2020 Grassroots Climate Leadership Award

The goal of this award was to uphold and celebrate public leadership that is stewarding a just and equitable climate transition. Climate leadership has historically been dominated by a very narrow set of identities and perspectives, mainly from white scientists, business leaders, and politicians from the global North. This narrowness of focus and gatekeeping produces a climate leadership community that lacks the lived experience, connection to place and community, and movement-building skills that are all necessary to effect change. Meet the awardees.

GUADALUPE RAMIREZ

Highland Support Project primarily focuses on their clean-burning stove program in Guatemala, putting climate mitigation in action. Primarily, it greatly reduces the amount of smoke emissions and fuel needed compared to a more traditional stove. They also give each family that receives a new stove 10 trees to plant near their home to improve air quality even further. They are also involved in water access projects in Guatemala, Ecuador, and Arizona. For all of these territories, clean water access is a serious issue for Indigenous communities. 

Like most nonprofits, the COVID-19 pandemic has created new challenges for the organization, compounded by Hurricane Eta. All engagement trips to Guatemala- the primary income venture- were cancelled last summer. This created an opportunity to be creative and grow programs, like focusing on communities closer to home base in Richmond, Virginia. They are hosting bi-weekly online lectures from Indigenous scholars and are gearing up to launch a series of virtual engagement experiences for college students. COVID-19 also added a particular urgency to preventing respiratory illnesses through the clean-burning stove program, which they hope will continue to fuel fundraising. 

Guadalupe has been working tirelessly to connect with and support Guatemalan immigrant women throughout the pandemic. From connecting them to local food pantries, providing emergency food deliveries, and assisting them with virtual learning for their children, she has been making a huge difference. 

Please consider donating to Guadalupe’s work via their Global Giving fundraiser: 
You can follow Highland Support Project on: Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn

Inclusive Community

Inclusive Community builds relationships with organizations, institutions and individuals to improve equity for future generations. Inclusive Community is a team of indigenous knowledge holders, scientists, and artists in the southwest United States, using indigenous power building and knowledge to address the intersecting consequences of climate change, colonization, and the struggle for environmental justice.

Inclusive Community approaches their work through systems thinking, which influences how they operate to promote sustainable change. Their foundation is rooted in Indigenous cultural teachings, based on relationships, respect, and reciprocity with humans and non-human relatives in the natural world. Their operating model includes consulting across the US to environmental nonprofits, where they then use the profits to fund community led capacity building projects and redistribute wealth. This is because Black and Indigenous communities are overlooked in the philanthropic sector yet are heavily burdened by environmental contaminants.

One of their current projects on the Navajo Nation is with Dr. Tommy Rock to look at heavy metal toxicity uranium and vanadium in the river ecosystem. Mining has brought toxic levels of these metals to the surface and increased exposure to the community.

As their team is spread all over the US, they intend to use the awarded funds towards a staff retreat. They anticipate a four day trip on canoes to build their collective strength as a team and organization.

Please consider donating to Inclusive Community: 

Please reach out to them directly to specify the amount of the donation and your email address so they can generate an electronic request for direct deposit.  This will provide tracking information for your records and keep fees from being deducted by other funding collection methods.

Alternatively, you can use their Paypal donation link. 
You can follow Inclusive Community on:

Instagram: @Mesas2Mountains, @ket_tui_photography

Website: https://www.icconsult.org, https://www.rollerrock.org, https://www.alejandrohigueraphotography.com

Facebook: Daisy.Purdy.5

ON PUBLIC GATEKEEPING AND AWARD MAKING

To support a restorative, reparative approach to public climate leadership, the Grassroots Climate Leadership Award aimed to center and celebrate leadership from Black, Indigenous, and other People of Color. This was a public award to uplift organizers, community leaders, scientists, and artists. Rowan Institute was specifically keen on recognizing and awarding new STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) leadership at the intersection of climate change, justice, and institutional change. 

Rowan Institute recognizes the harm that happens to individuals and community collectives from the gatekeeping behavior of individuals and organizations with power and financial resources. This gatekeeping, and policing the arena of “legitimate discourse” and “valuable contributions”, is a manifestation of how white supremacy operates in public and private spaces, and how white supremacy uses a power-over approach rather than a power-with approach to bestow resources, time, and attention. 

Rowan Institute recognizes that transacting to disseminate an award fund is to step into that cultural gatekeeping role - and to do that we must be careful, transparent, and accountable here in order to not replicate the harmful and damaging practices of other gatekeepers. Rowan Institute’s goal here was to lead with an alternative model of public accountability that does not transact in normative toxic gatekeeping behavior too often seen in the climate leadership spaces. Rowan Institute hopes to use a power, resources, and platform sharing approach here, as an organization and as individuals, to center transformative leadership. As well, Rowan Institute intended to learn and iterate on this award process, with the goal of building more public-input and transparency into future award cycles. 

To do so, Rowan Institute committed to:

• Separating the fundraising operations and organizational leadership from the committee processes to decide on the awardees.

• Deliberating and deciding upon the award within the awards committee only.

• Transparency in how funds are distributed and how fiscal oversight is occurring 

• Limiting the labor necessary to submit an application package.

• Communicating that there are broad expectations for how the funds are to be spent by awardees.

WHERE DID THE FUNDS COME FROM?

Two $2,500 awards will be given to two individuals or community collectives. Fundraising for the award was completed by Dr. Sarah Myhre, ED of Rowan Institute, and Eric Holthaus, author of Future Earth. Together, $4,700 in funds were raised, with Holthaus contributing funds for the material shipping costs and Rowan Institute contributing funds to cover banking and processing fees, as well as contributing General Funds to true the award balance to $5000. The administration of the funds will be completed by Dr. Myhre, with financial oversight from Rowan Institute’s board and professional accountant. 

HOW WERE THE AWARDS DECIDED UPON?

The award call was overseen by the Fiduciary and Advisory board of Rowan Institute, which is a United States 501c3 nonprofit organization. Submissions to the award was reviewed and voted on by the advisory board of Rowan Institute. Dr. Myhre and Holthaus will not be included in the awards committee or voting process for the award.