Deadline: 6 May 2019
The Center for Health, Environment & Justice (CHEJ) is seeking applications from grassroots groups working on environmental health and justice issues for its Small Grants Program to support projects that help groups move toward their goals by building leadership, increasing capacity and/or providing training and education.
A priority of CHEJ’s Small Grants Program is to help grassroots community groups to build their capacity. The program is designed to especially reach people from low wealth communities and communities of color who are impacted by environmental harms.
The closer applicants project is to the focus of the CHEJ’s program, the better chance for applicants have to succeed in securing funding. CHEJ supports a wide range of issues, however, they have a limited amount of funds, which were provided to support a specific focus. That doesn’t mean that their work outside the focus is less important– IT IS NOT.
CHEJ prioritizes 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.
Grant activities can include board development, membership outreach, and fundraising efforts. Project activities could also include holding meetings to develop an organizing/strategic plan, training leaders to go door-to-door, events or educational activities which are directly connected to applicants strategic plan, or general events. It is recommended that project activities be creative, effective and strategic.
Grant Information
- The grant application is different for different sized organizations. Small organizations and all volunteer groups with budgets under $50,000 should click here for an application. Grants are available in this tier range from $1,000 to $5,000.
- For organizations with budgets no greater than $250,000 click here for an application. This tier of the program will provide support from $5,000 to $10,000.
- Larger organizations with budgets over $250,000 but less than one million dollars should click here for an application. This tier of the program will support projects with grants from $10,000 to $20,000.
- If applicant are a grassroots group, but are not incorporated and do not have a bank account, applicant will need to find an organization that can accept the funds for their groups, such as a faith-based organization or other non-profit who will serve as their “fiscal sponsor.”
Ineligible Projects
They unfortunately cannot support proposals/projects that fall in any of the categories:
- 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 into such a campaign;
- Legal work or lobbying;
- Projects such as film production;
- community gardens;
- legal assistance;
- market campaigns;
- natural environment protection;
- food banks;
- national campaigns;
- projects for individuals;
- national organizations; or
- organizations outside of the United States
How to Apply
Application must be submitted either via postal or email at the address given on the website.
For more information, please visit http://chej.org/chej-small-grants-program/