Groundswell Fund takes care of our natural world and recognizes the interdependence of environmental and community health.
That’s why we’ve bolstered our environmental investments by prioritizing climate justice on our Blueprint for 2025.
Since our beginnings, GF has supported women of color-led organizing at the intersections of environmental and reproductive justice.
Groundswell Fund (GF) and many of our grantees recognize the United States as an ongoing colonial experiment founded on the genocide of Indigenous Peoples, theft of Indigenous land and resources, and violent suppression of Indigenous worldviews and lifeways.
Founded in 1997, Alaska Community Action on Toxics (ACAT) is a statewide environmental and reproductive health and justice organization whose goal is to reduce toxics, protect ecosystems, and hold government, corporations, and the military accountable to the community.
Alaska is home to 2,000 military and industrial hazardous waste sites, many close to Indigenous communities. High pollution levels are compounded by geography, cold climate, and a fat-based food web, which result in the accumulation of toxins in fish and wildlife and affect the health and fertility of Alaska Natives who rely on wild foods for subsistence.
In 2017, ACAT won an Anchorage ordinance banning the use of pesticides in city-owned properties, including parks, and helped reduce the use of pesticides in city schools, and will continue its campaign to win a state law that would ban the use of toxic, carcinogenic flame retardants that put children at great risk of a variety of health effects, from cancer to respiratory problems and reproductive and infant health problems, as well as child developmental disorders.
Through its leadership in the International Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) Elimination Network and participation in the Stockholm Convention on POPs, ACAT has helped win global bans on nearly a dozen reproductive toxicants, all of which accumulate in the Arctic region.
ACAT was poised to win a statewide ban on some flame-retardants, but when the pandemic hit, the legislature essentially shut down, stalling action on for the rest of the year. ACAT rapidly shifted its own gears, stopping all in-person organizing and outreach, and moving to virtual strategies.
“It’s hard not to meet people face to face, but because of virtual technologies, we’ve actually increased participation in places that are isolated and expensive to travel to. So many of our communities are not connected by roads, so we have to connect virtually, but they don’t have broadband and bandwidth, so are going back to the phone. And it’s working. Voter engagement is going great.”
– Alaska Community Action on Toxics Founder and Director Pam Miller
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