Weather-Vulnerable to Weather-Resilient Communities
Summary
In 2024, GoFundMe.org committed to launch Helping Communities – From Weather-Vulnerable to Weather-Resilient, a weather resilience fund for marginalized communities affected by climate events, with an initial investment of $2 million from GoFundMe, Inc. and a goal of reaching a total of $10 million by 2027. This commitment will directly support community members and community-led initiatives with funding to respond to climate change and improve preparedness and response to natural disasters. The weather resilience fund will provide a range of support, from water filtration equipment for those affected by California wildfires to grants of $500 to 1000 families in Florida vulnerable to natural disasters and larger grants of $500,000 to $2 million for six to eight community-led projects. From 2024-2027, these funds will directly serve 10,000 individuals in California and Florida. As climate events become more frequent and intense, this commitment will help local communities prepare to respond.
Approach
An initial capital investment of $2 million from GoFundMe, Inc in 2024, reaching a total of $10 million by the end of 2027 will enable two collaborations. First, in an effort to provide interventions that will help keep hundreds of families healthy in the most financially at-risk and weather-vulnerable areas in California. The local partners – Central California Environmental Justice Network and Comite Civico Del Valle – will provide approximately 400 households in the Central and Imperial Valleys with air and water filtration equipment (phase 1) and ductless mini splits (phase 2) . Second, a collaboration with Propel to provide micro grants to 1,000 Florida residents who live in designated high-risk storm zones, ahead of hurricane season. People could use this advance cash to purchase supplies such as flashlights, batteries, food and water, or put the funds towards car repairs, purchasing generators and installing shutters.
Future grants and/or projects will promote individual and community resilience.
Core to this work is a commitment to the communities themselves – those most impacted should be at the table, and part of the solution. Investments supported by this Fund will be community-based and community-led. Challenges here may be: local infrastructure and readiness, community access and buy-in, significant demand / need for investment. These projects really move at the speed of trust.
The intention is to support multiple marginalized communities, and multiple models of weather resilience efforts, so we can assess and learn forward. GoFundMe.org will finalize locations and the project, in partnership with other investors and the implementation partners. While this allows for significant impact in a shorter amount of time, it may be harder to evaluate models against one another.
This approach empowers the communities; success will be working with the communities, and not just for them.
Action Plan
In 2024, GoFundMe, Inc will invest an initial $2 million into this commitment to action, with the goal of $10 million by the end of 2027. The remaining $8 million will come from continued fundraising efforts.
Below is the timeline for year one of implementation.
September 2024
Priorities: Disburse the initial investment of $2 million; Fundraising and Partnership Outreach, with a total fundraising goal of $10 million.
Milestones:
Announce Commitment-To-Action at CGI;
Begin Project 1 – Confirm partners; execute first round of organizational grants and product purchases; install air and water filtration devices in 540 households in the Imperial and Central Valleys;
Begin Project 2 – Confirm households, and distribution and installation plans; install ~330 ductless mini split heat and air conditioners in the same geographies.
*Beneficiaries will be selected according to financial and weather resilience need. The latter based on water testing and geographic data pulled from the Cal Enviro Screen 4.0.
October – November 2024
Priorities:
Fundraising; Partnership Outreach (goal is 3 more partners before EOY) ; and Sourcing / Research (goal is 2 more projects identified before the end of 2024) Milestones: Complete product purchase and installation for phase 1 of Project 1; Monitor FL hurricanes and beneficiaries to understand impact of the investment.
December 2024 – April 2025
Priorities:
Fundraising (goal is $5M in commitments) and Partnership Outreach.
Milestones:
Meeting with the Coalition – of partners and investors; Complete evaluation of Project 1, phase 1 & Decision point about investment in phase 2; and Complete evaluation of Project 2 (FL disaster zones) .
May 2025 – August 2025
Priorities: Fundraising (remaining $3 million) and Partnership Outreach.
Milestones: Decision Point about future investments.
Eventually, GoFundMe.org hopes to be making decisions in partnership with the other collaborators at the table. Depending upon available funding, a timeline and goals will be established for the next 1-2 years.
Background
Extreme weather and weather-fueled disasters like wildfires, hurricanes, and tornadoes disproportionately devastate underserved communities.
Since 2020, there have been more than 92,000 GoFundMe fundraisers responding to extreme weather and natural disaster events that caused financial shocks that families were unable to recover from alone. Last year, $106 million was raised on the platform for natural disaster relief. GoFundMe.org has distributed over $6.2 million through more than 7,000 grants in the last four years through theHurricane Relief and Wildfire Relief funds, and other natural disaster relief grants, to people who lost homes, property and loved ones.
With a moral obligation to stem the tide of financial need in the wake of ever-increasing weather-fueled crises, GoFundMe.org is committing to a new strategic priority: Weather Resilience. A new Weather Resilience Fund seeks to mitigate the combined impact of social injustice and climate change by empowering local organizations to provide immediate relief and build long-term resilience within vulnerable communities.
The issue GoFundMe.org seeks to address is the stark inequity in how extreme weather events play out and who is most affected. Because too often those most marginalized are the ones most impacted; they live in low-income communities, are forced to make impossible choices every day, and have little access to resources.
GoFundMe.org hopes to create a sustainable model for investing in local weather resilience solutions that leads to direct and lasting impact. Investments will engage grassroots organizations that are experts in supporting the communities they serve.
GoFundMe and GoFundMe.org are joining forces to parlay their success in relief and recovery into this new focus on resilience. This commitment has an ambitious goal – to raise and distribute $10 million in the next 3 years through a public-private-philanthropic collaboration.
Progress Update
Partnership Opportunities
Financial Resources including cash, in-kind support, product donations from original equipment manufacturers or retailers to enable greater investment, and thus greater impact.
Implementing Partners – Given the commitment to invest in local infrastructure and organizations, the Fund investments will require local partners for implementation.
Fostering resilience, which is the goal of this commitment, is based on over a decade of crisis response on the GoFundMe platform, hundreds of millions of dollars raised to support people and communities, and thousands of relief and recovery grants from GoFundMe.org to individuals and nonprofits. Expertise in the climate change and climate justice ecosystems, particularly those with experience in resilience, climate risk mitigation and preparedness would be valuable.
Media Support – Welcome additional capacity and platforms for distribution to communicate the climate problem, and stories of impact from the communities that GoFundMe invests in.
Best Practice – Perspective, insights, experience, and ultimately collaboration will make this better., GoFundMe is an internationally recognized and respected brand. In 2023, 30 million people sent or received help on this community-powered fundraising platform. Along with this brand power, GoFundMe & GoFundMe.org bring the following to partnerships:
Cash and in-kind contributions;
Communications and press expertise & capacity;
Marketing expertise & capacity;
Program implementation support, including: Product research support; Product contract support; Resources for product purchases; Support grants for program staffing and overhead; and Installer vetting support;
Fundraising support, including: Infusions into the Fund; Introduction to potential corporate product providers; and Resources for product purchases.
Media Support – This commitment leverages the staff capacity and expertise of GoFundMe’s communications and marketing team.
Best Practice – Since 2017, GoFundMe.org has raised and distributed over $160 million across more than 150 funds, delivering 15,000+ grants to people with urgent needs and programs driving critical social change. GoFundMe.org has a proven track record in grant-making.