DEADLINE EXTENDED: Applications will now be due on March 8th!

FAQ Updated: Download the list of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) (updated February 9th)
Download PDF version of the Request for Proposals (RFP) (we strongly encourage all applicants to read the full RFP before applying)
Download PDF version of the Application Form

The CS Fund is launching a new funding program on Just Transitions to advance social and ecological justice for a future grounded in justice, joy, belonging, and liberation for all beings. This Request for Proposals (RFP) is for the 2023 round of grantmaking, with applications open on January 4th and due on March 8th. This process is designed to be transparent, accessible, and as least-extractive of applicants’ labor as possible.  

About CS Fund

CS Fund is a nonprofit family foundation dedicated to creating an equitable democracy and a just transition to a regenerative economy and food system. CSF addresses critical, under-resourced issues; contends with root causes of problems; and seeks systemic solutions. We practice values-aligned grantmaking and investing and serve as a partner and resource to our grantees. As a small foundation, we strive to educate and organize other funders to invest in critical strategies and organizations, and bring our institutional voices together to advocate for important issues related to our grantmaking.

Eligibility for receiving a Just Transitions grant

• Non-profit public charity or a fiscally sponsored project based in the US or internationally
• Place-based work in one or multiple of the following geographic regions: Central America and the Caribbean, South Asia, the United States, and West Africa 
• Work centers social and ecological justice
• Have an explicit anti-racist and/or anti-casteist focus, and actively work to protect and build power for cultures and identities that are historically marginalized in your region
• Your organization is directly accountable to communities where you work, with active feedback to allow for critique, learning, and adaptation of your work

About the Just Transitions program

We are inspired by movement leaders in environmental justice, worker justice, climate justice, Indigenous Sovereignty, Black Liberation and more in their collective framing of Just Transition: “Transition is inevitable. Justice is not.” After hundreds of conversations with movement leaders, frontline organizations, and other funding allies around the globe, the message that CS Fund repeatedly received regarding how we can support work toward Just Transitions is to build connective tissue and relationship between and across movement sectors, geographies, and cultures. Therefore, the purpose of the CS Fund Just Transitions program is to resource and support intersectional, community-level social and ecological justice at a scale that can challenge and shift systemic power from our current extractive, supremacist culture to one of justice, joy, belonging and liberation for all living beings and ecosystems. It will have a foundation that is anti- racist, casteist, sexist, ableist, imperialist, anthropocentrist, and exploitative. We define social justice as a communal effort dedicated to creating and sustaining a fair and equal society across economic, political, and social rights and opportunities in which each person and all groups are valued and affirmed. We adopt Movement Generation’s framing of Ecological Justice as the state of balance between human communities and healthy ecosystems based on thriving, mutually beneficial relationships and participatory self-governance.

The Just Transitions program will employ a grantmaking praxis that’s both wide and deep. Wide includes regional/national/multinational movement networks that are directly trusted by and accountable to communities, and deep are frontline/grassroots organizations that are resisting the current system and reducing its harms, as well as creating systems that live into liberated futures. This program will be forward thinking and evolve over time. We will use an adaptive approach to learning, evaluation and planning, including participatory evaluation processes. Knowledge and data generated will be shared as a public good for the broader field. 

We will offer an opt-in Community of Praxis (CoP) cohort amongst grantee organizations. The CoP will offer a facilitated space on a virtual platform for an exchange of strategies, tactics, learnings, challenges, practices, and perspectives across sectors, cultures, and geographies. The facilitation will also offer wisdom and practices from movements that are desired from partners and movement groups across the globe. We will lead with movements including Disability Justice, Queer and Trans Liberation, Language Justice, and decolonized frameworks for systems change from a plurality of cultures. The CoP cohort will lead on co-governing with the foundation a pool of funds to advance shared purpose across the cohort. These funds can support cohort organizations and common movement infrastructure, including individual and collective wellness and health. 

Funding priorities
Grant types 
Grants will be made across two categories: core and experimental. Core grantees will be those that are recognized as being established by and core to the communities and fields in which they work. These grants will help scale and spread their work. Experimental grants will support work in new directions and approaches.  These grants could support emerging organizations or projects, as well as new initiatives that established organizations are venturing into.

Sectors
As we are trying to bridge and weave several movements together that often are not in relationship, we will be funding across a wide variety of sectors and areas. These include the following:

• Climate Justice - recognizes that our current extractive, supremacist cultures are the root causes of climate change and calls for investment in sustainable, community-led solutions for and by the Global Majority   
• Environmental Justice - fair treatment of people of all races, cultures, and incomes with respect to the development, adoption, implementation, and enforcement of environmental policies
• Food Sovereignty and Agrarian Land Reform - the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define the use, ownership, and governance of their own food, land, and agriculture systems
• Indigenous Sovereignty and Rights - rights and sovereignty afforded to Indigenous peoples in alignment with the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
• Digital and Data Justice - the equitable treatment and redress of past harms of all people in technology and data collection/use, regardless of race, abilities, gender, age or social context.
• Anti-Racism / Racial Justice / Caste Equity - the systematic fair treatment and protections of people of all races and/or castes, resulting in equitable opportunities and outcomes for all
• Black Lives Matter and Black/African/Afrodescendent Liberation - working to repair both the historic harms of slavery, colonization, and the continued exploitation of Black, African, and Afrodescendent peoples by advocating for liberation from oppression 
• Humanitarian and Emergency Response - saving lives, alleviating suffering, and maintaining human dignity during and after man-made crises and disasters caused by natural hazards
• Community Power and Grassroots Democracy - building political processes which are driven by groups of ordinary citizens, as opposed to larger organizations or wealthy individuals with concentrated power
• Solidarity Economics / Economic Justice - movement to build a just and sustainable economy where we prioritize wealth distribution for people and ecosystems over profit and growth
• Gender Equity - intersectional approach that centers the diverse needs, experiences, and leadership of people most impacted by discrimination, oppression, and violence
• LGBTQIA+ Rights and Self-Determination - ensuring that lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, asexual, and all gender minority people can live openly without discrimination and enjoy equal rights, personal autonomy, and freedom of expression and association
• Labor Justice - fighting the lack of labor rights, precarious work, gender-based violence,  human trafficking, prison labor, poverty, income inequality and a push by business interests to drive down wages and working conditions
• Health Justice - everyone has a fair and just opportunity to attain their full health potential and that no one is disadvantaged, excluded, or dismissed from achieving this potential
• Disability Justice - a wholly intersectional framework and movement that examines disability and ableism as it relates to other forms of oppression – race, class, gender, sexuality, citizenship, etc. – and that ableism makes these intertwined forms of oppression possible, which need to be dismantled as a whole
• Arts and Culture - residents, artists, and others using arts and culture strategies to build community power and community-led change
• Transformative Justice - liberatory approach to violence which seeks healing, safety, resilience and accountability for all without relying on alienation, punishment, incarceration or policing

Many organizations work across several of these sectors and areas through an intersectional lens of overlapping issues, identities, and lived experiences.

Geographies
We have relied on guidance by movement, frontline and funder organizations that CSF has been in deep relationship with to focus on under-resourced areas with pronounced climate/environment risk and geopolitical opportunities.

• Central America and Caribbean: Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Hondura, Nicaragua, and Panama, as well as countries and territories of the Caribbean Sea. 
• South Asia: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka
• United States: All 50 states, as well as territories in the Caribbean, with a preference for work in the Midwest, Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico.
• West Africa: Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and Togo

What we do not fund

• Projects inconsistent with a legitimate charitable purpose and applicable law, including any political campaign intervention or impermissible private benefit
• Projects inconsistent with CS Fund’s vision, mission, and values

Grant logistics

• Grants will fall into the range of $30k-$100k USD per year, which will be determined by the grantee's needs, capacity, and direction. Grants will be provided as unrestricted funds. For international grantees, grant awards will be unrestricted if legally permissible. 
• Grants will be for 3 year commitments with the potential to renew for another term at the end of the program cycle 
• We anticipate that 20-30 awards will be made across this program cycle starting in June 2023
• 30%-40% of total program funds will be made to US applicants, and 60%-70% will be made across Central America and Caribbean, South Asia, and West Africa

Application process and timeline

• December 6th, 2022:  RFP is released
• January 4th - March 8th, 2023: Applications are open
• March 1st - April 1st, 2023: Applications will be reviewed, finalists will be notified for advancing, others will be notified for not advancing
• April 1st - May 30th 2023: Interviews
• Late June 2023, Grant decisions, grantees notified about awards

Selection process criteria

• Awards will be made to organizations that have a significant presence in the geographic regions listed above, with significant relationships and accountability pathways to communities on the ground
• Organizations have to bridge work on both social and ecological justice issues
• The cohort will have a diverse mix of sectors within and across each geographic region
• We will also be looking to fund multiple grassroots organizations that work together, as well as with regional/national/international movement networks that are connected with the grassroots organizations.

Language access (with the intention of moving to Language Justice in the future)

For non-native English speakers, we will accept written proposals in other languages. We will also send a translated version of these questions if requested. Please submit these proposals or ask for a translated version by emailing JTapplications@csfund.org. 

En el caso de personas cuya lengua materna no es el inglés, aceptaremos propuestas escritas en otros idiomas. También le enviaremos una versión traducida de estas preguntas si así lo solicita. Por favor envíe estas propuestas o solicite una versión traducida enviando un correo electrónico a JTapplications@csfund.org.

إننا نقبل من غير المتحدثين باللغة الإنجليزية إرسال العروض مكتوبة بلغات أخرى. وسنرسل أيضًا نسخة مترجمة من هذه الأسئلة إذا طُلب منّا ذلك. يرجى إرسال هذه العروض أو طلب نسخة مترجمة من الأسئلة عبر البريد الإلكتروني JTapplications@csfund.org

Pour les personnes dont l'anglais n'est pas la langue maternelle, nous accepterons les propositions écrites dans d'autres langues. Nous enverrons également une version traduite de ces questions si vous le demandez. Veuillez soumettre ces propositions ou demander une version traduite en envoyant un e-mail à JTapplications@csfund.org.

गैर अँग्रेजी भाषी लोगों के लिए हम दूसरी भाषाओं में लिखे प्रस्ताव भी स्वीकार करेंगे। अनुरोध करने पर हम इन प्रश्नों के अनुवाद किए हुए संस्करण भी भेजेंगे। कृपया ये प्रस्ताव भेजें या  JTapplications@csfund.org पर ईमेल करके अनुवाद किया हुआ संस्करण मांगे।

ஆங்கிலத்தை தாய்மொழியாகக் கொண்டிராதவர்களுக்கு, பிற மொழிகளில் எழுதப்பட்ட முன்மொழிவுகளையும் (Proposals) நாங்கள் ஏற்றுக்கொள்வோம். உங்களுக்குத் தேவையெனில் இந்தக் கேள்விகளின் மொழிபெயர்க்கப்பட்ட பதிப்பையும் உங்களுக்கு நாம் அனுப்புவோம். இந்த முன்மொழிவுகளைச் (Proposals) சமர்ப்பிக்கவும் அல்லது மொழிபெயர்க்கப்பட்ட பதிப்பைக் கோரவும் JTapplications@csfund.org என்ற மின்னஞ்சல் முகவரி மூலம் எங்களைத் தொடர்புகொள்ளவும்