The CLIMA Fund (Climate Leaders In Movement Action Fund), formerly the Grassroots Climate Solutions Fund, is a left-of-center environmental funding project hosted by the funding organization Thousand Currents (formerly known as IDEX, the International Development Exchange). The CLIMA Fund was founded in 2016 as a collaboration between Thousand Currents, Global Greengrants Fund, Grassroots International, and Urgent Action Fund for Women’s Human Rights. The CLIMA Fund’s mission is to connect large left-leaning donors and grantmaking organizations with smaller environmentalist activism projects across the world. 1
The CLIMA Fund is funded through Thousand Currents by a number of prominent grantmakers on the political left, including the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, Libra Foundation, Swift Foundation, Whitman Institute, and the Weissman Family Foundation. 2
Background
The CLIMA Fund was founded in 2016 as a joint project of Thousand Currents, the Global Greengrants Fund, Grassroots international, and Urgent Action Fund, all left-of-center funding organizations. The group was initially founded as the Grassroots Climate Solutions Fund, but changed its name to the Climate Leaders in Movement Action (CLIMA) Fund shortly after it was founded. 3 The CLIMA Fund was founded to blend the environmentalist programs of those four organizations and to jointly direct large-scale funding to smaller projects and groups affiliated with promoting left-leaning climate policies. 4 The group directs funds to smaller local-level environmentalist groups in the Americas, the Artic, and Africa. 5 The CLIMA Fund opposes fossil-fuel companies and many other industries that are often protested by left-leaning environmentalists. 6
Parent Group
The CLIMA Fund is a subsidiary project of Thousand Currents, a left-leaning funding organization that is involved with many grant making foundations and activist groups commonly affiliated with far-left policies.
Thousand Currents was founded as the International Development Exchange in 1985 and changed to its current name in 2016. The group was founded by ex-Peace Corps members with a goal of directing more funding from large grant making organizations to projects in developing countries. Thousand Currents operates a few other initiatives in addition to the CLIMA Fund, most with similar goals or providing funding to environmentalist projects. Other projects of Thousand Currents include the Buen Vivir Fund, the Thousand Currents Academy training program, and Africans in the Diaspora. 7
Thousand Currents is an important affiliated organization to Black Lives Matter and since 2016 the group has provided fiduciary oversight, financial management, and other administrative services as to Black Lives Matter Foundation, utilizing its status as a 501(c)(3) charity to do so. 8
Funding
Many notable left-leaning funding organizations and private foundations contribute to the CLIMA Fund and include: 9
- David and Lucile Packard Foundation
- Libra Foundation
- Swift Foundation
- Whitman Institute
- Weissman Family Foundation
- Environmental Grantmakers Association
- Human Rights Funders Network
- Confluence Philanthropy
- Ariadne Network
- NY Philanthropy
- Center for Story-Based Strategy
- JusticeFunders
Partner Organizations
The CLIMA Fund directs funding to its international partner organizations to lead environmentalist initiatives in the home country of each partner organization. The following organizations are funded as CLIMA Fund partners:10
- Native Movement
- Braveheart Society
- Masaska Talks
- Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives
- Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras
- Women’s Association for the Development of Sacatepequez
- Lxplyokoc Women’s Association
- Peasant Farmer’s Committee of the Highland
- Forest Communities Association of the Peten
- Community Coordinator for the Holistic Development of the Ch’ortl Region
- Movement of People Affected by Dams
- La Via Campesina International
- Association Mallenne d’Appul aux Inititaves Locales
- Rainbow Watch Development Center
- Cellule de Vellle er de Protection des Victemes des Activities Mineres Dans Arrondissement de Figuli
- Jamaa Resource Initiative
- South Durban Community Environmental Alliance
- Health of Mother Earth
- Digo Bikas Institute
- Southern Peasants Federation of Thailand
- Mother Nature (Cambodia)
References
- “CLIMA Fund” Thousand Currents. Accessed July 1, 2019. https://thousandcurrents.org/clima-grassroots-climate-solutions-fund/
- “CLIMA Fund” Thousand Currents. Accessed July 1, 2019. https://thousandcurrents.org/clima-grassroots-climate-solutions-fund/
- “What We Do: CLIMA Fund”. Grassroots Online. Accessed July 1, 2019. https://grassrootsonline.org/what-we-do/clima-fund/
- “What We Do: Climate Defenders”. Urgent Action Fund. Accessed July 1, 2019. https://urgentactionfund.org/what-we-do/climate-defenders/
- “CLIMA Fund” Thousand Currents. Accessed July 1, 2019. https://thousandcurrents.org/clima-grassroots-climate-solutions-fund/
- “CLIMA Fund Strategic Plan” Thousand Currents. Accessed July 1, 2019. https://thousandcurrents.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/CLIMA-2pg.pdf
- “What We Do”. Thousand Currents. Accessed July 1, 2019. https://thousandcurrents.org/what-we-do/
- “Black Lives Matter”. Thousand Currents. Accessed July 1, 2019. https://thousandcurrents.org/black-lives-matter/
- “CLIMA Fund” Thousand Currents. Accessed July 1, 2019. https://thousandcurrents.org/clima-grassroots-climate-solutions-fund/
- “What We Do: Climate Defenders”. Urgent Action Fund. Accessed July 1, 2019. https://urgentactionfund.org/what-we-do/climate-defenders/