The Environmental Justice Fund (EJF) is seeking applications to strengthen the environmental justice movement in South Africa by providing financial, capacity-strengthening and networking support to community-based organisations and networks.
Funding Information
They give 1-year grants of R50 000 – R100 000. They also provide accompaniment alongside financial support in the form of capacity-strengthening and networking support.
What EJF supports?
They support environmental justice activism. They take a broad approach to what constitutes environmental justice, but your proposal needs to make the link between the activities you propose to do and environmental justice. For example, a proposal to distribute food parcels to ensure food security might not be eligible, but a proposal to establish a community food garden and train community members on organic farming and permaculture principles, would be eligible. The important thing is to explain the link between your project/campaign and environmental justice.
EJF may support work on, amongst other things: Climate justice and the Just Transition; Air pollution; Mining; Food sovereignty; Water; Waste; Ecofeminism; Eco socialism; Land rights; Promotion of indigenous knowledge; Alternative sustainable livelihoods; Environmental health; Access to environmental information; and Community participation in decision-making around natural resources. This is not a closed list, and they will consider applications outside of these areas if they still fall within the ambit of environmental justice.
Eligible Activities
The activities which EJF might support include:
A specific event (like a protest, meeting or workshop);
Organising, campaigns and advocacy work;
Community-led research;
Litigation by community-based organisations;
Community environmental education initiatives; and
Organisational strengthening initiatives.
Eligibility Criteria
To be eligible for support from EJF, you must be:
An organisation or network (not an individual) based in, and part of, the community it serves;
Working on environmental justice;
In South Africa.
In relation to the first of the eligibility criteria outlined above, please note that EJF does not consider applications from established NGOs. This is because EJF was set up precisely to address the problem that most funding typically goes to established NGOs, whereas community-based organisations (CBOs)struggle to access funding directly. This is why they focus specifically on CBOs. There are many NGOs doing important environmental justice work in South Africa, but they are not eligible for EJF grants because there is other funding that they are potentially eligible for. They also don’t consider proposals from private companies and other profit-making entities, or from state entities (like municipalities).
EJF supports established and new CBOs. You do not need to be formally registered to be eligible for support from them.
