CJRF tried an innovative, trust-based participatory grantmaking mechanism that deployed $792,000 to communities to address Non-Economic Loss and Damage.
We are excited to share our new grant partners in East Africa focusing on addressing non-economic loss and damage!
Action Network for the Disabled (ANDY)
Action Network for the Disabled (ANDY) (Kenya) is working to improve persons with disabilities’ resilience to non-economic losses and damages through altered or alternative livelihoods, health and psychosocial support, accessible early warning systems, and advocacy and policy engagement.
Agenda for Relief and Development Initiative (ARDI)
Agenda for Relief and Development Initiative (ARDI) (South Sudan) is working with conflict-affected communities to anticipate and absorb climate impacts, provide support systems for those affected by loss and damage, increase biodiversity and ecosystems, and prevent further displacement.
Baringo Women and Youth Organization (BWYO)
Integrated Disabled Women Activities (IDIWA)
Sangida Foundation
Sangida Foundation (Kenya) is strengthening an environmental warriors’ group of nomadic youth at the forefront of environmental protection in the area, creating a community-led indigenous seed granary for sustainable food security and saving traditional species used as medicine, and supporting the food security of children with disabilities whose parents are struggling with climate-impacted livelihoods.
Participatory Ecological Land Use Management (PELUM)
Participatory Ecological Land Use Management (PELUM) (Uganda) works with the Indigenous Batwa people to preserve cultural heritage being lost as a result of climate impacts, diversify livelihoods, training community leaders – especially women and youth – to adapt and respond to loss and damage, and creating awareness around sustainable ecosystem and resource management as a tool for reducing non-economic loss and damage.
Queen of Peace Foundation
Queen of Peace Foundation (Kenya) promotes intergenerational knowledge transfer, psychosocial support, and local governance structures to restore social cohesion, enhance food sovereignty, and empower marginalized communities to navigate climate-induced challenges while preserving their cultural identity.
Women in the Wild
Women in the Wild (Kenya) preserves and revitalizes indigenous knowledge and cultural heritage affected by climate change, strengthens mental health and psychosocial support for communities impacted by climate-induced displacement and livelihood loss, and improves community-led climate governance and gender-responsive climate justice advocacy.
Grantmaking Process
The priorities for this grantmaking stream were determined during the participatory systems mapping workshop held in September 2024, which has also supported two other grantmaking streams. The grantmaking focused on non-economic loss and damage (NELD) was intended to address climate vulnerabilities and losses amongst marginalised communities. In particular:
Responding to climate-induced impacts on culture, identity, and self-determination.
Diversifying livelihoods for Disabled people, women, youth, and other marginalised groups.
Preventing and responding to gender-based violence.
CJRF took an innovative approach to identifying organizations that met these criteria, especially as we broadened out from Kenya and Tanzania for this grantmaking stream to also include Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, Somalia, South Sudan, and Uganda.
We used elements of 2 different trust-based funding models – BeTheEarth’s flow funding model and the Rodenberry Foundation’s +1 Global Fund model. A central piece of this merged trust-based model are individuals we called Changemakers, who are trusted to identify the organizations that will receive grants.
CJRF’s board members collectively nominated 14 people to serve as Changemakers. After reviewing and voting on the nominees, board members invited nine people to be the final set of Changemakers. Changemakers had a short set of criteria to guide their choice of grantee, but the decision of which organization to fund ultimately rests with them.
We are very grateful to our Changemakers – Eric Reson, Everylne Nairesiae, Fredrick Ouko, Izzeldin Hashim, Jorge Manhique, Kimaren Riamit, Melanie Chiponda, Naeku Leshao, and Rachel Kyozira – for engaging with CJRF in this process. They worked quickly to identify an organization in their network they trusted to receive an $88,000 grant from CJRF.
Lessons Learned
Trust-based processes do not always have to take a long time.
Despite not knowing CJRF, the Changemakers uniformly engaged quickly and effectively with us to identify an organization to fund. We plan to debrief with the Changemakers about this process, including why they were interested, how the process felt to them, and what they feel they gained from it.
Despite broadening out the geography to all East African countries, most Changemakers selected organizations based in Kenya.
Five of the nine organizations selected are based in Kenya. This may have been a bias from our board members’ nomination and selection of Changemakers, so if we use this process again we may need to assess ways to even out geographic representation.
Framing organizational leadership criteria fairly stringently is more effective.
We built on the lessons learned from our previous grantmaking stream and requested Changemakers to select organizations led by “a person with disabilities, woman, youth, or indigenous person(s).” All of our new partners are led by women. The criteria also enabled us to expand support to people with disabilities, with three of our new partners led by and/or working to serve people with disabilities.
