"It's Time to Match Peoples’ Climate Actions in the Philanthropy Sector"
A blog post in Alliance magazine makes the case for investing in community-owned solutions and "pursue a paradigm shift to match peoples’ climate actions in the philanthropy sector."
Lindley Mease, of Thousand Currents —an organization that through its grantmaking program, partners with grassroots groups and movements led by women, youth, and Indigenous Peoples in the Global South that are creating lasting solutions to our shared global challenges—, says:
Over the last few decades, the funders with the deepest pockets have invested in shifting national policies, reforming industry sectors, and developing new technologies. They have jump-started carbon trading markets and transformed global energy production. However, these strategies have not prevented rising temperatures, which will make part of our planet uninhabitable if we do not course correct. Of course there isn’t enough foundation funding in the world to counter the power of the fossil fuel industry and shift the economic drivers of climate change. The underlying drivers of climate change such as resource extraction, economic exploitation, and suppressed human rights are continuing largely unchallenged by larger funders. But there is another way.
According to Mease, the leap is possible when "you invest in those that already have direct relationships with the movements creating on-the-ground change. Intermediaries exist as bridges between large funders and the creative grassroots innovators. They have the track record, the relationships, and the vetting procedures. They have developed appropriate evaluation and accountability measures."
"It is high time funders to listen to the people on the streets and no longer 'think big,' but think wide – as in a multitude of local, creative, people-led solutions to climate change that bridge the soil to the sky," she adds.
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