Started in March 2019, the Donors of Color Network is an organization working to support powerful climate solutions. They recognize and bolster the effective efforts put forth by the Black, Indigenous and People of Color-led environmental justice groups who are on the frontlines fighting climate change. The network has been able to increase its funding pool to $120 million in the last two years alone and is continuing to expand on its mission.

“DOCN was looking around and seeing the death of George Floyd, seeing other racial justice issues flare up around the country—but also noticing a systemic underfunding of movements led by people of color,” recalls Abdul Dosunmu, campaign manager of the DOCN’s Climate Funders Justice Pledge. “So as donors of color who are positioned both financially and socially with meaningful capital, they decided to organize themselves and their money.”

In 2021, DOCN started the Climate Funders Justice Pledge, which calls on the top 40 climate funders in the United States to increase their funding of BIPOC-led organizations to at least 30 percent of their portfolios within the next two years—all while providing transparent reporting of their grants.

Philanthropy often funds organizations working on climate change solutions, but only a tiny fraction of those dollars—just 1.3 percent—go to BIPOC-led climate organizations. BIPOC-led organizations are often working for and in the communities most impacted by climate change and environmental racism with the least amount of resources. As a cross-racial organization made up of movement leaders and donors, DOCN was born out of the idea that BIPOC communities fighting for climate justice can be more impactful by jointly leveraging their knowledge and resources. The Climate Justice Funders Pledge was partly a response to the lack of follow-through from philanthropists that promised to invest in racial justice.

Read the full article about the Climate Funders Justice Pledge by Calen Otto at Nonprofit Quarterly.