Community-Centric Fundraising (CCF) has joined JSI as an official community partner of the Mountains and Plains EJ Grants Hub (MAP EJ Grants Hub)
As recipients of the Environmental Justice Thriving Communities Grantmaking (EJ TCGM) program from the EPA Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights, JSI, through the MAP EJ Grants Hub, will be distributing $40 million in EPA Region 8 (comprised of Colorado, Utah, Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, and 28 Tribal Nations) to underserved communities to address environmental and climate justice challenges.
Community-Centric Fundraising was created and designed to ground the nonprofit sector in equity and social justice. Our mandate is to prioritize the entire community over individual organizations, foster a sense of belonging and interdependence, present our work not as individual transactions but holistically, and encourage mutual support between nonprofits.
In another way, our work is about distributing power and resources in a way that centers the community over individual organizations. So when JSI invited CCF to be an official community partner of the Mountains and Plains EJ Grants Hub, we knew we had an unprecedented opportunity to help ground the grantmaking process in equity for environmental justice.
JSI invited the CCF Global Council to co-lead the MAP EJ Grants Hub Partner Gathering held in Denver three weeks ago. We were honored to develop and facilitate critical conversations about fundraising, power, and equity.
CCF facilitated sessions titled “MAP EJ Grants Hub: Grounding Us in Our Purpose” (with an overview and context of the EPA Environmental Justice Thriving Communities Grantmaking Program), “The Speed of Trust: Co-Creating MAP EJ Grants Hub Norms and Values,” “Dreaming and Visioning a Healthy and Thriving Region 8,” and “Abundance, Equity, and Care.”
Throughout the convening, we centered our discussions and facilitations on building trust, examining power, and centering community.
The common thread in all our facilitations was that we were seeking to invoke conversations about how fundraising is resource mobilization and how to co-create a shared vision.
CCF’s mandate is to shift the sector to more equitable practices. This opportunity to shape such an historic grant program for environmental justice renewed our commitment to do so. We’re grateful to JSI for inviting us to be part of the program from inception and are excited to see what this grantmaking program will be when it’s grounded in CCF’s principles.
The CCF Global Council is honoured to be part of this program and vision. We’re excited to continue to be in these rooms where we can call for equity, justice, and abundance for the communities we serve.
In solidarity,
Esther Saehyun Lee, Jennifer Brandt, Meena Haque
Community-Centric Fundraising Global Council Members