OVERVIEW: The Global Greengrants Fund maintains a strong focus on environmental conservation and justice, funding grassroots organizations working in the areas of clean energy, sustainable agriculture, land and water conservation, indigenous rights and grassroots environmental justice.
IP TAKE: The Global Greengrants Fund, a leading environmental and justice funder, predominantly invests in grassroot-led and indigenous groups rather than larger organizations. In this vein, Greengrants makes hundreds of grants a year to support the “long arc” of climate justice, regardless of the inaction or changing priorities of governments. Its grants support everything from resisting destructive mining and fossil fuel projects to advancing sustainable agriculture and renewable energy.
However, despite its commitment to grassroots work, Greengrants is not accessible. It identifies potential grantees through advisory boards working on the ground in its geographic areas of interest, making up a global network of over 250 volunteers. Unless you can network with members of its advisory board, funding is limited here and depends on being found. See if you and your organization can participate in relevant grassroots coalitions. Explore regional partner funds and specialized collaboratives connected to Greengrants.
PROFILE: The Global Greengrants Fund was established in 1993 to support “grassroots-led efforts to protect the planet and the rights of people” and is on a mission to “mobilize resources for communities worldwide to protect our shared planet and work toward a more equitable world.” It is supported with funds from foundations, corporations and private donors; it claims to run via a “Global South-led model.” With headquarters in Boulder, Colorado and London, the fund takes a frontline approach, placing trust in “local people to advance solutions and strategies that will best fit their needs.” This funder supports local efforts for land and water conservation, clean energy, grassroots environmental justice and women and girls.
Grants for the Environment
The Global Greengrants Fund is predominantly an environmental funder whose work focuses on the intersection between equity, justice and the environment.
- All of its giving occurs through an environmental lens that is centered on sustaining human rights.
- The fund supports issues related to pollution mitigation, land conservation and helping indigenous and other local communities develop awareness of environmental issues and resist harmful land and resource development projects.
Grants for Climate Change
Global Greengrants’ Climate Justice initiative supports “projects to restore forests, resist harmful development, and advocate for smart climate policies.” This program prioritizes initiatives led by indigenous communities and local grassroots organizations, as well as community-controlled energy transitions.
- In Chile, the Observatorio Latinoamericano de Conflictos Ambientales has worked to strengthen community engagement and accountability around the environmental consequences of lithium extraction.
- In Tajikistan, The Little Earth has supported women’s participation in renewable-energy decision-making and community education.
- Greengrants has also highlighted community-led energy initiatives and organizing against fossil fuel development in countries including South Africa, Morocco and El Salvador.
Youth-centered climate action is another significant priority. Greengrants’ Next Generation Climate Board brings youth advisors into funding decisions and supports young people organizing around climate justice.
- The fund reported $4.04 million in youth-centered climate justice grants across 88 countries in 2025.
Grants for Marine and Freshwater Conservation
Through its Right to Land, Water and Resources program, the Greengrants Fund has demonstrated a strong commitment to water conservation, sustainable fishing initiatives, as well as resistance to land grabbing, resource extraction and privatization.
- In Canada, the fund has supported the Skeena Watershed Conservation Coalition, which has worked with the indigenous Tahltan people to resist a natural gas extraction project by Royal Dutch Shell in British Columbia.
- In Ecuador, Greengrants has supported Yuturi Warmi, a collective of Kichwa women working to protect Amazonian territory near the Napo River from illegal mining. Their work combines territorial monitoring and Indigenous governance with sustainable livelihoods.
- In Indonesia, Greengrants has highlighted the efforts of Indigenous communities in West Kalimantan to protect forests, peatlands and watersheds through locally rooted stewardship.
Grants for Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems
Greengrants has worked extensively with organizations in rural and developing areas of the world on efforts to promote soil conservation and sustainable farming methods. Grants for agriculture and food stem mainly from the fund’s Local Livelihoods focus area, which also emphasizes ecologically responsible economies.
- In Indonesia, the fund supported a local leader who reintroduced sorghum, a crop that requires less water and no fertilizer, to local agricultural practice.
- And in India, the foundation has supported a nation-wide initiative for sustainable and organic farming spearheaded by a retired teacher.
A significant related funding mechanism is the Agroecology Fund, a donor collaborative fiscally sponsored by Global Greengrants. It supports grassroots movements and collaborative networks working to transform food and agricultural systems through agroecological practices, food sovereignty and community leadership.
- The Agroecology Fund reported $14.2 million in grants through its global and regional programs in 2025. Its main grant program generally awards $50,000 to $150,000 to collaborative initiatives.
- The Agroecology Fund does not issue open calls for proposals. Potential grantees are nominated by advisors, funders and established partners, with selected organizations invited to submit proposals.
Grants for Human Rights and Global Development
Human rights grantmaking overlaps considerably with the fund’s work in the environmental arena. This work predominately focuses on the rights of women, the disabled, youth activists, and Indigenous people to resist the development of lands and resources that “put basic human rights to life-giving resources at great risk.” Greengrants makes related funding through the Right to Land, Water and Resources, Local Livelihoods, Healthy Ecosystems and Communities, and Women’s Environmental Action initiatives.
- The Local Livelihoods initiative, which aims to help communities in the developing world attain a sustainable form of economic independence that includes “a resistance to boom-and-bust development and the dehumanization of indigenous communities and cultures.”
- In the Philippines, PASAKK, Inc. used funding to help the Manobo people clear invasive plant species from wetlands and use the harvested plants to make woven sandals and bags, creating sustainable businesses for local women.
- Another grant helped the Achuar people of Ecuador develop a solar-powered water transportation system that has mitigated water pollution in the Pastaza and Capahuari Rivers.
- The Global Greengrants Fund invests in Women’s Environmental Action, acknowledging the “intersection of women’s rights and the environment” and supporting women’s groups that work toward sustainable practices and conservation.
- The fund also shares its analysis of this work with the philanthropic community, encouraging other funders to support women’s environmental initiatives. To this end, the fund published an executive summary of its work in women’s environmental action.
- Past women’s projects to receive funding the Pari Women’s Development Group of Papua New Guinea, which used funding to protect and rehabilitate mangroves, and the Uganda Women’s Water Initiative, which works toward improved water access, conservation and the development of sustainable businesses in the greater Gomba area.
- The Right to Land, Water and Resources initiative views Indigenous rights to land and resources as a “long-term investment in the environment.”
- Through the Healthy Ecosystems and Communities initiative, the fund commits to listen to local populations and place “trust and decision-making power directly in the hands of communities to protect and restore their own land, biodiversity, water, and the health of their families.”
- Funding focuses on biodiversity conservation, pollution, toxic waste, watershed protection and the environmental health of local communities, cross-cutting areas that work across multiple interests of the Greengrants network.
- Greengrants has also expanded funding at the intersection of disability rights and climate justice.
- Its dedicated Disability Rights and Climate Justice Advisory Board supports disability-led organizations addressing environmental harm, access to resources, climate adaptation and participation in policy decisions.
- In Kenya, the Endorois Indigenous Women Empowerment Network has worked to strengthen climate advocacy involving Endorois people with disabilities.
- In the Philippines, Life Haven Center for Independent Living has examined how climate change affects people with disabilities in coastal communities dependent on agriculture and fishing.
Grants for Indigenous Rights and Justice
While rights for Indigenous peoples represents a cross-cutting focus across Greengrants’ activity, in 2026, Greengrants formally introduced its Indigenous Peoples Advisory Board, strengthening Indigenous participation in deciding where funding goes.
- During its three-year pilot period, the board made more than 70 grants totaling over $700,000 across Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Pacific.
- Its work encompasses conservation and land rights alongside cultural preservation, traditional governance, collective healing and community well-being.
- Greengrants also helped develop the Congo Basin Environmental and Climate Justice Fund, an Indigenous-led regional fund supporting communities protecting Central Africa’s forests and natural resources.
Other Opportunities
Beyond its core grantmaking, Global Greengrants works with local funds and international philanthropic partnerships to expand support for environmental justice movements. Its regional partners include:
- Fundo Casa Socioambiental, which supports grassroots environmental and Indigenous movements in Brazil and elsewhere in South America.
- Fondo Tierra Viva, which supports environmental justice, community resource governance and sustainable livelihoods in Central America.
- Fondo Acción Solidaria (FASOL), which funds community-led environmental initiatives in Mexico.
- Environmental Justice Fund, a South African fund supporting environmental and climate justice movements.
Important Grant Details:
The Global Greengrants Fund awarded $34.4 million in a recent year. Of that total, $12.1 million through 1,463 grants represents the fund’s core grantmaking. The larger figure includes donor-advised funds and fiscally sponsored activities. The majority of grant awards tend to fall in the $5,000 to $25,000 range but grants have been as high as $500,000 in a few cases.
- The fund’s geographic areas of interest include Africa, Asia, Latin America, North America, MENA, and the Pacific Islands.
- For additional information about past grantmaking, see the foundation’s recent financial reports.
- This funder does not accept unsolicited applications for funding, working instead through 25 separate regional and thematic advisory boards that identify groups and programs with strong potential for effecting change in the fund’s areas of interest.
- General inquiries may be directed to the fund’s staff via email, online form or telephone at (866) 387-6155.
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