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The National Environmental Collective unites diverse voices to advance environmental justice and sustainable communities nationwide. Through youth engagement, workforce development, and community-driven solutions, we empower people to become leaders for change. Our programs build skills, knowledge, and pathways to green careers while tackling urgent challenges like climate resilience, health disparities, and equitable development. By fostering diverse coalitions and grassroots action, we create inclusive environmental movements and drive policy changes for a just, sustainable future. Join our collective power today.

 In 2023, a group of Black, Latino and Indigenous national environmental leaders came together in a virtual conference with focus groups to determine the extent of funding disparities within small Community-Based Organizations (CBOs) headed by people of color addressing environmental justice.

The data and professional experiences shared by the speakers were consistent with a 2020 study through Stanford Social Innovations, that stated nonprofit organizations led by people of color receive less grant funding than those led by white people, and sadly many funders end up reinforcing the very social ills they are trying to overcome.

After the conference and focus groups, the leaders formed the National Environmental Collective, a national nonprofit organization, to end the disparities confirmed by both academic and empirical evidence, and help CBOs from low income, Black, Latino, and Indigenous communities access funds for environmental justice issues. 

The national group was composed of over 20 Black, Latino and Indigenous environmental leaders representing Virginia, Missouri, California, District of Columbia, Maryland, Alabama, Illinois, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Washington, and Massachusetts. At the conference, focus groups were held to determine the extent of funding disparities within small CBOs headed by people of color addressing environmental justice. 

The most significant findings included: 

· 90% of participants agreed that technical and administrative burdens on understaffed organizations was a major cause of funding disparities. 

· 85% agreed that lack of awareness and outreach from funders are also a major cause of funding disparities for environmental justice programming.

· 100% of participants agreed that funders often lack understanding of culturally relevant approaches, leading them to over rely on strategies that are only familiar to them.

· 90% of participants also agreed that implicit bias may blind reading of its application. 

During the conference, leaders shared their professional experiences that illuminated many of the findings:

NEC President and former U.S. Forest Service and EPA leader S. Elwood York, Jr., kicked things off by sharing the asymmetry of challenges through a set of messages from Indigenous tribal leaders from New Mexico and Arizona about the lack of access to relevant information and resources facing indigenous tribes and tribal colleges are nearly identical to or greater than those faced in disadvantaged urban areas. Following the virtual conference, individual focus groups and meetings were held by the members in their respective states to further study these issues.

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Wayne Hubbard, the host/producer of Urban American Outdoors TV, spoke about the importance of effective communications and outreach efforts. He observed the lack of communications competencies often exhibited by federal agencies when trying to recruit people of color to participate actively in outdoor opportunities and the importance of exposing communities of color to the great outdoors to connect with local environmental challenges. 

Michael J. DuBose, CEO and COO of COCHS, the premier non-profit at the intersection of public health and public safety, comes with more than 30 years of combined experience in mental health, substance abuse, neighborhood health clinics, community-based agency administration and correctional health care in public, private and governmental settings. He said environmental justice funding should focus on the health of the people in addition to the land, air, and water, and noted the lack of federal grant focus on many of the determinants such as employment, food insecurity, health care, opioid disorder, trauma, unavailable green spaces, clean air, and low-income housing. 

Retired US Army Master Sergeant Michael Theard has over 40 years of involvement in federal contracting, with fifteen years as a managing partner of the Veteran-Owned consulting firm, RSDCGROUP, LLC, based in Arrington, VA. His remarks focused on organizational capacity, noting that even when successful in identifying an available source of federal grant funding, the technical and administrative burdens on understaffed organizations was a major cause of funding disparities. He concluded that the lack of necessary expertise in areas such as systems management, facility operations, program and portfolio management, strategic planning, custom software development, and government contracting generally hinders most minority companies from gaining access to federal funding. 

The data and professional experiences shared by the speakers were consistent with a 2020 study through Stanford Social Innovations. The study stated that nonprofit organizations led by people of color receive less grant funding than those led by white people, and sadly many funders end up reinforcing the very social ills they are trying to overcome. An earlier study from the Center for Effective Philanthropy’s 2019 study “Grantmaking at the Crossroads: A Call for Dialogue and Change" had similar findings. 

Post Conference Focus Groups

Sandy Bonilla, an environmental leader in California, met with Black tree farmers in San Bernardino County to discover a wide disparity in funding among Black farmers trying to grow shade trees for low tree canopy disadvantaged communities. 

In Maryland, S. Elwood York met with the Historic East Towson Neighborhood Improvement Association near Baltimore Maryland. The only remaining enclave of living descendants of slaves manumitted from the Hampton slave plantation, this Association has been seeking funds to increase tree canopy coverage within this low-shade tree neighborhood to address heat island impact and cultural resource protection as an environmental justice issue. The experiences shared during this meeting were that funders were unable or unwilling to consider decades of historical environmental injustices faced by this community. Moreover, apathy among residents, most now in advanced age groups, inhibits the Association from applying for funding due to constraints on capacity. 

Board members met with the presidents of five Historically Black Colleges and Universities (Alabama A&M University, Virginia State University, Hampton University, Delaware State University, and Bowie State University) on ways to encourage student career pursuits with national environmental and land management agencies as well as other climate and environmental justice pursuits, and to report on funding disparities in education related to urban forestry education that prevent career pathways for many Black students. 

A meeting was also convened in the Richmond/Petersburg/Hopewell area with elected officials, local pastors, public school principals, students, local arborists, and grassroots community leaders to learn about the challenges they face. There, a lack of awareness, limited resources, and a “sense of ineligibility” permeated most discussions. 

These focus groups are just a few of many powerful examples that reinforce the national data. 

The National Environmental Collective is Formed

After the conference and focus groups, the leaders formed the National Environmental Collective, a national nonprofit organization, to end the disparities confirmed by both academic and empirical evidence, and help CBOs from low income, Black, Latino, and Indigenous communities access funds for environmental justice issues.