CFF Rapid Response Fund

CFF’s Rapid Response Fund was created to shift philanthropic practices by distributing responsive resources in a timely way that prioritizes the humanity of Black and brown people, the frontline organizations they may lead, and the grassroots organizations that may be accountable to them. To realize this vision, the CFF Rapid Response Fund will provide rapid response funding to support organizations’ or coalitions’ needs to position themselves or others to respond to infrastructure crises, movement moments, and time sensitive federal funding notices or rulemaking that require rapid mobilization. 

The Rapid Response Fund has a national scope with specific priority given to geographies that have historically received disproportionate public investment, including the Midwest and the South.  Applications will be reviewed bi-monthly (1st Friday and 3rd Friday of each month) and awards will be determined by the CFF team.

The Rapid Response Fund is limited to $1,500,000. Grants will be distributed on a rolling basis until the fund is spent down. Awards will range between $10,000 - $100,000 depending on scope and scale of the work funded.

The Rapid Response Fund supports frontline and grassroots 501(c)3 organizations and fiscally sponsored projects that are:

1. Rooted in community, that embody racial justice, environmental and climate justice. Some indicators include:  

• Board and staff (including leadership) that is majority people of color / reflective of the communities it works with and its members

• Grassroots, base-building organization that is accountable to its member leaders for its organizing and advocacy priorities

• A grassroots member of an environmental and climate justice coalition

• A coalition or network that supports and reflects grassroots groups, their members, and their community priorities - in its governance, its culture, its programming, and its staff.
  
  

2. Based in the United States or a U.S. Territory. We will prioritize organizations in the Midwest and South, geographies that have historically received disproportionate public and philanthropic investment.
   
   

3. Align with the principles outlined by Communities First: (1) Invest in People; (2) Proactive Collaboration; (3) Center Community Wisdom; (4) Honor Self-Determination; (5) Practice Responsiveness & Accountability; (6) Bridge Integrative Pathways; (7) Repair Past Harm.

The Rapid Response Fund supports work that:

1. Responds to public infrastructure crises, movement moments, and time sensitive federal funding notices or rulemaking that require rapid mobilization.

AND

2.  Builds or supports ecosystem capacity to access or create the enabling conditions to influence federal resources at the federal, state, or local levels - as part of a longer term power analysis and strategy to build power for frontline and climate and environmental justice communities. 

OR

3.  Already influences federal and/or state funding flows, in alignment with other movement climate and environmental justice organizations. These groups will have an “inside/outside” strategy, building power with communities of color and low-income, frontline communities, and working both with and outside of government to hold the public sector accountable to these communities’ priorities. 

The Rapid Response Fund will not fund:

• Requests for support for efforts that are not connected to and shaped by a longer-term power-building strategy. 

• Capacity for technical assistance providers.

• Projects or campaigns.

• Requests for public-private partnerships or collective action tables with local government and community based organizations to create or implement a local plan that is not connected to a larger regional or state strategy and movement ecosystem.

Before you get started, learn more about how the JustFund Common Application™ works. Please ensure that all fields in your profile are up to date. As part of your application, your profile information will also be submitted and dated at time of submission.

• Organization Budget
• 501(c)3 Determination Letter
• If Fiscally Sponsored Project, MOU with the Fiscal Sponsor