After Scrappy Relaunch, Funding Flows to Black Environmental Justice Network. Is It a Bellwether?
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Factory pollution in cleveland, Ohio. Joseph Sohm/shutterstock
When the National Black Environmental Justice Network relaunched in June 2020, it did so with volunteer labor, a website paid for by its members and not a single grant on its books. Its scrappy start was impressive, but also a painful reminder of the funding imbalances that have long stymied environmental justice organizations led by people of color.
Research has found that only around 1.3% to 3.8% of environmental and climate philanthropy goes to environmental-justice-related efforts. And Black-led organizations do not receive the same levels of support as white-led peers, with substantial gaps in both revenues and assets for groups with similarly qualified leaders, according to another analysis.
A year later, the network is flourishing, thanks in part to a promising first wave of funding. It has received three six-figure grants, including two multi-year general operating support gifts, and additional unsolicited dollars. It is planning to expand from a lone staffer to a team of eight. And its membership has risen from 15 to 50 organizations.
It is too soon to say whether this initial boost in support is a bellwether of changing practices, or even whether the funding will continue if the racial justice uprisings of 2020 fade into philanthropic memory. But the organization is a fascinating example of a group buoyed by the current tides in green philanthropy at a time when the field is promising—and being pushed—to turn its racial justice rhetoric into long-term reality.
“We’ve had a really good response to the network,” said Tina Johnson, NBEJN’s director. “The big question is consistency over time.”
Who is supporting the network—and why
Two of the network’s leading supporters are well-known to those familiar with environmental philanthropy: the Kresge Foundation and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. Kresge gave a three-year $750,000 grant to the network (via its fiscal sponsor, the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice), while Hewlett awarded a two-year $300,000 grant. Both were for general operating support.
While Johnson spent a lot of time over the past year scouring the web for grant opportunities and putting together proposals, a few out-of-the-blue gifts also arrived in her inbox. Such grants were much smaller, but their limited requirements (a few paragraphs of text, typically) were a relief. She wishes that were the norm, as it often is for larger organizations.
“To be able to receive funding without having to jump through so many hoops was really amazing and also humbling,” Johnson said. “But also annoying, because it could be this easy.”
Johnson credited the network’s positive reception to two factors. First, timing. The network launched as COVID demonstrated the fatal consequences of racial inequities and nationwide uprisings drew more attention to systemic racism. The Biden presidential campaign’s emphasis on equity, racism and environmental justice also pushed many funders to engage.
Second, Johnson believes funders responded to the network’s approach. Rather than seeking to consolidate power, the network aims to act as a supportive body that fills gaps none of its members can. Guided by member feedback, its three priorities are communications, policy development and supporting the network, from providing smaller groups with staff assistance to managing coordination between the network’s seven working groups.
“The vision is really not to usurp the power or position of groups on the ground or organizations doing this work, but really uplifting and elevating their work and then finding spaces in there that we can be actually useful as a group of people,” Johnson said.
How one grant came about
NBEJN’s application was one of 21 chosen out of 455 proposals by the new Mosaic initiative, whose inaugural $3 million round of movement infrastructure awards I covered in March. NBEJN was the lead grantee for a $275,000 award, among the initiative’s largest grants.
The initiative’s governance assembly—a 16-member body that makes all funding decisions, made up of staff from both large and small foundations and environmental groups—selected the network for its alignment with the initiative’s focus on equity and infrastructure, said Katie Robinson, project director of Mosaic.
The network was working to provide exactly the type of tools and resources that field leaders had told Mosaic were most needed during the initiative’s two-year design process, Robinson told me. The network’s role as a Black-led green group also fit perfectly with the participatory grant project’s broader priorities, and its broad membership promised a wide impact.
“We decided, particularly as we launched our work, that we needed to start with a recognition of the historic inequities that have existed within the environmental movement, both racial and economic inequities,” Robinson said.
“We really believe that grassroots power is key to systemic and transformative change within the movement,” she said. “Not only are these solutions the most equitable, but they’re also the most successful, effective and durable in building long-term, successful and strong movements.”
What happens when the dust settles?
This is not the first time environmental justice leaders have gained philanthropy’s attention. The question is whether it will last. The pattern is well-known: Funding briefly increases, giving a few groups a temporary boost (while most receive little or no new support), before settling back to prior levels and leaving the movement back where it started.
“When the dust settles, and things get into a more familiar rhythm for funders and even for the broader communities that are doing the work, will funders still see these issues, these organizations as, one, priorities, and two, the leaders that should be supported?” Johnson said.
When I spoke to Johnson a year ago, she was concerned large organizations that had never done environmental justice work before would jump into the field—and win grants despite their lack of experience or capacity. That remains a worry. She believes such efforts could co-opt or water down the meaning of environmental justice work.
Looking ahead, Johnson does see reason for hope, not so much in philanthropy, but in politics. The Biden-Harris administration’s every-agency approach to environmental justice could help integrate such considerations into the federal government’s work and policy for the long term.
“It will help to solidify this need to have environmental justice, and the communities and the activists and the organizations [will] be a part of the solutions and not just part of the choir,” Johnson said. “They [should be] the architects and not just the workers. The folks raising the alarm, but also helping to put out the fire or prevent the fire from starting, because they are part of the process from the beginning.”
But she also cautions against the growing tendency to link environmental justice solely with racial justice. She believes that could be a stumbling block to wider acceptance. Instead, she believes a broader framing is needed.
“That can only happen if folks really avoid racializing environmental justice,” Johnson said. “If you care about faith communities, healthy children, clean air, clean water... If you believe there should be a social safety net, and people should have access to good education and quality jobs, then you are an environmental justice advocate.”
