Morning Folks!
It may be April 1st, but best believe there are ZERO fools reading today’s editions…
we checked 👀
👋🏽 Forwarded this email? Bet!
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Table of Contents
- Funding Opportunities 💰
- Jobs & Fellowships 👨🏽💼👩🏽💼
- RFP & Contracting Opportunities 📑
- Lagniappe ⚜ (a lil extra)
- Looking Ahead: Upcoming Events 🗓️
- ⚡️ Recharge ⚡️
How y’all look keeping that 🐂💩 away from our communities
By the numbers:
- Funding Opps: 25+
- Job Opps: 80+
- Contract Opps: 15+
💼 See all the jobs on the Common River Job Board. 💼
Funding Opportunities 💰
- O’Shaughnessy Fellowship by O’Shaughnessy Ventures (OSV)
- Who it's for: A one-year program funding radically ambitious ideas in science, tech, media, and art. Ten Fellows receive $100K each; up to twenty additional applicants receive $10K grants and access to OSV’s support network. Open to builders, researchers, and creatives worldwide, grant recipients are chosen from the Fellowship applicant pool.
- Grant Amount: $100,000 for Fellows; $10,000 for select grantees
- Deadline: 4/30/2025
- How to Apply: Click Here
- Request for Applications by Native American Agriculture Fund (NAAF)
- Who it's for: $10M in funding available to support Native agriculture through grants that promote economic self-sufficiency, climate resilience, and rural infrastructure development.
- Grant Amount: Up to $250,000 for nonprofits and tribal governments; $150,000 for educational orgs; up to $10M total pool for CDFIs
- Deadline: 5/1/2025
- How to Apply: Click Here
- Humanitarian Prize by Conrad N. Hilton Foundation
- Who it's for: The world’s largest annual humanitarian award honors a nonprofit for extraordinary contributions to alleviating human suffering and driving sustainable global progress. Nongovernmental, publicly supported charitable orgs with 5+ years of operations and $750K+ in annual expenditures; U.S. or international equivalents to IRS tax-exempt status.
- Grant Amount: $2,500,000
- Deadline: 4/30/2025
- How to Apply: Click Here
- Camelback Fellowship by Camelback Ventures
- Who it's for: A 16-week hybrid fellowship providing early-stage entrepreneurs with funding, coaching, and a supportive community to scale ventures addressing inequities in education and technology. Fellows receive capital, mentorship, and connections to investors and industry leaders.
- Grant Amount: $40,000 in funding (SAFE note for for-profits; unrestricted grants for nonprofits)
- Deadline: 4/7/2025
- How to Apply: Click Here
- Johnson Justice Fellowship by Johnson Family Foundation
- Who it's for: A two-year, full-time fellowship in New York City supporting rising leaders in grassroots organizing, policy advocacy, and electoral work to drive systemic change. Fellows work with host organizations, receive mentorship, and gain hands-on experience.
- Grant Amount: $70,000 - $80,000
- Deadline: 4/7/2025
- How to Apply: Click Here
💰 Find $$$ on the Common River Funding Database 💰
Jobs & Fellowships 👨🏽💼👩🏽💼
- Program Officer, Economic Stability
- Organization: St. David's Foundation
- Location: Austin, TX; Hybrid
- Description: The Program Officer will help implement the Foundation's strategic plan by managing initiatives that address economic stability across Central Texas. This includes developing strategies that reduce systemic barriers to prosperity, collaborating with community organizations, and leveraging funding to improve social determinants of health. The role emphasizes economic development through housing, asset building, and workforce pathways.
- Deadline to Apply: Apply ASAP
- Salary: $110,000
- Link to Apply: Click Here
- Director of Business, Philanthropy, and Investor Partnerships
- Organization: Project Drawdown
- Location: United States; Remote
- Description: Lead and grow strategic partnerships with businesses, philanthropists, and investors to advance science-based climate solutions. Manage high-level partner relationships, drive fundraising, and represent Project Drawdown at key events.
- Deadline to Apply: 5/4/2025
- Salary: $150,000–$180,000
- Link to Apply: Click Here
- EPC Manager
- Organization: Capital Good Fund
- Location: Georgia; Hybrid
- Description: The EPC Manager will lead technical oversight and program management for the Solar for All initiative in Georgia, acting as the liaison with solar contractors. Responsibilities include contractor vetting, onboarding, training, QA/QC implementation, document review, and support for maintenance and compliance with program standards.
- Deadline to Apply: Apply ASAP
- Salary: $83,160
- Link to Apply: Click Here
- Program Associate, Electricity
- Organization: Climate Imperative
- Location: San Francisco, CA or Washington, D.C.
- Description: The Program Associate will support one to two initiative directors through scheduling, grant processing, and communication with grantees. Responsibilities include managing budgets, drafting reports and presentations, and coordinating internal and external meetings. The ideal candidate will bring strong administrative and communication skills and a passion for climate action.
- Deadline to Apply: Apply ASAP
- Salary: $83,160
- Link to Apply: Click Here
- Senior Field Strategist, Steel
- Organization: Industrious Labs
- Location: Remote (Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, or Western Pennsylvania preferred)
- Description: Leads coalition building and grassroots strategy in the Midwest to decarbonize the steel industry through community engagement, power mapping, and campaign development. Manages the Sustainable Steel Community Cohort and Alliance for Clean Steel, focusing on justice-centered climate solutions.
- Deadline to Apply: Apply ASAP
- Salary: $117,000
- Link to Apply: Click Here
💼. See all the jobs on the Common River Job Board 💼
RFP & Contracting Opportunities 📑
- RFP: Freshwater Storytelling Grant
- Issued By: National Geographic Society
- Scope: National Geographic invites storytellers worldwide to create compelling content raising awareness about global freshwater scarcity and sustainable solutions.
- Budget: Request between $20K–$100K; early-career creators encouraged at $20K level.
- Deadline for Proposals: 4/4/2025
- Details & Submission Link: Click Here
- RFP: Regional Implementer for the New England Heat Pump Accelerator
- Issued By: Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP)
- Scope: DEEP is seeking a Regional Implementer to lead and manage the New England Heat Pump Accelerator, a regional initiative to promote the adoption of cold-climate heat pumps across Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island. The selected implementer will oversee the Market, Innovation, and Resource Hubs to support market transformation and workforce development.
- Budget: $450,000,000 ← still not a typo 🫨
- Deadline for Proposals: 4/4/2025
- Details & Submission Link: Click Here
- Call for Applicants: Innovandi Open Challenge 2025
- Issued By: Global Cement and Concrete Association (GCCA)
- Scope: The Innovandi Open Challenge 2025 seeks start-ups developing next-generation materials for net-zero concrete, including innovative low-carbon admixtures, supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs), activators, and binders. Selected start-ups will collaborate with GCCA members to accelerate industrialization. Carbon capture, kiln electrification, and alternative fuels are not eligible.
- Budget: Not disclosed
- Deadline for Proposals: 4/20/2025
- Details & Submission Link: Click Here
📝 View the Common River Contract & RFP Catalogue 📝
Lagniappe ⚜ (a lil extra)
But indeed, there are fools out there on this April 1st!!!
News Scan: Updates to Track📰
- The Impact Map led by Abby Andre of the Impact Project: What originally started as a method to track federal funding cuts and freezes has grown into the Impact Map which provides an interactive map enabling us all to make sense of the impact of federal decisions to our respective communities. The creator writes about the project…
“The Impact Map is designed to make the impact of complex, fast-moving federal funding, employment, and policy decisions more accessible and understandable at the local level. Whether you're a policymaker, journalist, researcher, or simply someone who cares about how government works and its real-world impact, my hope is that this resource helps bridge the gap between national decisions with respect to employment, funding, and programmatic cuts, and their on-the-ground effects.”
- Dozens of tribal energy self-sufficiency projects caught in EPA funding dispute by Chez Oxendine for Tribal Business News: The EPA’s federal funding freeze on duly awarded financing in having substantial impacts on projects in tribal communities that were partner with Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund Awardees such as Climate United for their NEXT pre-development grants. We actually featured this funding opportunity in some of our earliest editions of this newsletter.
“The Quapaw Nation of Oklahoma had calculated the numbers precisely: a community microgrid generating 2.6 million kilowatt hours annually, yielding $280,000 in energy cost savings and reducing tribal members’ energy burden from 11% of annual income closer to the national average of 3%. “
These projects are about more than “economic development” as usual, its about a people’s right to exercise their own economic self-determination.
"Energy sovereignty is not something we're taking haphazardly — we've devoted significant resources to looking at all our options," John Jackson, Jr., construction project manager for Quapaw Nation, told Tribal Business News.”
Incredible work is happening to mitigate this challenge and prepare for a future to accelerate progress if the funding is restored!
Looking Ahead: Upcoming Events 🗓️
- Date: Apr 11, 2025 01:00 - 2:30 PM
- Location: Chicago, Illinois
- Host: Latinxs in Sustainability
- Description: Celebrate Earth Month with Latinxs in Sustainability (LiS) Chicago and LRS as we take a behind-the-scenes tour of one of Chicago’s leading Material Recovery Facilities (MRFs)! 🌎♻️ Discover how recycling happens in our city through a guided tour of LRS’ cutting-edge Exchange MRF, where materials are sorted, processed, and prepared for reuse. This is a unique opportunity to gain insider knowledge on waste management, sustainability, and circular economy efforts in Chicago.
- Sign Up: Click Here
- Date: May 8-10, 2025
- Location: New Haven, CT at Yale University
- Host: Yale School of the Environment’s Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Sustainability Initiative
- Description: The 2025 New Horizons in Conservation Convening invites professionals, practitioners, students, recruiters, and vendors to Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut to explore urgent issues in the environmental field. The convening will focus on different perspectives in environmental institutions, environmental justice, food insecurity and sovereignty, climate and energy justice, outdoor experiences, future leadership in the environmental movement, and more. It will bring together students, academics, researchers, and professionals from diverse backgrounds to give talks, participate in workshops, meet local leaders, and network with each other.
- Sign Up: Click Here
⚡️ Recharge ⚡️
Let us remind ourselves that we come from a long lineage of folks who have done the self-examination, spoken truth to power, and embodied the future that we desire. The prolific James Baldwin has some words for us.
❝ There may not be as much humanity in the world as one would like to see…but there is some. If you break faith with what you know, that’s a betrayal of many, many, many, many people…I may know six people, but that’s enough. Love has never been a popular movement. And no one’s ever wanted really to be free. The world is held together, really it is, held together by the love and the passion of a very few people. James Baldwin, Meeting the Man, 1970
