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Vehicles try to drive through a flooded street in Dhaka, Bangladesh.
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Hello,
The last few months have been a whirlwind for CJRF, and so much about how we work is changing. From operating under a new practitioner-led board to developing a revised strategy, a new season is emerging for the fund.
At the same time, the climate crisis continues to put lives in jeopardy. People around the world are fighting wildfires, floods, droughts, and other climate disasters. These disasters often force people to find new ways of living and, in many cases, leave their lands and networks behind to look for new opportunities. Our most recent grants support our partners in the Bay of Bengal, East Africa, the Arctic, and around the world to strengthen grassroots solutions to these crises.
Next week is Climate Week NYC. Our team will be there, joining cross-sector climate justice champions, civil society groups, policy makers, philanthropists, and more. If you’re going to be there, please reach out—we’d love to connect.
Keeping people at the center of the climate crisis is critical. We hope that in your limited time, you will prioritize reading this newsletter. Together, we can share what we are learning and promote climate justice around the world.
Best regards,
The CJRF Team
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CJRF Board Makes Progress on New Policies and Strategy
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CJRF Board Member Zahid Amin Shashoto attended CBA17 in Bangkok, Thailand this year.
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Our Governing Board has been working hard—representing CJRF and setting our new direction. Recent activities include collecting data, learning from our partners’ experiences, and synthesizing lessons learned.
In May, board member Zahid Amin Shashoto attended the 17th International Conference on Community-Based Adaptation to Climate Change in Bangkok. He gives his three key takeaways from the conference on our blog.
The board’s strategy working group—developed after our in-person retreat in February—recently wrapped up a survey of our colleagues, supporters, partners, and more to hear how you feel CJRF can best support climate justice activities in the years to come. Thank you to the 144 people who responded! CJRF staff and board members are digging into your survey responses now and will soon put your insights into action.
Finally, the board has finalized a conflict-of-interest policy that will help us promote transparency and accountability in our grantmaking. To read this policy in full and learn more about its purpose and development, read our blog.
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CJRF Gives a New Round of Grants
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Founder and Executive Director Agnes Leina speaks to Indigenous communities in Kenya. Photo credit: Il'laramatak Community Concerns
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Our board approved $1.15M USD in funding in our first round of grants since the board was established late last year. Most of the funding deepens our engagement with long-time grant partners: CNRS, Huairou Commission, Il’laramatak Community Concerns, IMPACT, and MakeWay. This funding will support partners to continue their efforts to drive systems change at local and national levels and empower people on the front lines of the climate crisis.
This round also includes support for two important learning and exchange spaces: the Community Based Adaptation (CBA) Conferences and the Funder Learning and Action Co-Laboratory on Gender, Environmental, and Climate justice (FLAC). FLAC aims to contest colonial philanthropic practices through deep and intentional learning and unlearning, as well as developing new models for giving.
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Learning From Our First 6 Years
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A family in Bagerhat, Bangladesh stands in front of household rainwater harvesting technology. Photo credit: Helvetas
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As CJRF evolves into a more participatory grantmaking fund, we invite you to reflect on the lessons we’ve learned in our first six years. We pulled insights from our blogs, webinars, workshops, and grant partners’ reports to articulate five questions that best frame what we're learning as well as some insights that begin to answer them. Read the lessons on our blog.
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Upcoming Evaluation Results and Webinar
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Over the past several months, ISET International has been evaluating the outcomes of our grantmaking from 2016-2022. The evaluation team took stock of our results and achievements during our first phase of grantmaking and identified ways of moving forward to increase our impact. From climate policy and practice changes, to ensuring key voices are present at major climate events, CJRF has several successes to be proud of. ISET also identified key areas where we can grow—and we look forward to doing so.
We plan to share the evaluation results with you in a webinar with ISET on Tuesday, October 17 at 10AM EDT. If you would like to attend this webinar, please register here.
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In the News
CJRF's Ayesha Dinshaw spoke to Al Jazeera about the United Nation's "loss and damage fund" established at last year's climate negotiations in Sharm el-Sheikh, and what it could mean for climate-vulnerable countries. Read "Are climate reparations finally on the way for vulnerable countries?"
As a partner of the Climate Justice-Just Transition Donor Collaborative, we are thrilled to announce that the Climate Justice Map is LIVE! The CJ Map aims to redress the imbalances in the climate justice funding landscape by making organizations based in the Global South easier to find, and therefore easier to fund. This milestone represents a major success for the CJ-JT Collaborative. Access the Climate Justice Map at this link.
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