Our Evolution
The CJRF staff and new governing board stand in a courtyard at their first board retreat in February 2023.
In 2022, CJRF transitioned from a funder-led governance model to a practitioner and activist-led governing board. Our new governing board consists of people with intimate knowledge of the realities of the climate crisis. You can read more about the new board members and their experiences on our blog.
Our journey to a practitioner-led board created important departures from business as usual in philanthropy. Our current board has no foundation representatives or philanthropists, and we recruited the new board through an open call for applications, circulated globally. With these actions, we sought to put people in power who were further from sources of money, and closer to climate problems and solutions. You can read more about our reasoning and process in our opinion piece for Alliance Magazine.
Today, we’re proud of the group that has formed and the ability to learn from their insights and leadership. As staff continue to work alongside the board to restructure the grantmaking strategy for the Fund, we’re thrilled that we’ve been able to come together to move the direction of CJRF forward, including defining our values, intersectionality statement, grantmaking goals, and strategy. This process is ongoing, and we look forward to updating you as we continue to evolve.
Subscribe to CJRF’s email list to see how the Fund progresses under the direction of our new practitioner-led board.
Get to know our practitioner-led Governing Board by checking out their bios on the Our Team page!