GreenFaith: Grassroots Movement for Climate Justice

GreenFaith is building a worldwide, multi-faith climate and environmental movement. Together, their members create communities to transform ourselves, our spiritual institutions, and society to protect the planet and create a compassionate, loving, and just world. To better fuel its mission, GreenFaith wanted to develop a strategy for grassroots fundraising that would fit its organizational strategy and lean into its religious identity around climate justice. 

Before this project, GreenFaith’s grassroots fundraising consisted of twice-a-year appeal letters with accompanying emails to their list. With a grant from Progressive Multiplier, GreenFaith was able to invest in a system to track consistent donor data and monitor progress year-over-year. They also trained staff to use the system, giving them access to tools to expand their fundraising knowledge. 

“Where we are now, we couldn’t have even envisioned that at the beginning of the project because we didn’t understand what was possible or the questions we should be asking ourselves,” said Fletcher Harper, Executive Director, GreenFaith. “Having [Progressive Multiplier] as ongoing conversation partners, who are skilled and experienced, helped us to understand this world.”

GreenFaith also needed to learn how to incorporate grassroots stories into their fundraising appeals, but they were concerned about exploiting members by featuring their stories in conjunction with asks. Discussions with Progressive Multiplier allowed them to overcome this issue by using member voices to tell their stories. They shifted their focus to collecting more stories and drew on them to humanize their mission and demonstrate growth. With additional experience and repetition, staff became more confident in their asks, and it showed: Donors liked that GreenFaith was clear about their mission and wanted to be a part of it. 

GreenFaith could compare fundraising around Earth Day 2022 against Earth Day 2023 with these new tactics. They raised $18,000 in 2023, doubling the number of donors who gave and increasing revenue by 25% yearly. They anticipate a growth trajectory of at least 15% in the coming years. 

Greenfaith is building a grassroots, multi-faith movement for climate justice. Together their members create communities to transform ourselves, our spiritual institutions, and society to protect the planet and create a compassionate, loving, and just world.