The Donors of Color Network has launched a campaign aimed at directing hundreds of millions of dollars to BIPOC-led environmental organizations focused on climate justice.

The network's Climate Funders Justice Pledge calls on funders to commit, by 2023, at least 30 percent of their climate-related grant dollars to environmental organizations with majority-BIPOC boards and senior staffs and to make explicit commitments to building power within BIPOC communities. Signatories to the pledge also must commit to increasing transparency around climate funding, starting with disclosing the percentage they currently direct to such groups. According to a report from Building Equity & Alignment for Impact, only 1.3 percent of the roughly $1 billion in annual environmental and climate grantmaking by twelve top funders in 2016-17 went to BIPOC-led justice-focused organizations.

Foundations and individual donors who have signed on to the pledge include the Meyer Memorial Trust; the JPB, Kresge, Libra, NorthLight, Pisces, Seventh Generation, Surdna, and Tides foundations; Castellano Family Foundation trustee and Donors of Color Network founding board member Armando Castellano; Kapor Capital founding partner Freada Kapor Klein; and environmental philanthropist Tom Steyer. The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation have committed to the transparency portion of the pledge.

Launched in early 2019 with the mission of building systemic racial equity in a manner that is more reflective and accountable to communities of color, the Donors of Color Network supports climate justice  efforts that address the most urgent global challenges, including driving an equitable post-COVID recovery by creating millions of clean energy jobs.

"The approach the donor community has been taking to tackle our climate crisis is not sufficient. The scale of natural disasters our country has experienced this year alone continues to disproportionately devastate communities of color, and we can't continue business as usual," said Rip Rapson, president and CEO of the Kresge Foundation, which in November committed $30 million in support of community-led racial equity initiatives. "We recognize the historic underinvestment in front-line organizations working toward environmental justice. The problem-solving responsibility must include people representative of these communities and must also be set and governed by them. Kresge is proud to be one of the first philanthropies to commit to the Climate Funders Justice Pledge, and we encourage our colleagues to join us."

"The climate justice movement has made tremendous impact no matter who has held power in Washington," added Miya Yoshitani, executive director of the Asian Pacific Environmental Network and an advisor to the Donors of Color Network. "Our movement is tested and knows what wins. Funders must grasp the essential and strategic power of BIPOC communities, and this campaign will further open their eyes. The far right and fossil fuel companies certainly understand our potential and seek to use our communities to drive a wedge into the environmental movement. We will not allow it."

(Photo credit: Donors of Color Network)