Transforming Philanthropy Month 2024 highlights the link between climate change and community and environmental justice philanthropy

For the second year in a row, the Comuá Network is dedicating an entire month to debating and reflecting on the agendas of community and socio-environmental justice philanthropy. The Transforming Philanthropy Month is held in September, bringing together member organizations, partners, and financers of the Comuá Network and civil society organizations.

In 2023, the event focused on giving visibility to the diversity of practices and experiences associated with these agendas. In 2024, the Month will highlight the role played by community and socio-environmental justice philanthropy entities in the financing, development, and/or co-creation of local climate solutions. The event will disseminate knowledge, content and activities that demonstrate the practices and stories of transformation driven by communities and groups within their territories as a result of those locally-led solutions.

The climate change happening throughout our planet affects all territories, groups and communities – although not in the same way. Political minorities such as the indigenous, black, quilombola, LGBTQIAPN+ communities, women, family farmers and populations from peripheral urban territories, touched by social and economic inequalities, are hit the hardest by the effects of the climate crisis.

These groups are not ensured a place in the decision-making forums convened to define climate finance agendas and public policy priorities. Even though it is they who least contribute to making the situation worse and, often, do the most to conserve and protect the environment, they do not get the support they need to mitigate the effects of climate change or to adapt to the socio-environmental challenges within their territories.

Less than 1% of all financing effectively reaches these groups to secure possession rights and manage forests in tropical countries, according to a report by the Rainforest Foundation Norway. Out of all the funds allocated during the past ten years to support these rights, only 17% included at least one local organization, accounting for 0.13% of all climate finance

In Brazil, according to the data from the latest edition of the GIFE Census, private social investment (PSI) organizations are mostly project executors and less likely to donate to other civil society organizations. According to the Census, the financial resources allocated to environmental preservation areas in 2022-2023 amounted to 13% of the investment made in 2022. A smaller percentage was earmarked for the remaining quilombo communities (10%), indigenous lands (7%) and settlements (3%).

Community and socio-environmental justice philanthropy plays a key role in providing financial support to strengthen those who are most affected by and are in the frontlines in the fight against climate change, emphasizing the transformative position of grassroots movements, groups and organizations, present in all Brazilian biomes, playing a crucial role in the regulation of the planet’s climate.

Thinking about climate change from an intersectional, human rights-based approach is crucial, as it seeks to ensure that all climate finance, mitigation, and adaptation strategies are focused on the mitigation of poverty and the strengthening of rights, so that the transition to a low-carbon economy is genuinely inclusive and sustainable.

Comuá for Climate Initiative: Financing locally-led climate solutions

In June 2024, during the F20 Climate Solutions Forum, the Comuá for Climate Initiative was launched, which is an advocacy initiative seeking to strengthen political standings, collective action and networking in view of the construction of strategies, narratives and the production of knowledge in the field of climate philanthropy, boosting and giving visibility to these agendas both in the non-state public sector and in the Brazilian and international philanthropy ecosystems.

The initiative is made up of independent grantmaking organizations that are part of  Comuá Network, which have been working for decades with grantmaking for socio-environmental justice, with a consolidated track record and expertise in directly supporting local traditional communities, managing projects and donating resources, monitoring and evaluation.

Together, they have financed, developed and/or co-created more than a hundred locally-led climate solutions (created by and for communities, considering the specificities and vulnerabilities of the groups involved). They work in different parts of the country, in all biomes, valuing local and ancestral knowledge, solutions and technologies, while at the same time strengthening mitigation and adaptation efforts.

This demonstrates the Network’s far-reaching, effective work and its crucial role in support of the agenda of climate-based community philanthropy, highlighting local financing solutions, designed and developed by the actors in the territories, in view of influencing the field to rethink its grantmaking practices in favor of social transformation and effectively tackling the impacts of climate change.

“Comuá for Climate Initiative: financing for locally-led climate solutions” will be launched as part of the programmed activities of the Transforming Philanthropy Month 2024. It profiles the work done by the Network’s members on this agenda, with an intersectional approach, and highlights the actions and initiatives developed and funded in the field of philanthropy and climate.

The study will potentially become a reference material for the field of philanthropy, helping to influence the construction of agendas and the development of financing strategies for civil society organizations and groups working in the frontlines.

Transforming Philanthropy Month 2024: Locally-led climate solutions

Date: September 2024

Organized by: Comuá Network and its partners

More information: https://redecomua.org.br/mes-da-filantropia-2024/