How We Did It: Shared Insight’s Participatory Climate Initiative
The Participatory Climate Initiative took place in four phases from its inception, beginning in earnest in 2020, and continuing through implementation in 2022 and beyond.
Our participatory grantmaking initiative was created to involve people impacted by climate change in the funding and policy decisions that affect them. We convened participatory design and grantmaking teams comprised of people with lived expertise and/or relevant knowledge of climate change in the U.S. to develop and execute a participatory grantmaking plan.
1. Planning Phase
Fund for Shared Insight’s Advocacy/Policy Committee defined the scope of the initiative, engaged consultants, and set goals and requirements; outreach began.
The Participatory Climate Initiative was first conceived by Fund for Shared Insight’s Advocacy/Policy Committee (‘the Committee’) in 2019, in response to a landscape scan by the Aspen Institute, which identified participatory grantmaking as a key strategy to better inform policy and advocacy decisions. The Committee decided on an exploratory initiative focused at the intersection of participation, climate change, and policy/advocacy work, engaging two consultants with expertise in participatory philanthropy in February, 2020: Katy Love and Winifred Olliff (‘the Consultants’). COVID-19 lockdowns pushed the decision to make the initiative an entirely virtual process.
The Consultants spoke with about 40 people from across the U.S. and Territories who were connected with communities impacted by climate change and often excluded from traditional philanthropy spaces, with an emphasis on including Black and Indigenous people and other people of color. These conversations informed the plan in significant ways (e.g., leading to rejecting an open application process and using language other than “climate change”) and led to a stakeholder map that included potential participants.
The Committee convened to collaboratively design a scope for the initiative, approve a plan for the Design Phase, and define the broad parameters of the initiative.
Outcomes from Planning Phase
- Consultants engaged
- Scope created (including Learning Goals and Requirements & Recommendations)
- Detailed plan for the design phase approved, with stakeholder feedback included
- Stakeholder map created and expanded to include future participants and partners
2. Design Phase
12 participants from communities impacted by climate change across the United States and Territories along with one funder representative collaborated to define the initiative’s purpose and share their ideas for how the Grantmaking Phase should work.
Design Team Formation
The Committee and the Consultants invited 12 partner organizations (intermediary funders and climate policy/advocacy groups) to select Design Team members. Although they were provided with some guidance, partner organizations had the autonomy to select members without the input of the Consultants and were compensated. Partner organizations were invited based on the recommendations of people who were consulted in the planning phase, and with an eye to ensuring that a diversity of races, geographies, ages, genders, and other identities and perspectives were present on the Design Team. They selected 12 Design Team members who hailed from communities across the U.S. and Territories. Design Team members were compensated and were joined by one funder (a representative from Shared Insight’s Advocacy/Policy Committee), who was not compensated.
Considerations for Design Team:
- diversity of races
- geographies
- ages
- genders
- other identities and perspectives
Participatory Design Process
The Design Team met virtually over 10 weeks between October 2020 and January 2021. Members were asked to commit 30 hours to activities like joining virtual meetings, responding to prompts, reviewing materials, and engaging in learning and reflection activities. The Consultants worked to carefully manage the process to ensure that experiences matched expectations.
The Design Team did not make any funding decisions. They considered questions like:
- Where will grants be made?
- What will grantees be able to do with the funds?
- How will decisions about grants be made?
- Who will make decisions about grants?
The Design Team’s recommendations were shared in November 2020, and a plan for the Grantmaking Phase was approved by the Committee in early 2021. Two of the Team’s key contributions were the creation of a Purpose Statement for the grantmaking fund and the selection of two geographic focus areas. The Design Team also made important recommendations, including taking a holistic approach to climate change, using an expansive definition of policy/advocacy, and being guided by a set of values rooted in grassroots organizing and trust-based practices.
Nearly all of the Design Team members chose to continue their involvement with the initiative during a bridge phase before the Grantmaking Phase began to offer their insights and provide accountability as their ideas were implemented.
Participatory Grantmaking Design Team
Austin “tusauna” Ahmasuk is a kingikmiu inupiaq born and raised in Nome, Alaska, who works as a Marine Advocate for Kawerak, Inc, a tribal consortium for the Bering Strait region. Mr. Ahmasuk is a lifelong hunter, trapper, and mariner, and he has been an environmental and tribal advocate since 1997.
Billy Kinney is from the rural, coastal, fishing communities of Kauaʻi, Hawaiʻi. He has joined this committee because his work is centered in understanding pilina (relationality), akua (the divine), and kilo (traditional observational practices) for Hawaiian place-making and planning.
A member of the Hopi Tribe from Northern Arizona, and of Tewa and Dakota lineage, Cynthia joined the committee because she is interested in assisting others to build capacity around communicating climate change, especially within our Pueblo and Tribal communities.
Donald Bogen is the Co-Director of Bayou Interfaith Shared Community Organizer. Louisiana finds itself facing sea level rise and coastal land loss, which threatens livelihoods and local cultures. Donald joined this committee to make sure funders get it right when addressing the needs of vulnerable populations.
Elsie is a young Oohenunpa Lakota, Nueta, and Hidatsa woman who has grown up on the Cheyenne River Reservation. She spent her life watching and learning from the Buffalo first hand and being passed knowledge and seeks to bring holistic health to the people, animals, and land in her community and this Earth.
Garett is a 21-year-old living in the Appalachian Mountains. In the past few years, they’ve taken part in a number of advocacy campaigns on behalf of their communities which are undergoing a period of economic and social transition resulting from the long-term impacts of the coal industry in the region.
Janiece is joining the committee to dream about better ways for participatory grantmaking to service and support environmental justice work. Environmental justice solutions that come directly from people most impacted have gone un-funded for too long.
Jayeesha Dutta is a tri-coastal, tri-lingual Bengali-USAn interdisciplinary artist, cultural organizer, pop-ed facilitator, and healing justice practitioner. She is a co-founding member of Another Gulf Is Possible (AGIP) Collaborative, catalyzing the use of art, culture, media, direct action, healing and transformative justice towards just transition solutions for our people and the planet.
Lindsay Louie is a Program Officer for Philanthropy Grantmaking at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. It is a privilege to join this committee with a diverse group from across the country to design a participatory grantmaking process to support and enhance listening to those who are most affected by climate change in the United States and whose voices have not historically been heard and elevated.
Reverend Woodberry became involved in environmental work in the 1990s and he has and continues to work in the areas of water, air, as well as renewable and sustainable energy issues. Reverend Woodberry is the pastor of Kingdom Living Temple, Executive Director of New Alpha Community Development Corporation in Florence, SC, and a member of the SC Environmental Justice Network.
Rosalinda is a farmworker and food sovereignty/solidarity economy organizer. She works to build a broader base of support for rural communities and sustainable agriculture policies that ensure equity and healthy communities for farmworkers.
Soledad Gaztambide-Arandes is the Policy and Government Relations Coordinator at the non-profit organization Para la Naturaleza. She joined the committee to experience participatory grantmaking and add value to the design team and process, considering Puerto Rico’s challenges and our experience as a small island territory in relation to the impacts of climate change.
Participants joined as individuals, not formal representatives of their communities. Their participation does not indicate that they are affiliated with participating funders beyond this initiative or that they are representing or endorsing the actions or statements of the funders.
Outcomes from Design Phase
Selected values and outlined design principles rooted in grassroots organizing and trust-based practices
Made recommendations including taking a holistic approach to climate issues and an expansive view of policy/advocacy
- Wrote purpose statement and established geographic focus for the fund
Purpose Statement
This program will fund grassroots groups that implement climate justice or environmental justice work in their communities that centers traditional and/or local ecological knowledge and connection with Mother Earth. The work of these groups will demonstrate approaches to adaptation that may also be applied in other contexts and influence policy.
Geographic Focus
The fund’s work will be focused in the Southeastern U.S. and Territories and in the Kōlea Region, which includes Alaska and Hawai’i.
Values Selected by the Design Team
- Trust people with lived experience to make decisions that affect them and to identify their own needs and priorities. Trust in the knowledge of people with lived experience and in their ability to steward their own resources.
- Center communities that are directly impacted by climate policy in funding decisions rather than centering the needs and perspectives of those in power.
- Solidarity around shared interests, not hierarchy, builds collective power without creating structures that empower specific individuals over others: “No emperors, no masters, no prison guards!” Where possible, consider alternative structures that are less hierarchical and that focus on building shared power.
- Challenge power by centering the perspectives of people most impacted by climate change and least heard, even when these perspectives are critical of the people and institutions that currently hold power, including funders. Embrace the potential of participatory approaches to shift power, and resource those programs substantially and meaningfully.
3. Grantmaking Phase
14 participants from communities impacted by climate change in each focus region made decisions by consensus about how to allocate $2 million in grants. They were joined by two non-voting funder representatives.
Grantmaking Portfolio Creation
The Consultants launched the Grantmaking Phase with a new round of regionally focused outreach to gather feedback with a regional lens and to identify potential grantees, nominators, and decision-makers (Grantmaking Group members). Participants in this phase of outreach were offered compensation for sharing their time and expertise. In this way, thousands of dollars were distributed directly to frontline communities, illustrating how money can be moved quickly to communities beyond the grants process.
Of the 35 grantees ultimately selected, eight came into the process through nominators (who were part of the regional feedback outreach), three through other grantees, and 24 through Design Team or Grantmaking Group members.
The portfolio of potential grantees was reviewed by participants before they were formally invited to join the process. Groups invited to participate were guaranteed a $10,000 minimum grant for completing a questionnaire with three short-answer questions and participating in a phone call. Of 38 groups invited to participate, 35 chose to engage in the process.
Beyond essential information (such as names, contact information, and legal structure), the three questions included on the questionnaire were:
- How is your group’s work related to the purpose statement?
- How is your group led, managed, and supported by people from the communities you work in?
- Tell us about your group’s long-term vision, or what your group would like to achieve in the long term.
Participatory Grantmaking Process
Grantmaking Group selection was finalized in September 2021. This group included seven members from the Southeastern U.S. and seven from the Kōlea Region, which includes Alaska & Hawai’i. Grantmaking Group members brought strong ties and in-depth knowledge and networks in the region. In the Kōlea region, the group was composed of Native and Indigenous people and those with close ties to these communities, as climate change has a disproportionate impact on Native communities, including those in Alaska and Hawai’i. This group included people from different islands in Hawai’i and various areas of Alaska, which was very important in the context of these regions since it is often the case that communities on smaller islands in Hawai’i or in more remote areas of Alaska are not included. In the Southeast, the Grantmaking Group was majority Black, Indigenous, and people of color, whose communities have also been disproportionately impacted by the climate crisis. Both regions included a funder representative from Fund for Shared Insight, who participated as a learner and observer, but did not decide about the grants. Of 16 Grantmaking Group members, seven members had also served on the Design Team previously, ensuring plenty of continuity between these two phases of participation.
The purpose of the Grantmaking Group was to work together to make decisions by consensus about how $1 million (ultimately doubled to $2 million) will be allocated across a portfolio of about 20 grantees (ultimately 35 grantees) in Alaska and Hawai’i. This meant that all Grantmaking Group members had to reach unanimous agreement in how to move forward with grant decisions, through an intensive deliberative process. Grantmaking Group members were asked to commit approximately 30 hours of engagement between September and November 2021, and were offered compensation that was on par with the fees Shared Insight pays consultants. Grantmaking Group members in each region met together virtually and worked asynchronously over 10 weeks.
The Grantmaking Group reached decisions by consensus in both regions after weeks of extensive discussion and deliberation. Facilitators used a tool called the Gradients of Agreement that allows for a nuanced discussion around each group member’s precise level of support for a particular outcome along a spectrum. The Group ultimately awarded 17 grants in the Southeastern U.S. and 18 grants in the Kōlea Region, for a total of $2 million dollars across both regions. The total allocation was doubled from the original $1-million fund based on a request from the Grantmaking Group to support more efforts. The groups receiving funding were all community-led grassroots groups, largely led by Black people, Indigenous people, and people of color. The Grantmaking Group also shared observations and insights with funders and set intentions for the next phase.
Grantmaking Group - Kōlea Region (Alaska & Hawai’i)
A-dae is Kiowa/Cochiti, and is the Director of Programs for the Native Agriculture and Food Systems Initiative at First Nations Development Institute.
Austin “tusauna” Ahmasuk is a kingikmiu inupiaq born and raised in Nome, Alaska, who works as a Marine Advocate for Kawerak, Inc, a tribal consortium for the Bering Strait region. Mr. Ahmasuk is a lifelong hunter, trapper, and mariner, and he has been an environmental and tribal advocate since 1997.
Billy Kinney is from the rural, coastal, fishing communities of Kauaʻi, Hawaiʻi. He has joined this committee because his work is centered in understanding pilina (relationality), akua (the divine), and kilo (traditional observational practices) for Hawaiian place-making and planning.
As a Community Development Specialist for The Nature Conservancy (TNC) Emerald Edge Program, Crystal Yankawgé Nelson focuses on sustainable economies, ecological stewardship capacity, and healing and racial equity for Indigenous and local communities in Southeast Alaska. She is Tlingit, Raven-Coho from the Humpback Whale House in Dry Bay, and she grew up in Juneau, Alaska. Crystal is currently completing her Master of Arts in Rural Development at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and spent six years as an apprentice Chilkat weaver with the late Tlingit master weaver Clarissa Rizal.
Kk’ołeyo se’ooze’. Tleeyegg’e hʉt’aan eslaanh. Bedzeyh te hʉt’aan eslaanh. Uvaƞa Putyuk. Tinaaġmiuġuruƞa. My name is Dewey Hoffman. My Denaakk’e name Kk’ołeyo means “walking.” My Iñupiaq name Putyuk means “pinch.” I am Koyukon Athabascan, Caribou People, originally from Ruby living in Fairbanks. I currently serve as Tanana Chiefs Conference’s Deputy Director of Tribal Government & Client Services, as well as on several Alaska-based advisory boards and working groups.
Kilia is a 4th generation Hawaiian Homesteader of Hoolehua, Molokai, an educator of Hawaiian language and Hawaiian studies, and an advocate for issues that impact our people and environment.
Melinda serves as managing director of Fund for Shared Insight, a national funder collaborative working to improve philanthropy by promoting and supporting ways for foundations and nonprofits to listen and respond to the people and communities most harmed by the systems and structures we’re seeking to change with our work. In this role, Melinda guides and facilitates Shared Insight’s operations, communications, grantmaking, evaluation, and more. Melinda was born and raised in Honolulu, Hawaii and currently lives in Narberth, Pennsylvania and tries to get back to the islands as often as possible. Melinda serves as one of two funder representatives.
Miwa Tamanaha has served as the Executive Director of local advocacy non-profit KAHEA: The Hawaiian-Environmental Alliance, and a co-founder and co-director of KUA, a network-building organization serving communities around Hawaiʻi engaged in biocultural resource stewardship. She serves on a number of non-profit Boards and is a proud member of the ʻEwa Limu Project. She is currently on sabbatical.
Grantmaking Group - Southeastern United States
Annie Jane Cotten is an artist, storyteller, herbalist, and an organizer for the Letcher County Culture Hub in Eastern Kentucky, currently anchored within Appalshop. As a community development worker, Annie Jane is passionate about organizing efforts that seek to utilize arts and culture to foster a shared vision of a vibrant, community owned economic future.
Ciciley (CC) Moore is the program officer for the Office of the President at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, where she provides leadership for strategic investments that address systemic barriers and create conditions for historically excluded communities, families, and children to thrive. Her work includes support collaboratives to increase locally-driven philanthropy by and for communities of color and embedding racial equity in philanthropic practice. Previously, she worked with community to develop places of belonging for BIPOC – LGBTQ communities. CC is one of two funder representatives.
Donald Bogen is the Co-Director of Bayou Interfaith Shared Community Organizer. Louisiana finds itself facing sea level rise and coastal land loss, which threatens livelihoods and local cultures. Donald joined this committee to make sure funders get it right when addressing the needs of vulnerable populations.
As a Tuscarora seedkeeper, Fix founded the Alliance of Native Seedkeepers where he works to reconnect lifeways and cultural bonds of ancestral seeds with Indigenous people. He also has years of various experience in public health work and disaster relief.
Garett is a 21-year-old living in the Appalachian Mountains. In the past few years, they’ve taken part in a number of advocacy campaigns on behalf of their communities which are undergoing a period of economic and social transition resulting from the long-term impacts of the coal industry in the region.
Jayeesha Dutta is a tri-coastal, tri-lingual Bengali-USAn interdisciplinary artist, cultural organizer, pop-ed facilitator, and healing justice practitioner. She is a co-founding member of Another Gulf Is Possible (AGIP) Collaborative, catalyzing the use of art, culture, media, direct action, healing and transformative justice towards just transition solutions for our people and the planet.
Katia Avilés-Vázquez holds a PhD in Geography from the University of Texas at Austin where she studied the Cultural and Political Ecology of small-scale farmers in Puerto Rico. After María she has focused her work on local capacity building and the distribution of resources
for local entities securing more than $12M for projects by and for Puerto Rico residents. Her work and activism has been highlighted in local and international news outlets, she has received the EPA Environmental Champion Award and the ESF Graduate of Distinction Award, and directs the Institute for Agroecology in PR.
Reverend Woodberry became involved in environmental work in the 1990s and he has and continues to work in the areas of water, air, as well as renewable and sustainable energy issues. Reverend Woodberry is the pastor of Kingdom Living Temple, Executive Director of New Alpha Community Development Corporation in Florence, SC, and a member of the SC Environmental Justice Network.
Participants joined as individuals, not formal representatives of their communities. Their participation does not indicate that they are affiliated with participating funders beyond this initiative or that they are representing or endorsing the actions or statements of the funders.
Outcomes from Grantmaking Phase
Geographically and thematically diverse portfolio of 35 grantees is selected.
Decisions about distributing $2 million of grants across 35 organizations are made by consensus by people with lived expertise from each region
Recommendations are submitted to funders about a learning community for grantees and participants
4. Implementation Phase
35 grantees in the Southeastern United States and in the Kōlea Region (which includes Alaska and Hawai’i) received funding for their advocacy work (expansively defined) around climate change (holistically defined); a “learning community” for participants was established.
Implementation Phase: Next Steps and Learning Community
Grantmaking Group members directly notified the 35 grantees of their grant awards during November and December, 2021; in many cases, calling them to deliver news on the phone. All the grantees accepted the funding and many began implementing their grants in January 2022. Following the grant awards, and based on the recommendations of participants, Fund for Shared Insight created a Learning Community of participants that met virtually three times and then gathered for an in-person meeting in January (Kōlea region) and April (Southeast region) in 2023. The in-person gatherings were designed based on the goals of participants. Shared Insight is also sharing learnings from the initiative with the philanthropy sector and the wider world.
Participatory Climate Initiative Grantees
Learn about the 35 organizations selected through our participatory grantmaking initiative.
Outcomes from Implementation Phase
$2 million grant funding is distributed to and put to use by 35 organizations
Tools are developed to share our learning with the wider philanthropy community
Participants connect to share learning and deepen insights
5. Nuts & Bolts of the Participatory Climate Initiative
In these webinars, hear directly from the consultants, funders, and participants about the tools, techniques, tensions, and trade-offs that shaped the participatory process, and what was learned along the way.
