What is “Power-Building”?
Power-Building
[pow·er-build·ing] noun
- The intentional and strategic practice of resourcing grassroots leaders to share wisdom, co-create strategies, and drive collective impact.
- Acknowledges the strength and wisdom inherent in community, and creates a broad and inclusive base of vision-aligned leaders and doers.
Our Power-Building Framework
At Justice Outside, we believe that true environmental justice requires shifting power to communities most impacted by environmental inequities.
Through policy change, trust-based funding, and grassroot leadership development we’re transforming who has access to outdoor spaces, resources, and decision-making power.
Creating Lasting Systemic Change
Three Pillars of Power-Building
Our Power-Building approach works on multiple levels to create lasting systemic change in the environmental movement:
Advocate
We amplify community voices to transform policies at local, state, and federal levels, creating pathways for collective action that changes who makes decisions about our natural world.
Fund
Our trust-based funding approach puts resources directly into the hands of community leaders who collectively define priorities and strategies for change based on their wisdom and lived experience.
Build
We're transforming the environmental movement by connecting grassroots leaders, fostering knowledge sharing, and building networks that enable collective action for systems change.
Power-Building: Bridging urgency and long-term change
By integrating these three pillars of Power-Building, we’re addressing both immediate needs for access and representation while simultaneously working toward long-term structural change in how environmental decisions are made and resources are allocated.
The real life impact of Power-Building:
How Our Power-Building
Approach Creates Change
Our integrated approach creates transformative impact across multiple levels:
Individual Level
Leaders develop the skills, confidence, and connections to become powerful agents of change within their communities and the broader environmental movement.
Organizational Level
Our network of grassroots organizations access resources and capacity-building support that fuels their impact and sustainability.
Community Level
Communities historically excluded from environmental decision-making gain increased access, representation, and political power.
Systems Level
The environmental movement itself undergoes a fundamental transformation through policy change, resource redistribution, and leadership diversification.
Creating Positive Change for All, with Power-Building.
By building power with communities most impacted by environmental inequities, we’re not merely adapting existing systems—we’re creating the conditions for just and equitable outdoor spaces for current and future generations.
To see Power-Building in action, click below to learn more about our Advocacy, Grantmaking, or Field Leadership work.