Frontline Justice Fund

The Frontline Justice Fund is a Tides Foundation environmental grantmaking initiative that equips communities impacted by climate environmental hazards with the critical resources they need to take on big polluters in the courtroom and beyond.

What We Do Frontline Justice Fund Katherine Egland
What We Do Frontline Justice Fund Katherine Egland

Fuel the Fight Against Big Polluters

Tides’ Frontline Justice Fund directly supports organizations pushing back against the fallout from climate disasters and protecting their communities from the looming threat of new and expanding oil pipelines, mines, and other dangerous and destructive projects.

Support Environmental Justice
Fuel the fight against big polluters

Our Impact

We stand with community leaders working for environmental and climate justice by helping to sustain their environmental litigation and advocacy efforts through grantmaking.

49 Grantee Organizations

49 Grantee Organizations

27 States and Puerto Rico
 Represented
27 States and Puerto Rico
 Represented
$4.25M Awarded
$4.255 million awarded
Read the Frontline Justice Fund Donor Report

Funding Priorities

Tides’ Frontline Justice Fund uses environmental grantmaking to support communities who are engaged in environmental litigation and/or regulatory advocacy to secure their communities’ health for generations to come.

  • Pursuing Legal Action

    Pursuing Legal Action

    Our grants power long-term support systems specifically for groups engaged in, or that anticipate engaging in, protracted environmental litigation, or regulatory actions to advance climate and environmental justice.

  • Impacted Communities

    Impacted Communities

    Tides prioritizes environmental grantmaking efforts that center groups representing communities that have faced systemic barriers to power and other impacted communities on the frontlines of environmental injustice.

  • For Grantseekers

    Frontline Leaders

    The communities most impacted by environmental harms are also the most closely familiar with the solutions needed to put a stop to them. Tides’ Frontline Justice Fund prioritizes communities where resources will have a direct impact on the frontlines and have broader implications in the fight for environmental justice and power building.

  • Non-Legal Costs

    Non-Legal Costs

    Tides remains nimble, funding those who require rapid-response or multiyear funding to cover legal fees and non-legal costs that come with mounting and sustaining successful environmental litigation or regulatory advocacy campaigns, including organizing, communications, technical expertise, and capacity building.

Meet the Independent Advisory Committee

The Frontline Justice Fund is a Tides collective action fund led by an independent advisory committee (IAC) with members deeply rooted in both the environmental justice movement and community-based work. 

Their voices are essential to a participatory grantmaking process that prioritizes accessibility, transparency, and responsiveness.

Movement Leaders

  • Angela Mahecha

    Angela Mahecha

    Environmental Justice Movement Fellowship at the Tishman Environment and Design Center

  • Douglas Cox

    Douglas Cox

    Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin

  • Jacqueline Patterson

    Jacqueline Patterson

    Chisholm Legacy Project: A Resource Hub for Black Frontline Climate Justice Leadership

  • Maria Lopez-Nuñez

    Maria Lopez-Nuñez

    Ironbound Community Corporation

Funders

  • Ash McNeely

    Ash McNeely

    Pacific Foundation Services

  • Peter Martin

    Peter Martin

    Tides Foundation

Grantee Stories

Memphis Against the Pipeline united in 2020 to reject a planned crude oil pipeline that would have run beneath South Memphis’s Black neighborhoods. After successfully defeating the pipeline, that effort became the broader Memphis Community Against Pollution (MCAP). Today, MCAP employs attorneys and collaborates with other environmental lawyers to push back not only against nearby polluters — including a sterilizer facility releasing ethylene oxide into the air — but also against the harmful belief that communities historically denied power are acceptable locations for pollution-heavy industries.

Meet More Grantees

Help Tides Power Environmental Justice Through Litigation

For Funders

Our goal is to raise at least $5 million per year, which will bring critical and sustaining resources to the forefront of environmental justice. Help environmental champions win important victories for their communities and ignite important conversations at the state, regional, and national levels.

Donate Now

For Grant Seekers

Sign up for our newsletter to learn about future grantmaking cycles and read the stories of fellow change leaders, or check back here for updates. 

Sign Up

The Latest

See all News & Press