Communities Know Best: Funding for the Future of Frontline Communities

Communities on the frontlines of the climate crisis already know what they need to build resilience. Yet, funding systems too often bypass their voices and insights. Recognizing that traditional philanthropy and nonprofit approaches alone cannot meet the scale and complexity of today’s challenges, we must rethink how capital flows and stays with those who are most impacted.

Climate Resilient Communities (CRC) is navigating a pivotal moment in its journey, undergoing a strategic planning process to chart the path forward amid unprecedented challenges and opportunities. A cornerstone of this effort is a white paper series entitled “Playbook for Funding Climate Resiliency, Adaptation, and Environmental Justice”—a living research project that synthesizes our community prioritization research with a case study repository of collective wisdom, drawn from real-world case studies in innovative financing and community development strategies, and hard-earned lessons from diverse & native communities.

Rooted in the principle that “Communities Know Best,” this session will spotlight the knowledge and wisdom of the community as investable as their driven solutions themselves. From those who have successfully blended social justice with sustainable finance, harnessing the power of the collective to build more resilient systems. This session will explore how CRC and other community-based organizations are expanding our own knowledge base to leverage collaborative capital to secure sustainable funding, break dependency cycles on traditional philanthropy, and drive transformative change.

We will highlight how participatory mechanisms, pay-for-success models, hybrid structures like public benefit corporations (PBCs), creative uses of disregarded entities, de-riskment through PRIs & guarantees, and community-based project financing models (e.g., CDFIs & CDCs), and underutilized tools like 501(c)3 bonds are being integrated into our strategic planning considerations as plan our next three years in building resilience from the ground up, as well as amplified as a deeper call-to-action for other innovative strategies we would like to see proliferated in the communities we serve.