC-Youth-led organizations with budgets under $500,000 focusing on gender justice and community power building, | Up to $10,000 | United States |
| Rolling | Communities First Fund Rapid Response Fund | Communities First Fund | Provides rapid-response funding to frontline and grassroots organizations to help them respond to infrastructure crises, federal rulemaking and funding notices, and other time sensitive issues. | 501(c)3 organizations and fiscally-sponsored projects. | $10,000 to $100,000 | United States, with focus on U.S. South and Midwest. |
| Rolling | De Colores Rapid Response Fund | Peace Development Fund | Provides rapid-response funds for grassroots organizing in communities of color, poor, and working-class. | 501(c)3 nonprofit organizations, non-501(c) organizations, groups, and coalitions. | $500-$1000 | United States |
| Rolling | Security and Well-Being Grants | Urgent Action Fund for Women's Human Rights Asia & Pacific | Supports women and non-binary activists and organizations responding to urgent crises; funds are used to ensure safety from both physical and emotional harm. | Women/Non-binary led, human rights focus, and specifically for addressing urgent crises or threats. | Up to $5,000 | Asia and the Pacific |
| Rolling | Resourcing Resilience | Urgent Action Fund for Women's Rights Asia and Pacific | Funds women and non-binary human rights defenders who are seeking to implement an initiative that would support their activism. | Women or Non-binary Led | Up to $5,000 | Asia and the Pacific |
| Rolling | Environmental and Climate Justice Grants | Urgent Action Fund - Africa | Funds environmental women human rights defenders and woman-led grassroots environmental organizations to confront systemic environmental injustices in Africa. | Woman/trans-led organizations resopnding to urgent situations. | Up to $15,000 | Rainforest Zones Across Africa: Democratic Republic of Congo, Republic of Congo (Congo Brazzaville), Cameroon, Central African Republic, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Guinea, Nigeria, Cote d’Ivoire, Sierra Leone, Ghana, Liberia, Ethiopia, Zambia, Madagascar, Mozambique, Angola, Tanzania, Uganda, South Sudan, Togo |
| Rolling | Opportunity Grants | Fondo de Acción Urgente -América Latina | Funds strategic actions to defend women's and LBTIQ+ rights, falling under a broad a range of topics from women's rights to gender, racial, or environmental justice. | Woman/trans-led organizations resopnding to urgent situations. | Up to $5,000 | Latin America and the Caribbean |
| Rolling | Protection and Security Grants | Fondo de Acción Urgente -América Latina | Funds actions focused on protection of women and trans activists (and their organizations) when at-risk due to their work defending human rights and/or land. | Woman/trans-led organizations resopnding to urgent situations. | Up to $5,000 | Latin America and the Caribbean |
| Rolling | Security Grants | Urgent Action Fund | Supports the safety and security of women/trans/non-binary activists in unanticipated, time-urgent situations. | Funds must support women/trans/nonbinary activists in response to unanticipated situations. | Up to $8,000 | Middle East, Europe, the Balkans, the Caucasus, Turkey, Central Asia, Russia, Canada and the United States |
| Rolling | Charity Pot Grant | LUSH | Supports small, grassroots organizations in North America and around the world that are working on the root cause of issues and creating long-term sustainable change. Funds organizations working in areas of animal protection, environmental justice, and human rights | Registered or unregistered organizations/charities, non-profits, or Indigenous and community groups with an annual revenue of $500,000 or less | Up to $25,000 | Worldwide |
| Rolling | EJII Capacity Building Grants | Wisconsin Environmenal Justice Infrastructure Initiative | Supports Wisconsin communities raising community awareness on environmental justice issues | Wisconsin grassroots organizations (501(c)(3) not required) | $200,000 | Wisconsin |
| Rolling | Federal Access Center Grants | Just Transition Fund | Provides financial and technical assistance to communities impacted by the coal economy to access government funding | 501(c)(3) non-profit organizations and local governments serving coal communities | Up to $100,000 | United States |
| Rolling | Seed Grants | New England Grassroots Fund | Funds groups launching new projects or starting to significantly change the direction of an existing project | Groups doing local, grassroots work in Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island or Vermont (tax status and fiscal sponsor not required) | $500 - $1,000 | New England |
| Rolling | Grassroots Grants | Story of Stuff | Funds projects on water privatization, plastic pollution, and other environmental justice focus areas. | Groups must be led by and serving black, indigenous, and communities of color | Up to $5,000 | United States |
| Rolling | The Catalyst Fund | Roddenberry Foundation | Supports groups anywhere in the world with early-stage idea or project that addresses pressing global challenges | Must be 18 years of age or older and submit an application in English | $2,500 - $15,000 | United States |
| Rolling | Cornell Douglas Foundation Grants | Cornell Douglas Foundation | Funds proposal in the following areas of focus: environmental health and justice, land conservation, mountaintop removal mining, sustainability of resources, watershed protection | $15,000 - $50,000 | United States | |
| Rolling | EDLC Grants | Environmental Defender Law Center (EDLC) | Covers expenses of public interest litigation against those responsible for resource development projects that harm the human rights, health, and environment of communities in developing countries | NA | International | |
| Rolling | Norman Foundation Grants | The Norman Foundation | Promotes economic justice and development through community organizing, coalition building and policy reform efforts; work to prevent the disposal of toxics in communities, and to link environmental issues with economic and social justice; link community-based economic and environmental justice organizing to national and international reform efforts | Priority given to organizations with annual budgets of under $1 million | ~$30,000 | United States |
| Rolling | Petchem Frontline Fund | Center for International Environmental Law | Supports groups and organizations fighting the petrochemical buildout and infrastructure in the United States | NA | United States |