Just Transition & Systemic Change Programmatic Initiatives
EDGE organizes within progressive funders to create spaces for peer-to-peer sharing and changing philanthropy for systemic change and a just transition. This is a fundamental part of our work which happens in partnership with movement representatives. Inspired by the work of grassroots organizers all over the world, our community commits to uplift and support systemic alternatives dedicated to intersectional justice.
What are Programmatic Initiatives?
Initiatives are thematic lenses that we work with to understand, analyze and put into action our intersectional approach to systemic change philanthropy.
If we think of intersectionality as a prism, each lens is a facet of that prism that we “look” through to imagine systemic change and work towards a just transition. The prisms are naturally varied based on the context, power, positionally, identities, histories and realities of each participant of the initiative, especially given their positioning as funders or movement representatives.
Objectives
To offer a space for funders & movements to engage in the form of both virtual and in-person meetings with the purpose of enabling actionable collaboration towards resourcing and organizing the emergence of the new systems we want to see.
- LEARNING – To build joint knowledge and understanding
- COMMUNITY – To create a blended funder/movement peer network around thematic topics and systemic change narratives
- ACTION – To join forces and identifying opportunities for collective action, including better resourcing
How do they work?
Each of the three initiatives houses a variety of spaces, meetings and processes where funders and other stakeholders can engage. Some spaces are open to only EDGE members, some are open to EDGE members and movement partners, and some are open to the public.
The initiative participants meet every 4-6 weeks to coordinate and co-create. Meetings and conversations can vary in focus:
- Co-chairship: Each initiative is co-chaired by an EDGE member (funder) and a compensated movement representative to co-create agendas with support from the EDGE team as well as act as sounding boards to ensure content resonates with priorities in their work as representatives.
- Co-creation spaces: where participants present an idea to the group,
- Working groups: where participants organize around an output (a report, a meetings, a session in a conference),
- Coordination & community building: where participants get to know each other and coordinate amongst themselves. To disrupt power dynamics, EDGE staff is mindful of the realities of community building between funders & movements and can coordinate movement-only community building spaces as needed.
Who Can Join?
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Movement representatives
- Any activist, NGO, CSO, collective, or grassroots movement representatives working on systemic alternatives as part of a local or global movement who are open to collaborate, push against competitiveness and who have the interest and capacity to share their ideas on the philanthropic sector and to influence funders.
- Movement representatives can automatically join any of the initiatives by signing up below.
- If you have questions or suggestions, reach out to Hana who is the Movement Representatives point-person at EDGE!
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Funders
- Any grantmakers and liberators of resources who are part of a foundation, an activist-led fund, a family foundation or any other infrastructure that allows them to make decisions on how to move money.
- EDGE members can join the initiatives automatically.
- Funders who are non-members and individual consultants can sign up below. Shortly after, they will be contacted by EDGE staff to discuss ways of participating. Non-members need to contribute to the sustainability of the initiatives in some capacity since we rely on membership fees to sustain this work.
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Fellow Networks
- Fellow networks of funders and philanthropic infrastructure support organizations are important allies.
- Upon signing up below, the Programs Manager will reach out to schedule a call to exchange plans of collaborations and organizing across our work.
Current Initiatives
In discussions with our members, the EDGE network has identified and used three lenses over the past few years to build systemic change narratives: Gender Justice, Climate Justice and Economic Justice. Through the initiatives, funders who are EDGE members, funders who contribute to EDGE beyond membership (grants for example) and movement partners who have capacity to influence funders convene, learn, plan and take action related to these thematics through the initiatives.
Climate Justice Initiative
This initiative offers a space for funders & social movements whose work is rooted in Climate Justice and Just Transition approaches to come together regularly with the purpose of building collective power, developing a collective analysis of the intersectional crises we face, coordinating for joint actions towards climate justice; improving and increase resourcing of climate justice work and influencing the field to change (and win) the narrative.
Economic Justice Initiative
The Economic Justice Initiative is a continuation of the Economic Justice Dialogues held from 2022-2023 between approximately seventeen feminist leaders from academia and civil society to delve into a systems analysis, power mapping, sharing ideas, and working towards a joint vision of feminist economies. For 2024-2025, the initiative will invite EDGE members working on economic justice to join the conversations for better and more long-term resourcing of reimagining economies.
Gender Justice Initiative
The Gender Justice Initiative (GJI) is a collaborative group formed by civil society representatives and funders, who get together in different spaces to discuss and strategize on ways of spreading the word of the importance of broadly incorporating the gender lens into the various processes within philanthropy.
[ended] Racial Justice Dialogues
During the course of 2021, Ariadne Network, EDGE Funders Alliance and Gender Funders Co-Lab designed a process for European members that would allow them to explore and create the conditions to build the racial justice philanthropic field in Europe. These dialogues ran for 9 months virtually and aspired to provide to participants a deeper understanding of the racial justice context in Europe, providing them the tool to truly work with a racial justice lens and move more money towards the field. In 2023, we launched the Racial Justice Dialogues for EDGE members in the Americas as part of the our EDGE Members Dialogues under the umbrella of Organizing Philanthropy offerings to our members. The intention is to eventually turn the dialogues to an initiative and invite movement partners to join.
Intersectionality Meet-ups
Even though initiatives are separated thematically to facilitate organizing, EDGE recognizes that systemic change narratives need to be intersectional and non-siloed. Cross-sharing is part of the initiatives’ activities in 2024. This will happen through:
- Intersectional meet-ups: led by the initiatives’ co-chairs to share key priorities twice a year
- Interweaving with other EDGE activities: participants in initiatives are invited to host webinars, attend conferences, plan sessions and engage with other EDGE events. Members of the EDGE network are especially invited to carry the learnings from the initiatives to other membership engagement spaces to influence peers.