Based in nine different U.S. states and territories, our first grantee cohort is working on issues from pesticide reform to food sovereignty. By supporting these frontline environmental and climate justice organizations in their organizational strategy development and durability, we seek to bolster their fight for safe, healthy, and sustainable worlds – on their own terms. See below to learn more about each organization’s work, community, and values.
Founded in 1981 by garment workers and Chicana activists, La Mujer Obrera is a local organization dedicated to creating communities defined by women. Their members and leaders live in the barrio Chamizal in El Paso, Texas, a predominantly Latino and immigrant neighborhood. Rooted in Mexican heritage and local knowledge, their Familias Unidas del Chamizal and Proyecto Verde programs apply a just transition framework to organize and work directly with residents—elders, families, and children—on pressing environmental hazards and injustices, like ozone nonattainment, toxic playgrounds, and polluting bus hubs and industrial fires near public schools and public housing.
Community In-Power and Development Association (CIDA) is a nonprofit organization fighting for the right to clean air. CIDA was founded in 2000 with the mission to empower low-income communities of color in Port Arthur, Texas to hold neighboring chemical manufacturers, refineries, and incinerator facilities accountable. Their various activities include collecting and analyzing air samples, advocating for environmental legislative change, and directly protesting environmental actions of community concern. In recent years, CIDA has expanded its focus to include grassroots climate-resilience building; for example, they led Hurricane Laura recovery efforts in Southeast Texas and Southwest Louisiana.
Dream of Wild Health (DWH), founded in 1998 as Peta Wakan Tipi, aims to restore health and well-being in the Native community by recovering knowledge of and access to healthy Indigenous foods, medicines, and lifeways. DWH seeks to accomplish this goal by creating culturally-based opportunities for youth employment, entrepreneurship, and leadership; increasing access to Indigenous foods; and engaging in community organizing and outreach around reclaiming cultural traditions, healthy Indigenous foods, cooking skills, and policy and systemic change. One of the longest operating Native American organizations in Minnesota’s Twin Cities, DWH has expanded over the years to include a 30-acre regenerative farm, native fruit orchard, and pollinator meadow.
Founded in 2004 in Detroit, Michigan, One Love Global’s mission is to transform communities so Black children experience justice, peace, healing, opportunity, and abundance. One Love Global centers the leadership of young people of color through the Freedom Summer Organizing School, which trains Black youth in community organizing and long-term transformative change, and the Peace & Prosperity Youth Action Movement (PPM), a youth-led social justice coalition. PPM Detroit prioritizes education justice, environmental justice, and community safety; organizes around seeking greater access to and ownership of green spaces; and advocates for systemic and policy changes like a Michigan BREATHE Act.
Including more than 190 organizations, Californians for Pesticide Reform (CPR) aims to reduce pesticide use and subsequent pesticide harm in frontline communities while advancing more sustainable and just farming practices. CPR targets interconnected issues such as environmental justice, environmental health, and food justice to support and protect impacted community members – many of whom are low-income, immigrants, and people of color. To support its efforts, CPR mobilizes power within farmworker communities across California by building grassroots leadership and linking community leaders to local decision-makers.
Through collective action and a shared resources network, Haciendo Acciones Socio-Ecológicas Resilientes (HASER) promotes overall social well-being in Puerto Rico in the face of increased social inequality and disparate effects of climate change. HASER advances equity and quality of life in Puerto Rico by building transformative leadership and community power through a participatory and decentralized approach. Through comprehensive movement building, HASER supports grassroots action and the creation of community-based groups to increase access to information and resources, advance advocacy for Puerto Ricans, and encourage shared knowledge and experiences.
Hawai’i Peace and Justice (HJP) confronts the climate crisis and environmental racism by harnessing power to promote a pro-peace, demilitarized, anti-imperialist movement in Hawai’i and the wider Pacific region. HJP centers its fight against environmental racism and militarism by investing in Aloha ‘Āina (“love of the land”). This multigenerational and multi-ethnic organization collectively pushes for Indigenous sovereignty and a move away from industries of violence and U.S. occupation by building youth leadership and international solidarity.
Based in West Kaua’i, Hawai’i, Kumano I Ke Ala (KIKA) is an agriculture and culture-focused organization that seeks to preserve native Hawaiian culture and promote the economic empowerment of local residents and farmers through the revitalization of a regenerative agricultural economy centered on food production. Through youth land-based education, KIKA provides mentorship and sustainable farming education and builds Indigenous power important for systemic, transformative change. The organization grounds its community work in native Hawaiian values to advance Indigenous sovereignty, sustainability, and self-determination.
Partners for Environmental Justice (PEJ) advocates for human and natural communities in southeast Raleigh, North Carolina through community empowerment, economic development, and education on the protection of urban wetlands. PEJ works within the greater Walnut Creek Watershed to support and protect historically underserved communities such as Rochester Heights, a majority African American community facing displacement and environmental harm. Since the mid 1990s, PEJ has tackled environmental justice issues such as flooding, trash dumping, and threats from invasive species, and has been working to protect, improve, and revitalize the Walnut Creek Wetland Park, an important source of ecological and spiritual health for the community. PEJ also plays a major role in environmental advocacy and equitable development in Raleigh and continues to share community education through the Walnut Creek Watershed Learning Network.
Ridges to Riffles Conservation Group (R2R) is an Indigenous-led environmental justice organization based in Sacramento, California that aims to protect and preserve natural and cultural resources at risk due to climate change. Through community collaboration with entities such as Tribal governments, communities, individuals, and organizations, R2R pushes for legal and policy advocacy that supports Tribal sovereignty and the preservation of local ecosystems and promotes climate and natural resource conservation. The group builds upon Indigenous culture and knowledge through community education to empower Native identity and sovereignty for all Tribal nations across Indian country.
Formed in 2018, Rise St. James is a faith-based grassroots organization fighting for environmental justice in “Cancer Alley,” a highly concentrated stretch of petrochemical factories and toxic pollution along the Mississippi River in Louisiana. Rise St. James’ leaders and members are largely Black women from the fourth and fifth districts of St. James Parish, many of whom trace their roots in the region back to the end of antebellum slavery. Their lands have been recently threatened by the construction of a Formosa Plastics factory and Rise St. James has led the fight against it through legal action, strategic communications, and the collective strength of the community.
The Human Rights Coalition (HRC) was formed in 2001 when a group of formerly incarcerated people and their loved ones came together to support prisoners and their families and challenge the unjust nature of the punitive system. HRC organizes inside and outside prisons across Pennsylvania to defend the human rights of the incarcerated. Their Toxic Prisons Campaign seeks to raise awareness of and challenge the lack of access to clean water and the toxic environmental conditions in prisons and surrounding communities located near industrial energy facilities and toxic waste disposal sites.
Chester Residents Concerned for Quality Living (CRCQL) is an intergenerational grassroots community organization based in Chester, Pennsylvania that was formed to demand an end to harmful toxic waste facilities in their neighborhood. With a population of approximately 33,00 residents, 70% of whom are African American, CRCQL empowers and educates community members about the damaging effects of air pollution that have led to high rates of asthma, respiratory diseases, and cancers in their community. CRCQL has successfully led campaigns to shut down facilities that threaten their waterfront and community. Notably, they are the first activist group to apply the Civil Rights Act in an environmental racism lawsuit against Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection.
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