A message for BEA Participants: 

It is our pleasure to send you this invitation for your organization to nominate one to two organizations working in environmental justice (broadly defined) to be invited to apply for funding through the BEAI Fund. We are reaching out to BEA Participant organizations to nominate groups who fit the criteria outlined below. The BEAI Fund is a vehicle to help address the historical disparities in funding to the grassroots organizing sector and from 2018-2019 we have been able to give over $1.5 million in grants to grassroots groups in the U.S. and in Puerto Rico. 

Grassroots International is honored to be the host of the BEAI Fund, to provide overall management of the Fund, working closely with the BEAI Fund Advisory Board. Grassroots International works in partnership with social movements to create a just and sustainable world by advancing the human rights to land, water, food sovereignty, and climate justice through global grantmaking, building solidarity across organizations and movements, and advocacy/alliance-building in the U.S.

Many of you provided key input in 2016 to develop the structure and goals of the BEAI Fund, which promotes four interlinked elements:

1. Support Community Organizing at the Forefront of Change and
2. Build Partnerships Across Sectors and Geographies
3. Advance a Just Transition
4. Build the Capacity of the Grassroots Sector

Funds for this grant round will be allocated to grassroots organizations working on just transition and environmental justice more broadly defined. We are looking for organizations that are using a variety of approaches within our overall BEA strategy.  

Approaches could include mutual aid to meet community needs; addressing impacts of pollution and environmental injustice; agroecology, food sovereignty, and rebuilding of local farms; energy democracy; water protection and access; promotion of solidarity economies; advancing women's leadership, popular education, policy work, and movement building toward long-term systemic change.

We invite you to see the BEAI Fund one-pager and Primer for more information on the fund.

Each grassroots organization may nominate up to 2 grassroots organizations (can also nominate themselves) that advance the goals of the BEAI Fund.  Green/national environmental groups and funder allies may nominate one grassroots organization that advances the goals outlined above.

Nominees do not need to be BEA participants (though they can be). The Advisory Board (made up of BEA participants) will then review the overall composition of the nominations pool and make additional nominations to fill in gaps, to ensure a strong pool of applicants.  

When making nominations, please keep the purpose, guiding principles, and grantmaking guidelines/criteria for the BEAI Fund in mind (described below).

Please fill out the nomination form by 11:59 pm PST, on Tuesday, December 10th, 2019.

Grant Guidelines and Criteria:
The BEA Fund seeks to support groups within the grassroots organizing sector with most or all of the following characteristics: 

Organizes and is rooted in Indigenous communities, communities of color and/or low-income white communities: recruits and engages members from historically disenfranchised communities. Includes women, youth, LGBTQIA in decision-making processes.

Well-managed: has a financial and fundraising plan, engages in strategic planning, has strong leadership and lively governance, and can reasonably carry out the work.

Membership-based and democratically run: aims to have dues-paying members determine the agenda of the organization or have other organizational structure based on accountability to its constituency. 

Leadership development:  develops and trains grassroots leaders, including both skills training and popular/political education.

Multi-issue: addresses issues in a way that recognizes the intersections between themes such as environmental justice, broadly defined (including climate justice, land, territory, and water rights, food sovereignty, and other ecological struggles), racial, gender, and economic justice, immigration, poverty, and workers’ rights.

Cultivates a vision for long-term structural change: analyzes the root causes of injustice, and develops community-based solutions that address those root causes and work towards systemic transformation for collective well-being of people and planet.

Engages in direct action:  has a power analysis and clear plan for winning concrete victories that alter the relations of power in its community.

Balances issue work with base building: effectively links issues to building organization and power.  Has a larger vision to aggregate power, through strategies such as expanding its membership, taking on bigger issues through policy and/or communications, expanding its base of allies to increase its impact over time.

Builds movement:  sees its work as part of a broader effort, builds solidarity with other organizations and struggles, and, engages in work that advances movement building.

Engages in learning and self-reflection: practices reflection to draw out lessons from both successes and challenges/obstacles.