The Currents Project
This project is a national collaborative effort that aims to develop place-based pilot projects which ultimately will transform economic, cultural and political power to accelerate the transformation required to act on and create racially just climate action. This is done by addressing the conditions necessary for relationships between local government and frontline communities through an ecosystem of networks and institutions aligned and rooted in restorative and movement accountable values and principles.
The SPICE project served as a first iteration design phase, identifying initial design principles, the core design challenge, and the structure by which to address the challenge. The project also narrowed key elements, defined as power shifts, for this next phase:
Economic Power: shift to community ownership and the increase flow of philanthropic and public resources into community funds
Political Power: change the face of local government by running BIPOC candidates for office and through DEI hiring, shifting local government accountability to communities
Cultural Power: undoing white supremacy culture in government through community & government alliances for racial equity.
Collectively, these elements embody the Transformative Power needed to evolve collaborative practice towards just outcomes. The opportunity that exists with Currents will be a pilot or series of pilots (existing and/or new) that demonstrate the applied practice and impact to scale of Transformative Power in action.
To do this will first require an alignment of existing key national networks working across the Climate Justice ecosystem and at the intersection of these power elements. Convening these key national network partners such as USDN, Full Spectrum Capital, Climate Justice Alliance (CJA) and The Solutions Project is a critical next step.
A summary of activities that will be covered by the Currents project:
An assessment across networks for resources, assets, leadership, and commitment to advance transformative place based pilots in service to frontline communities.
Alignment on values, roles, goals and commitment for collaborative service/support offerings to communities.
An ecosystem scan to identify potential place-based partners.
Co-design of the pilot project with local frontline communities.