Movement Strategies
The EJRC leaders identified funding priorities that aligned with strategies being implemented on the ground: power building, cultivating collective healing, strengthening movement infrastructure, and stewarding and reclaiming land.
Power Building
Advancing a just transition to regenerative economies requires building power within communities on the frontlines of the extractive economy: Black, Indigenous, and other communities of color, youth, womxn, two-spirit, working-class, and LGBTQ-identified communities.
Building power looks like groups using organizing, leadership development, policy advocacy, community-led research, and other strategies to change their material conditions and prepare to govern.
Grantees engage community members in campaigns that contest for the ability to make decisions about their basic rights, including clean air, healthy homes, safe communities, accessible public transit, reproductive freedom, and more.
The EJRC shaped this strategy based on proof points that it works: women-led, Native organizations in the Southwest successfully won transitions away from coal long before environmentalists understood its climate impacts; Black communities facing deadly health impacts from toxic food and polluting facilities have successfully fostered community food systems that steward the health of land and people.
The EJRC’s portfolio supported entire ecosystems of alliances, coalitions, and networks that are building a bigger “we.” They ensured funding reached lesser-known and locally based groups whose work is critical, as well as regions that receive less philanthropic attention such as Alaska, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Virgin Islands, and the US South.
Power Building
Advancing a just transition to regenerative economies requires building power within communities on the frontlines of the extractive economy: Black, Indigenous, and other communities of color, youth, womxn, two-spirit, working-class, and LGBTQ-identified communities.
Building power looks like groups using organizing, leadership development, policy advocacy, community-led research, and other strategies to change their material conditions and prepare to govern.
Grantees engage community members in campaigns that contest for the ability to make decisions about their basic rights, including clean air, healthy homes, safe communities, accessible public transit, reproductive freedom, and more.
The EJRC shaped this strategy based on proof points that it works: women-led, Native organizations in the Southwest successfully won transitions away from coal long before environmentalists understood its climate impacts; Black communities facing deadly health impacts from toxic food and polluting facilities have successfully fostered community food systems that steward the health of land and people.
The EJRC’s portfolio supported entire ecosystems of alliances, coalitions, and networks that are building a bigger “we.” They ensured funding reached lesser-known and locally based groups whose work is critical, as well as regions that receive less philanthropic attention such as Alaska, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Virgin Islands, and the US South.
Power Building
Advancing a just transition to regenerative economies requires building power within communities on the frontlines of the extractive economy: Black, Indigenous, and other communities of color, youth, womxn, two-spirit, working-class, and LGBTQ-identified communities.
Building power looks like groups using organizing, leadership development, policy advocacy, community-led research, and other strategies to change their material conditions and prepare to govern.
Grantees engage community members in campaigns that contest for the ability to make decisions about their basic rights, including clean air, healthy homes, safe communities, accessible public transit, reproductive freedom, and more.
The EJRC shaped this strategy based on proof points that it works: women-led, Native organizations in the Southwest successfully won transitions away from coal long before environmentalists understood its climate impacts; Black communities facing deadly health impacts from toxic food and polluting facilities have successfully fostered community food systems that steward the health of land and people.
The EJRC’s portfolio supported entire ecosystems of alliances, coalitions, and networks that are building a bigger “we.” They ensured funding reached lesser-known and locally based groups whose work is critical, as well as regions that receive less philanthropic attention such as Alaska, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Virgin Islands, and the US South.
Collective Healing
When communities heal from trauma, they are better equipped to work together—whether as a family, neighborhood, organization, or region.
Given how burnout from conflict and trauma is a significant factor driving leaders out of social justice organizations, the EJRC shaped this funding area to invest in healing practices that can sustain the movement over time and build a more durable civil society. The approach builds on learnings from groups such as the Alaskan, women-led Native Movement and Herring Protectors, who shared the concept of “ceremony as organizing" and Black cooperative stewards such as Detroit Black Community Food Sovereignty Network, who center joy in their work to advance self-determination and well-being.
Collective healing of trauma happens through embodied practice, coaching, mediation, rituals, celebration, and ceremony and often in tandem with restoring relationships with the land, language, and traditional cultural practices.
Pulling a moose hide in some of the final stages of a hide tanning workshop at Native Movement's Nankat Organizer Camp, Summer 2026
Collective Healing
When communities heal from trauma, they are better equipped to work together—whether as a family, neighborhood, organization, or region.
Given how burnout from conflict and trauma is a significant factor driving leaders out of social justice organizations, the EJRC shaped this funding area to invest in healing practices that can sustain the movement over time and build a more durable civil society. The approach builds on learnings from groups such as the Alaskan, women-led Native Movement and Herring Protectors, who shared the concept of “ceremony as organizing" and Black cooperative stewards such as Detroit Black Community Food Sovereignty Network, who center joy in their work to advance self-determination and well-being.
Collective healing of trauma happens through embodied practice, coaching, mediation, rituals, celebration, and ceremony and often in tandem with restoring relationships with the land, language, and traditional cultural practices.
Pulling a moose hide in some of the final stages of a hide tanning workshop at Native Movement's Nankat Organizer Camp, Summer 2026
Collective Healing
When communities heal from trauma, they are better equipped to work together—whether as a family, neighborhood, organization, or region.
Given how burnout from conflict and trauma is a significant factor driving leaders out of social justice organizations, the EJRC shaped this funding area to invest in healing practices that can sustain the movement over time and build a more durable civil society. The approach builds on learnings from groups such as the Alaskan, women-led Native Movement and Herring Protectors, who shared the concept of “ceremony as organizing" and Black cooperative stewards such as Detroit Black Community Food Sovereignty Network, who center joy in their work to advance self-determination and well-being.
Collective healing of trauma happens through embodied practice, coaching, mediation, rituals, celebration, and ceremony and often in tandem with restoring relationships with the land, language, and traditional cultural practices.
Pulling a moose hide in some of the final stages of a hide tanning workshop at Native Movement's Nankat Organizer Camp, Summer 2026
Infrastructure & Land
Advancing self-determination means stewarding land and strengthening infrastructure. Access and agency over land that reflects people’s identities and experiences allows them to build shelter, provide for their families and communities, create systems of governance, practice collective safety and healing, and build power.
The EJRC centered land as a critical part of the infrastructure that supports communities, investing in community- governed land and buildings.
The Collective funded groups providing tools and support to help Black and Indigenous communities navigate financial and legal structures in order to secure and retain land and cooperative businesses. They also invested in organizing that connected reparations to Black communities’ relationship with land, and efforts to repair relations between Black and Indigenous peoples in the context of land return.
Additionally, the EJRC supported infrastructure by resourcing the regional and trans local alliances and networks that provide groups with ways to strategize and build power together across localities, demographics, and regions. And, they invested in the infrastructure for community food systems, community-controlled energy, access to water, and health care across communities.
National Black Food and Justice Association members gather at the 9th Ward Community Farm in New Orleans, LA. Photo credit: Taylor Hunter
Infrastructure & Land
Advancing self-determination means stewarding land and strengthening infrastructure. Access and agency over land that reflects people’s identities and experiences allows them to build shelter, provide for their families and communities, create systems of governance, practice collective safety and healing, and build power.
The EJRC centered land as a critical part of the infrastructure that supports communities, investing in community- governed land and buildings.
The Collective funded groups providing tools and support to help Black and Indigenous communities navigate financial and legal structures in order to secure and retain land and cooperative businesses. They also invested in organizing that connected reparations to Black communities’ relationship with land, and efforts to repair relations between Black and Indigenous peoples in the context of land return.
Additionally, the EJRC supported infrastructure by resourcing the regional and trans local alliances and networks that provide groups with ways to strategize and build power together across localities, demographics, and regions. And, they invested in the infrastructure for community food systems, community-controlled energy, access to water, and health care across communities.
National Black Food and Justice Association members gather at the 9th Ward Community Farm in New Orleans, LA. Photo credit: Taylor Hunter
Infrastructure & Land
Advancing self-determination means stewarding land and strengthening infrastructure. Access and agency over land that reflects people’s identities and experiences allows them to build shelter, provide for their families and communities, create systems of governance, practice collective safety and healing, and build power.
The EJRC centered land as a critical part of the infrastructure that supports communities, investing in community- governed land and buildings.
The Collective funded groups providing tools and support to help Black and Indigenous communities navigate financial and legal structures in order to secure and retain land and cooperative businesses. They also invested in organizing that connected reparations to Black communities’ relationship with land, and efforts to repair relations between Black and Indigenous peoples in the context of land return.
Additionally, the EJRC supported infrastructure by resourcing the regional and trans local alliances and networks that provide groups with ways to strategize and build power together across localities, demographics, and regions. And, they invested in the infrastructure for community food systems, community-controlled energy, access to water, and health care across communities.
National Black Food and Justice Association members gather at the 9th Ward Community Farm in New Orleans, LA. Photo credit: Taylor Hunter