Regional Resilience Fellows

In this moment of great urgency and potential, we believe that much of our collective capability to solve the world’s most pressing challenges lies in local communities. Our Regional Resilience Fellowship program is focused on supporting, showcasing, documenting, and growing innovative, locally-driven projects, networks, & service providers operating within a particular geographic area and/or sector.

Our first cohort of fellows includes 20 organizations in 16 counties representing 35 regional demonstration efforts across the areas of Ecological Restoration, Regenerative Agriculture & Food Systems, Community Wellness, and Infrastructure & Built Environment.

Among the outcomes of this year-long program will be the launch of a “Living Library,” enabling existing community sourced solutions to scale, replicate, and learn forward together. Made possible through philanthropic support from the Cisco Foundation and the insights of our Regional Resilience Fellows, we’re expanding the Open Impact platform to source community-published resources, templates, and curricula from projects across our network, which we will refine together as a global community of practice.

Together, we will build a global dashboard that shows real-time progress across our efforts, populated by locally sourced data, stories, & adoptable solutions—growing communities’ agency over their own resilience and resourcing transparent local impact at a global scale.

Ecological
Restoration

Food
Systems

Community
Wellness

Built
Environment

Announcing
our second
cohort

With efforts spanning 19 countries and a combined reach of X, these fellows are recognized as playing a crucial role in fostering collaboration, solutions innovation, and knowledge exchange within their respective regions or sectors. With efforts ranging from X to Y, these organizations are modeling practices we are thrilled to learn alongside and share with our wider network.

  • Earth Guardians

    Earth Guardians powers a global network of 115+ youth-led volunteer Crews, and growing, across 42 countries, uniting Traditional Ecological Knowledge with science, creativity, and strategic organizing to deliver locally rooted, scalable climate solutions from large-scale reforestation and agroecology projects to water justice and fossil fuel divestment campaigns, amongst many others. Led by a majority-BIPOC team under 30, we equip the communities and young people most impacted by climate change with educational trainings, honoraria, mentorship, advocacy skills, and global platforms to turn climate anxiety and despair into tangible change - policy shifts, restored ecosystems, and resilient communities.

    Website

  • Teton Topo

    At TetonTopo, we practice Radical Geography by making maps to support indigenous reconciliation and land stewarship.

    Click Here

  • Gullah/Geechee Cultural Community Trust

    GGCCT engages and supports a diverse coalition of regional and national stakeholders committed to sustaining Gullah/Geechee culture. GGCCT and its partners have established a pipeline to legal services, laid the groundwork for rural landowners to invest in sustainable land use, and stepped forward to advocate for the descendants of imperiled historic African American cemeteries. GGCCT prioritizes initiatives that maintain and secure land for the continuation of the culture and for the protection of Gullah/Geechee cultural resources.

    Learn More

About the Regional Resilience Fellowship Program

Participation in this year-long Fellowship will include a customized project plan that identifies key goals or needs and leverages the tools, resources, and capacities of the Open Future Coalition to advance the Fellow’s work.

As part of this program, Fellows will gain access to support in the coordination, documentation, measurement, & resourcing of their efforts, through access to the Open Impact platform and a global network of practitioners, researchers, & funders.

This support includes:

  • Access to the Open Impact platform as an integrated community and project management and measurement tool to support the organization of your regional project(s)

    Onboarding support to set up your account, create your projects, set measurable goals, and invite collaborators

    Early access to test new features, and opportunities to provide feedback and help us refine—ensuring Open Impact serves you and the impact ecosystem

  • Membership access to a rich, multi-sided ecosystem of impact organizations, communities, projects, funders, and experts

    Invitations to participate in ecosystem-wide convenings and salons

    Participation in peer-to-peer learning and knowledge exchange through cohort spaces, resources, and templates

    Networking, matching, and skill sharing opportunities with other cohort members within specific areas of focus to bolster sectoral collaboration and cross-sectoral cooperation

  • A customized project plan and needs identification to help match fellows with appropriate tools and support

    Opportunities to advance, resource, measure, and showcase initiatives within communities of practice

    Preferential access to opportunities to implement custom workflows, curricula, and project templates (noting that some customizations will require a budget, which will be estimated in advance.)

  • Access to best practices, tools, and methodologies for community led storytelling as an organizing framework for supporting local resilience

    Opportunities to partner with existing partner campaigns in media and citizen science to inform, amplify, and resource your work