Did you know that CHEJ has a Small Grants Program that prioritizes grassroots groups working on environmental health, and justice issues? The grants program supports projects that help groups move towards their goals by building leadership, increasing capacity and/or training and education.
The program is designed to especially reach people from low wealth communities and communities of color who are impacted by environmental harms.
A small grant makes a big difference in grassroots communities fighting for their lives. CHEJ is proud to be able to offer these resources to local neighborhood groups who otherwise would have a more difficult time moving a solution to the problem forward. We have seen group do amazing things with a little funding. Citizens have rented buses to take community members on toxic tours of their area. Groups have rented billboards to help get their message across. What a great “in your face” approach. Groups have held Human Rights Tribunals that went on to be presented at the National Human Rights Tribunal held this last May.
“CHEJ’s support to Black Belt Citizens (BBC) was very timely and made a HUGE impact from day one. The CHEJ grant was BBC’s first grant (in 2016) to support their environmental justice work. The grant allowed BBC to strengthen the work they were doing. In 2017, the CHEJ grant increased community programming and created our Community Health Network. BBC is able to fight today and tomorrow because of groups like CHEJ.” Adam Johnson, Black Belt Citizens Fighting for Environmental Justice. Sept. 2018
Grant activities can include board development, membership outreach, and fundraising efforts. Project activities could also include meetings to develop an organizing/strategic plan, training leaders to go door-to-door, events, educational activities which are directly connected to your strategic plan. No strategic plan, give us a call, we can help. Think outside of the box, we love to see projects that are creative, effective and strategic.
CHEJ focuses on community-based organizations aiming to have local, state and regional impact as the core of the health and environmental justice movement. CHEJ believes that no social change on behalf of the exploited comes without strong community-based organizations.
CHEJ believes that improving the environmental health outcomes for grassroots communities and laying the groundwork to establish environmental health organizing must be a priority. Jackie Young from Texas Health and Environment Alliance an awardee has this to say about our program, “CHEJ Small Grants program has helped our group continue our critical role as watch dogs for the San Jacinto River Waste Pits Superfund Site. There is so much behind the scenes work that goes into successfully work with the Superfund process and CHEJ understands this and financially supports this important work.” Sept. 2018
To this end, we look for proposals with projects that train and assist local people to work toward attaining justice, to become empowered to protect their communities from environmental threats and build strong locally controlled organizations. For example:
Skill-building sessions that cover such topics as developing organizational structure, building broad based coalitions, raising money, working with the media, strategic planning, motivating volunteers. Events that facilitate networking and coalition building. Workshops to educate communities about specific local polluting facilities or proposed facilities and develop strategies for reducing or eliminating the environmental threat.
With the CHEJ Small Grants program, we have been given the tools and knowledge to successfully organize, strategize, and plan events. We have the capability to present our issues to local and state government officials. This would not have happened without this Small Grants program. Our community is grateful we will be able to use what we have learned in so many ways. Thank you CHEJ!!!
We unfortunately cannot support proposals from
Organizations with an annual budget over $1 Million, Individuals, National organizations,
Organizations outside of the United States, National campaigns, except local/statewide group-specific efforts that may fit in to such a campaign, Legal work or lobbying
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