What Happens When Environmental Movement Leaders Make Funding Decisions?

Cahaba riverkeeper in Alabama is one of several local grantees backed by mosaic. Jeremy Raines/shutterstock

A year ago, green philanthropy got a glimpse of where funding would go if environmental movement leaders called the shots.

Last March, a somewhat unlikely alliance of 15 environmental leaders—grassroots activists, heads of major green groups, foundation presidents—announced the 21 projects it had chosen from hundreds of applications to receive a total of $3 million in funding. The slate of grants represented a notable investment in the oft-neglected area of environmental movement infrastructure—and the first chapter for one of the largest participatory grantmaking efforts in the United States.

This week, the group is back for round two. Known as Mosaic (not to be confused with a participatory arts grantmaker with the same name), the initiative more than doubled both its grantmaking total and awardees this year, directing $6.4 million to 47 projects. Some focus on gathering data, such as a mobile app that lets users report hazardous oil and gas projects and a Washington-based environmental monitoring system. Others seek to inform, including a 28-tribe effort to develop a toolkit on the rights of nature, and a super-network of BIPOC-led farmers groups. All the funded projects are collaborative efforts, representing a remarkable 226 co-applicants.

Like the first batch, the focus is on developing key infrastructure for the environmental movement, with an emphasis this round on connecting people and amplifying voices. Lead grantees include some national groups like the Center for Story-Based Strategy and BlueGreen Alliance, but most are regional, state and local organizations such as California Indian Environmental Alliance or Cahaba Riverkeeper. The funding sharply contrasts with historic racial and gender-based funding gaps—85% of the chosen projects are led by Black, Indigenous and people of color, and 87% are led by women.

“If we’re not investing in infrastructure right now, we’re going to lose the biggest fights,” said Angela Mahecha, a member of the governance assembly who is director of the Tishman Center’s Environmental Justice Movement Fellowship, which was one of the recipients this round.

As in the first round, all funding decisions were made by Mosaic’s governance assembly, whose diversity in terms of both demographics and organizational background is striking. Representatives include the leaders of national environmental groups like the National Wildlife Federation, local grassroots organizations such as Savannah Riverkeeper, and identity-focused movement groups like Asian Pacific Environmental Network.

There are also three grantmakers represented in the assembly: the Bullitt, Pisces and NorthLight foundations. Philanthropy intentionally holds a super-minority, but the initiative has attracted a fascinating array of financial backers. Among them are the two leading legacy funders of climate work, the Hewlett and Packard foundations; two philanthropies drawing on Rockefeller wealth; progressive intermediary the Tides Foundation; and the Rob and Melani Walton Foundation. (See a complete list of backers at the end of this article.)

The initiative aims to address philanthropy’s too-narrow focus on which tools are necessary to create change on climate, biodiversity and other crises the world faces today, and try to empower a broad, pluralistic movement, said David Beckman, president of the Pisces Foundation and a member of the governance assembly.

“Philanthropy’s strength and weakness is that it focuses a lot on the what—policy, regulation, the outcome. But the pace and scale of environmental challenges today demands that we also focus more on the how—the tools, the infrastructure,” he said. “Because the how unlocks the what.”

Learning to balance involvement and exhaustion

Mosaic exists to funnel much-needed resources to long-underfunded front-line groups amid a climate emergency. That is no small task, and like other participatory efforts, the initiative is still honing its approach.

In its first year, Mosaic’s governance reviewed 450-plus applications, with small groups of members reviewing 60 proposals over the course of two weeks. Many worked late nights. Spotify playlists were emailed around. Katie Robinson, the initiative’s director, told me last year it was like “finals week.”

This time, Mosaic simplified the process. The initiative’s three staff members sorted through the stack of nearly 700 applications to see what needs and trends emerged. With the governance assembly’s guidance, they narrowed the pool to 200 finalists. All of those were collectively reviewed by the governance assembly. The group still met for 10, roughly three-hour Zoom calls, but over four months, this time, not three. The key was finding a balance between involvement and exhaustion.

“How do you make sure that this isn’t a full-time job for members?” Robinson said. “But also, you don’t want to go so far that it’s just a rubber-stamping process.”

“Some of the most risky, exciting, creative ideas”

The labor required of the governance assembly may be intensive, but it does not only inform Mosaic’s funding decisions. On a joint video call, I asked three members of the governance how it had impacted their own work. All three said participation gave them new insights into the movement.

One example is Abigail Dillen, president of EarthJustice, whose organization has about 600 clients currently. That case load “gives us a sense that we know what’s going on,” she told me. But Mosaic has shown her there’s a whole lot more happening in the field.

“It’s lifted up new possibilities of who we could be working with, where we could be adding legal firepower,” she said. “It’s just been an extraordinary window into some of the riskiest, most exciting, most creative ideas that people have been inspired to put forward.”

The initiative also launched an online platform, MosaicConnect, to share those applications with other grantmakers on request. More than 160 applicants this year have expressed interest in working with Mosaic to share their proposals more widely, including through the platform, according to Robinson. The group also plans to share with the broader movement its analysis of needs and gaps based on the applications it received.

“Taking off like wildfire”

One 2020 grant offers an example of the kind of impact and infrastructure Mosaic grantees can create. Mosaic gave $75,000 to a coalition of five faith groups spanning Georgia, Ohio, New York and South Carolina. Led by Graniteville, South Carolina-based Imani Group, the project hoped to support engagement by the Black church on climate and environmental justice.

The first step was to design a training course for church leaders on those issues. The next was a goal of training about 75 individuals. But it ended up “taking off like wildfire,” Robinson said. The group ultimately trained more than 350 pastors, preachers and others across a wide range of denominations. “It was something that hit home for so many of the leaders,” she said.

That number should grow further. Mosaic granted another $125,000 to the coalition in the latest round. Knowing their small team is not enough, the groups will use the funds to roll out a train-the-trainer model to keep up with the demand.

“We could spend $100 million tomorrow”

Mosaic’s second round of grants more than doubled its first. Along with some COVID grants, it brings the initiative’s total grantmaking to $10.9 million. Yet that is a drop in the bucket compared to what, say, Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy has raised from corporate connections and fellow billionaires, with commitments typically in the tens and hundreds of millions.

By contrast, Mosaic has a long list of sponsors, but not nearly as many zeros at their command, with funding dwarfed by the demand. Over the two rounds, the group has fielded more than 1,100 movement infrastructure applications representing roughly $300 million in requested support. And its chosen projects often are not getting much other support: Mosaic is the largest granter in 47% of projects, with an average grant size of $135,000.

“There’s enormous skepticism about the ability of a group as diverse and as large as ours to make decisions efficiently,” said Dillen, who hopes the group can prove Mosaic is a concept worth scaling. “I don’t think there’s any RFP that’s elicited more fantastic ideas. We could spend $100 million with enormous impact tomorrow.”

Dillen may have been throwing out a round number, but it’s worth noting that a nearly ten-fold budget boost for a one-year-old grantmaking project seems more plausible lately. Funders are starting to realize that size is not the only marker of readiness for scale. Jeff Bezos, for instance, has given a variety of grants rivaling or far exceeding awardees’ past budgets.

With scientists sounding code red on the climate emergency and billionaires from Laurene Powell Jobs to Arthur Blank pledging big bucks toward action, perhaps we’ll see mega-donors cutting large checks to Mosaic and other such efforts.

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Mosaic’s current list of funders: