Seed Your Vision with Our Fund

We recognize the immense energy it takes for individuals and organizations to facilitate community-driven processes, as well as the need for support to sustain the work.

In order to continue to build the field of practice of community-driven planning and evolve tools, models, and approaches, we also need more on-the-ground examples and stories from  across our network.

To help meet these needs of our network, the National Association of Climate Resilience Planners (NACRP) launched the Community-Driven Planning Fund  in Spring 2024! The Fund supports community-driven planning processes that are governed by community-driven planners, organizers, and facilitators. Each Spring and Fall, NACRP members will be eligible to submit proposals for funding for up to $30,000 in order to advance an active community-led planning process.

People’s Climate Innovation Center (CI) coordinates and administers the Fund and NACRP members, in a one-year Fund Advisor term, govern the fund grantee selection process.

Our vision is that this Fund will seed and raise visibility of emergent efforts, contribute to the dissemination of community-led “people plans,” sustain facilitative leadership capacity,  and support community power-building.

VIEW ROUND two RECIPIENTS HERE

Eligibility

NACRP members (both individual and organizational members) are eligible to apply for the Fund. There are two tracks:

Track 1: Individuals facilitating community-driven planning process seeking up to $5,000 for professional development, personal growth, emergencies, or basic needs

Track 2: Organizations seeking up to $30,000 to advance a community-driven planning process

Note: Individual applicants may apply for both Track 1 and Track 2

The fund will support:

• NACRP members playing a direct role in the community-driven planning processes
• Advancement of a community-driven planning process to the next phase, a milestone, or address a critical timely opportunity
• Investments in needed organizational capacity to access long-term infrastructure and funding
• Leadership support including personal wellness practices and professional development

Examples of what the fund will support:

Participation/Accessibility‍

• Childcare, food, transportation to conferences or meetings
• Community healing spaces (i.e. cultural grief work, healing gardens)
• Language justice/translation
• Outreach to, and work with ,Indigenous Peoples, Tribal Communities, Native Nations

Leadership Support

• Training and professional development 
• Wellness practices (leadership retreats, reflection, writing)
• Coaching

Data and Technical Support

• Participatory action research
• Ecosystem mapping
• Meeting tech (AV, video, translation services)

Lesson/Story Capture‍

• Storytelling
• Resource-sharing strategies

Financial Sustainability

• Support with budgeting, grant writing or financial/administrative infrastructure
• Financial planning to support the implementation of a community-driven planning process or solutions

Training and Facilitation

• Intergenerational organizing
• Brave or "radical" spaces (challenging workplaces to be regenerative spaces)
• Access to training and facilitation that isn't outcome dependent
• Conflict resolution / finding alignment through conflict

Goals

Our goals of the Fund include:

• Meeting the need for community-driven planning in communities working to address the pandemic, economic crises, ecological crises, climate impacts, institutional racism, and other threats to community health and well-being.
• Building our collective capacity to replace top-down planning models that replicate the power dynamics that have resulted in the challenges our communities are facing.
• Cultivating local facilitation capacity to ensure rootedness and accountability to frontline communities, as opposed to bringing in outside facilitators or corporate firms.
• Sharing stories of impact from communities reclaiming power to advance solutions.
• Strengthening the NACRP community of practice to grow and deepen our collective practice.

How to Apply

Fund Advisors will review applications in late May for the Spring cycle and late September for the Fall cycle. Approximately 3-4 proposals will be funded per cycle. Members interested in applying should schedule a meeting with a member of the NACRP team. This is an invite-only application process. To schedule a meeting, please email nacrp@climateinnovation.net with your name and “NACRP Fund” in the subject line. Thank you!

2024 Proposal Deadlines

Spring Cycle Application Deadline: April 19, 2024‍

Fall Cycle Application Deadline: September 6, 2024