Giving Opportunities at Berkeley

GrizzlyCorps reorients focus onto educating the next generation of young climate leaders around the state by sending them to rural farm and forest communities across California to learn, collaborate with, and promote climate-smart approaches in environmental development. With regenerative agri-food systems and forest & fire resilience placed at the center of the communities served, GrizzlyCorps helps create innovative, practical approaches that have been shown to promote biodiversity, carbon sequestration, responsible land management, conservation, and protection of working lands. We are asking supporters to supplement the work we do with a gift. Please help us reach our goal! 

 By sending 20 recent college graduates to 20 different regions across California for roughly one year, our program expands the capacity of organizations in rural forest and farming communities. Some of these organizations include tribal communities, Resource Conservation Districts, University of California Extension Research Centers, and other nonprofit agencies. GrizzlyCorps engages local governments and organizations by inviting communities to ask their own questions and define their own needs. As UC Berkeley's first AmeriCorps program, GrizzlyCorps creates embodied approaches that a working model for integrating diverse forms of knowledge and encouraging experts to collaborate and develop findings in new settings and at multiple levels. GrizzlyCorps understands that diversity enhances excellence, innovation, and collaboration -- building an environment inclusive of this leads to the development of climate solutions grounded in social justice.

Viewing environmental policy through a critical, individually-oriented lens pushes deconstruction of the science and addresses the larger question of who these policies serve. Intersectional thinking recognizes the importance of cultural identity and difference in the communities we seek to protect while also shaping a vision of justice and liberation for all, rather than promoting policy that is only beneficial to some. Through the connection between our partners, allies, members, and communities, GrizzlyCorps aims to create a sense of agency on both individual and societal levels in response to the changing climate. We are working to ensure that climate change solutions provide multiple benefits to the agricultural and forest sectors at every level, while also prioritizing rural communities and providing essential services to people who have been traditionally overlooked. 

A gift to GrizzlyCorps would support our diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging efforts, including, but not limited to:

• Expanded fellowship opportunities and increased pay, through field-study and stipends, for underrepresented students.

• Professional development activities and mentoring events, and Diversity & Inclusion speakers for our current fellows

With your support, we can continue to ensure that climate advocacy continues to benefit communities at large. Please visit our website for more information about our program and contact our project coordinator, Michelle Feng, at michellefeng@berkeley.edu with any questions.