What We Fund

CJRF believes that change happens when climate funding supports community-led climate justice initiatives. Under our 2026-30 strategic framework, we pursue change through grants in three areas:

Addressing Climate Impacts

We support communities to build resilience, adapt to changing conditions, recover from climatic events, and access repair and reparations for climate losses and damages.

Sustaining Positive Alternatives

Our partners address the root causes of the climate crisis by building, reclaiming, and sustaining ways of being and organizing societies that affirm life and work for the common good.

Reshaping Funding Ecosystems

We fund advocacy that shifts climate funders toward climate justice, so that resources flow more equitably. In addition to grantmaking, we work toward this goal through our own thought leadership and collaboration within philanthropy.
CJRF grounds its approach in a systems perspective, recognizing the need for multiple types of change to shift the entrenched systems that have caused the climate crisis. This means we support grantee partners to work on a range of objectives, including:
5

Explicit structural change

Such as changes in policies, practices, and resource flows
5

Semi-explicit relational change

Such as changes in relationships, connections, and power dynamics
5

Implicit change

Such as changes in deeply held beliefs and assumptions, which are often most transformative

We take an ecosystem approach to our grant portfolio, ensuring redundancy and diversity of actors tackling similar challenges and contributing complementary strengths. In general, we make grants to two types of actors:
5

Community-led climate justice initiatives

CJRF understands community to include people who are connected to each other across geography, identity, interest, affinity, or experience.

We fund collectives or groups that:

  • Have strong accountability and responsibility to the communities they serve, which is demonstrated through clear community-led mechanisms of power and ownership over decisions
  • Center the voice, views, needs, and culture of community members
  • Build on existing community resources, strengths, and skills
  • Account for the context and community power dynamics on an ongoing basis
5

Resource partners

Resource partners are independent actors within the climate justice ecosystem that are contributing to the same outcome areas as CJRF. 

Resource partners:

  • Support community-led initiatives and the broader climate justice ecosystem through grantmaking and accompaniment
  • Undertake advocacy in climate spaces, including toward climate funders
  • Support peer-to-peer linking and learning across geographies and scales
  • Play an important role in convening and connecting between local, national, and global levels
See Our Grants