Laughing Gull Foundation Adds $850,000 in Funding to Climate & Environment Organizations in the US South

Grants will support partners as they build power, conduct community-led advocacy and civic engagement, and promote climate and energy solutions to address intersecting crises.

Durham, NC – The Laughing Gull Foundation (LGF) is pleased to announce an additional $850,000 awarded to new Climate & Environment partners in the South. The C&E portfolio includes 18 organizations receiving $1.45 million in 2022. The grants fortify the work of frontline organizations tomake progress in a region that is leading the way towards a more just, equitable, sustainable future. Through this investment, LGF is significantly strengthening its Climate & Environment grantmaking, bringing the Foundation’s total giving for this focus area to $1.95 million since 2021.

Grantee partners share LGF’s aim of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to avoid catastrophic climate impacts. Emissions across the South make up ~18% of U.S. emissions; without making significant emissions reductions in the region there is little chance the United States can meet its national targets or and prevent widespread harm.

With this latest funding, 84% of LGF’s Climate & Environment grantee partners are led by Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC). By centering racial equity and low-income communities, LGF works to transform the systems of oppression that cause disproportionate impacts of climate change. The evidence overwhelmingly shows that we must act now to implement equitable solutions to this emergency. To achieve the speed and scale needed to avert the worst outcomes, LGF prioritizes funding for efforts that build power and improve quality of life for people and communities who have been most harmed by systems that enable and sustain white supremacy and listening to, building relationships with, and funding those who are most impacted, LGF accelerates learning and progress that benefits all people in the South.

“Black, Brown, and Indigenous leaders have been champions of climate change in the South for generations. This latest infusion of funding shores up support for organizations that have a proven track record of effective influencing, organizing, and consensus-building, despite being in areas that are historically under-resourced,” said Cynthia Renfro, LGF’s Senior Program Consultant. “We have seen firsthand how these groups are making progress to change the trajectory of the climate crisis. They are visionary, high-skilled, essential partners in our collaborative action to mitigate and reverse one of the most urgent issues of our time.”

Alongside providing direct, multiyear, general operating support to the following seventeen grantees, LGF collaborates with other funders and funding networks to leverage resources and more robustly align and mobilize support for climate and environment organizations that advance change.

LGF’s 2022 Climate & Environment Grantee Partners:

*Appalachian Voices, Boone, NC
*Black Family Land Trust, Durham
Building Equity & Alignment for Environmental Justice Fund, Calabasas, CA
Center for Heirs Property Preservation, Charleston, SC
Georgia Conservation Voters Education Fund, Atlanta, GA
*Gulf Coast Center for Law & Policy’s Gulf South for a Green New Deal, New Orleans
Land Loss Prevention Project, Durham, NC
*Neighborhood Funders Group Amplify Fund, Oakland, CA
North Carolina Climate Justice Collective, Durham NC
*Partnership for Southern Equity, Atlanta, GA
*RedTailed Hawk Collective, Pembroke, NC
Rural Empowerment Association for Community Help, Warsaw, NC
Southeast Climate and Energy Network, Sunrise, FL
*Southwest Georgia Project, Albany, GA
*Sowega Rising, Albany, GA
*The Federation of Southern Cooperatives, East Point, GA
*The Power Coalition for Equity & Justice, New Orleans, LA
*Virginia Organizing, Charlottesville, VA

*Denotes New Grantee Partners

Check out our newly redesigned Climate & Environment Program webpage!

Laughing Gull Foundation Adds $850,000 in Funding to Climate & Environment Organizations in the US South

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