Funding Movements on the Ground to
Keep Fossil Fuels in the Ground.
We have 10 years to cut emissions in half yet the fossil fuel industry blocks progress every step of the way. The tide, however, is turning. People from all walks of life are leading the fight to prevent climate catastrophe, and to ensure economic and racial justice. It’s time we invest in their power.
What is The Equation Campaign?
The Equation Campaign is a new ten-year funding initiative working to bring about a safe and just future by enhancing the power of movements to keep oil and gas in the ground.
The science is irrefutable: to avert the worst effects of the climate crisis, carbon emissions must be cut in half by 2030. While supporting the rapid growth of renewables and energy efficiency is essential, this support cannot solve the climate problem alone. There is a missing piece of the equation: stopping oil and gas at the source.
Studies show we can’t even burn all the oil and gas currently under production without pushing our climate over the brink. But instead of working towards a managed transition, the oil and gas industry is pushing for $1.4 trillion dollars worth of new infrastructure in the next five years. This expansion must be stopped.
As a society, we know exactly how to avert the worst impacts of the climate crisis: We have the data, the money, the technology and enough time to achieve a smooth transition if we begin to shift course right now. We have everything we need to transform our future, except for one thing: the power to make it happen. The potential for mass mobilization around climate is unprecedented, and so is the need. Our strategies support the transformational change required, in the time science demands.
We will keep it in the ground by funding movements on the ground. We center and amplify voices of people on the frontlines, for whom the expansion of the oil and gas industry is a matter of life and death. This includes young people fighting for their future, indigenous people defending their land and water, black and brown communities living in the shadow of the industry’s operations, and poor people who are not responsible for global warming but who bear the brunt of its effects. But the truth is that in the climate crisis, we are all on the frontline; none of us can escape the impacts of climate change. Together, we can avert the worst of it.
Our Strategy
The Equation Campaign is premised on the belief that we can keep it in the ground by funding movements on the ground — enabling historically underfunded grassroots groups to stand shoulder to shoulder alongside their peers in the national environmental community.
The fossil fuel industry has used its immense power, wealth and political influence to keep expanding its operations by selling the lie that we cannot live without their oil and gas. To counter this power, the climate movement needs to channel the kind of unstoppable momentum we have seen in social justice movements throughout history. Only this scale of mobilization can disrupt the industry’s continued obstruction of climate action.
We provide funding that supports two missing pieces of the equation in most climate philanthropy and activism to date: (1) supply side strategies to stop or delay new or expanded projects, and to directly target the power of the fossil fuel industry, and (2) racial justice movement strategies that center the expertise and power of the communities impacted first and worst by both the climate crisis and the impacts of oil and gas operations. Our goal is to amplify the voices of people on the frontlines, for whom the expansion of the oil and gas industry is a matter of life and death.
Grantees
Here are some of the grantees that The Equation Campaign is currently supporting:
Generation Green
Generation Green is a Black youth and women-led organization focused on building an ecosystem that fortifies the leadership of young people in the environmental liberation movement throughout the African Diaspora. They connect a number of environmental and social justice movements for the purpose of creating a regenerative and decolonized future in which Black people are liberated through collective power-building.
Women's Earth Alliance
Women’s Earth Alliance (WEA) is a women-led organization on a mission to protect our environment, reverse climate change, and ensure a just, thriving world by empowering women’s leadership in the climate justice movement. WEA’s signature Accelerator provides leadership, strategy, and technical training for women leaders to scale their climate and environmental initiatives while connecting them to a global alliance of peers, mentors, and funders.
GreenFaith
GreenFaith is an interfaith coalition working to build a worldwide, multi-faith climate and environmental movement. They are focused on building a strong base of religious progressives and moderates by activating their moral conscience and encouraging them to take action on climate issues on which they might not otherwise engage. They leverage an interfaith and strongly spiritual approach to emphasize the moral imperative to stop fossil fuel extraction and demand that governments and religious institutions do what’s necessary to make the change. With 30,000 congregations as part of their network and 20% of them –and growing –engaged in frontline fossil fuel fights, they fill an important gap and have seized an opportunity to broaden and enrich the movement.
Bad River Band
The Bad River Band (BRB) of the Lake Superior Tribe of Chippewa Indians in Wisconsin is fighting the 49 miles of the Enbridge Line 5 pipeline passing through their reservation. They filed a federal trespass lawsuit against Enbridge in hopes of shutting down the pipeline.
WECAN
The Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN) International is a small organization dedicated to frontline women’s leadership in the movement for climate justice. It was created to accelerate a global women’s movement for the protection and defense of the Earth’s diverse ecosystems and communities. They focus on short-term and long-term systemic change and solutions to address the climate crisis and the root causes of environmental degradation and socio-economic inequalities.
Breach Collective
Breach Collective partners with communities on the front lines of the climate crisis to advance justice through locally-driven campaigns rooted in the power of grassroots organizing, legal advocacy, and human stories.
Alliance for Affordable Energy
Founded in 1985, the Alliance for Affordable Energy promotes equitable, affordable, environmentally responsible energy. From the start, they have advanced a philosophy that there is no conflict between lower energy costs and lower pollution, between good jobs and regulation, or between serving the public interest and making a reasonable profit. Because they are both a consumer advocate and public health advocacy organization, their policy work meets at the crossroads of social justice, sustainable economic development, and environmental protection.
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Contact
info@equationcampaign.org
Note: We do not review unsolicited proposals.