Contextual Capital: Co-Designing Funding & Decision-Making for Local Sovereignty & Resilience

This interactive workshop brings together grassroots practitioners, local community-based organizations (CBOs), funders, governments, policymakers, and institutions to participate in a model co-design process leveraging inclusive, equitable, and community-centered funding and decision-making frameworks.

Framed around real-world, place-based examples, such as the resourcing of Indigenous-led agro-ecology efforts in the Amazon, and the bridging of public, private, and in-kind resources to grow common processing infrastructure for small farmers in Southern Appalachia, the session will address power dynamics present in the room, explore the importance of local context, and demonstrate pathways to identify actionable strategies for decision-making and resource allocation that prioritize local sovereignty, reciprocity, and mutual accountability in climate resilience projects.

Participants will engage in hands-on activities such as power mapping, contextualizing local sovereignty, and co-designing decision-making strategies that reflect the values of community leadership and long-term sustainability. The workshop is designed to foster collaborative relationships across sectors and provide tangible tools that participants can take back to their respective organizations and communities.