In late 2020, about one year after Lydia Avila joined the Climate and Clean Energy Equity Fund, the organization was one of three climate justice-focused funds that received $43 million each from Jeff Bezos. Another recipient? The Hive Fund for Climate and Gender Justice, which Avila had joined as a board member the year before. The grants were a historic infusion of funds to the growing climate justice movement, with several of the gifts exceeding what the recipients had received throughout their entire existence to date. As Avila emphasized to me, it also denoted a long-running rise in support for groups like the Equity Fund and greater attention—if not always transformative funding—to equity and justice within the environmental movement. From her positions with both organizations, not to mention as board member of Greenpeace USA and on the steering committee of the Climate…
Eight Questions for Lydia Avila, Program Officer with the Climate and Clean Energy Equity Fund — Inside Philanthropy
