Multidimensional challenges like climate change require systemic solutions. This means that we must pay attention to more than just symptoms like floods and fires, and instead work to address the root causes of how and why such problems came about in the first place. While social, economic, and political systems have long enabled the fossil fuel and agriculture industries to wreak havoc on Mother Earth, their impact is felt across the world. And if we’re going to have any hope of restoring our relationship with nature and each other, we have to go beyond patchwork solutions that fail to address these systemic changes.

At Thousand Currents, we have spent decades cultivating partnerships with grassroots and movement organizations who know how to do just that. Our partners are meeting the complex and interconnected challenges of our time with multidimensional, courageous and visionary solutions. They are stopping toxic industries, supporting policies and laws, and building more just futures.

But grassroots groups and movements in the Global South are funded at a mediocre rate, despite the fact that these communities are the ones most directly affected by issues like climate change.

If philanthropy wants to upend this broken system, we need internal and external transformation. Here are 6 ways funders can start to support systems change through their grantmaking practices, today:

  • Fund grassroots organisations and movements. 
  • Core, flexible, long-term support. 
  • Intersectional solutions. 
  • Experimentation. 
  • Narrative change. 
  • Collaboration. 

Read the full article about supporting systems change by Solomé Lemma at Alliance Magazine.