Environmental Grantmakers Association (EGA) is proud to partner with member, Roy and Patricia Disney Family Foundation (RPDFF), to launch the Hazel M. Johnson Environmental Justice Award. The award is a collaborative member-led demonstration of EGA's Racial Equity POV to shift grantmaking practices in service of justice and equity for people and planet. RPDFF is making a significant change to its environmental justice grantmaking, choosing to support and amplify solutions and projects already developed by frontline communities at the forefront of environmental change and all of its intersectional impacts. The award is a one-time, 3-year general operating support grant of $75,000/year ($225,000 total).
To limit the burden of grants administration on communities, there is no application process and reporting requirements. There are also plans to collaborate with grantees to strengthen capacity building, operations and narrative/storytelling as a mutual benefit with the RPDFF team. The award is a result of listening and learning from frontline environmental justice leaders for more equitable and impactful grantmaking.
Hazel M. Johnson stands in front of a wall with maps and newspaper clippings on Altgeld Gardens. Source: People for Community Recovery
EGA and RPDFF are proud to honor the "mother" of the environmental justice movement: Hazel M. Johnson, the namesake of these awards. A passionate environmental justice advocate from the 1970s until her death in 2011, Hazel M. Johnson fought for clean air and water on the South Side of Chicago, empowering, educating, and organizing her community in Altgeld Gardens and eventually founded the People for Community Recovery. She led national environmental justice movements and organized national protests demanding clean drinking water and the removal of asbestos from apartments.
The inaugural recipients of the 2022 Hazel M. Johnson Environmental Justice Award include seven community-based and BIPOC-led environmental justice organizations. “This partnership exemplifies EGA’s vision of how the Racial Equity Point of View can support necessary transitions to the policy, practice, and programs of environmental philanthropy,” said Tamara Toles O’Laughlin, EGA President and CEO.
Learn more about the Hazel M. Johnson Environmental Justice Award.
Read our interview with Shawn Escoffery, CEO of Roy and Patricia Disney Family Foundation, about making the funding shift and choice to prioritize environmental injustice and redress of funding barriers in BIPOC communities.