Alert: Urgent Funding Needs in Georgia
The message below is repurposed from a letter Hive Fund partnered in with Georgia Alliance Education Fund, The Climate and Clean Energy Equity Fund, and the Solutions Project.
Georgia is on all of our minds right now as we celebrate record-breaking voter registration and turnout. The purposeful vision and tireless work of home-grown leadership and consistent engagement of Black and Brown voters, especially youth, is a legacy to learn from and support. These events are not mere chance. They are the result of more than a decade of organizing by a coordinated network of multi-racial leaders, following the visionary leadership of Black women. The momentum in this year builds upon the generational work of Black organizers from reconstruction to the civil rights era including Dorothy Lee Bolden Thompson, Rosa Parks, and so many more. Thank you to the many national and place-based funder partners that already invest in Georgia and the region.
Like most of the South, Georgia has long been considered out of reach for those working towards environmental and climate action. Advocacy and organizing groups around the state are proving otherwise--catalyzing local 100% clean energy commitments and plans rooted in racial equity; propelling Georgia to a top 10 solar state; helping create historic water efficiency, green infrastructure, and land conservation policies at the local and state levels; and elevating clean energy equity to a key issue in local and state elections from Atlanta to Albany. Communities of color show up again and again across the country in support of collective actions like worker rights and affordable healthcare. These are the same communities who are disproportionately impacted by pollution, high utility costs, and climate change, and supportive of clean air, clean water, climate action, environmental health and justice.
We’ve fielded many questions from funders about what they can do to help secure and expand these successes and emergent shifts into long-term wins for environmental and climate justice. First and foremost, you can scale up your investments in Georgia-based groups so that they can continue to implement their winning strategies in 2021 and beyond. They have gotten us this far with just pennies on the dollar. We know how much more they can do with large-scale support. In addition to urgent needs, we also want to emphasize the importance of multi-year general support grants to front-line organizations to help build and support the long-term civic engagement infrastructure needed to create systemic change and protect the progress we have made.
How To Support
Progress Georgia, the state communications hub, supports civic engagement organizations with digital strategies, and has a gap of $500,000 that must be filled in order to maximize online and mail communications efforts to reach Georgians across the state to understand how to request a mail ballot and how to vote safely. ProGeorgia, the hub for non-partisan voter engagement, has a $300,000 budget gap for their partners’ runoff efforts. Other organizations to consider immediate gifts to include:
If you’re interested in having a 1:1 conversation about your investment in Georgia or if you would like to receive transmittal information for any of the recommended organizations, please contact Melanie Allen at melanie@hivefund.org.