What We Do

Movements are essential for social change, and movement infrastructure is essential to successful, healthy movements. Mosaic is investing in creating a bigger, more influential environmental movement by funding field-wide shared tools and the connections necessary to power population-scale wins on climate, conservation, and health & justice. These are the essential conditions that create an enabling environment to win the gains we need in the near and long term.

What is Mosaic?

Mosaic is a national funder and field catalyst that invests in movement infrastructure to connect and equip advocates and activists working for clean air and water, a safe climate, healthy and just communities for all, and thriving natural systems.

Designed by and for the environmental movement
Mosaic was created in response to a collective recognition that, although the U.S. environmental movement has achieved historic victories, the pace and scale of the challenges we face demand even more of all of us. More than 100 leaders from diverse organizations across the country participated in an 18-month design process that launched Mosaic in 2020, and affirmed that we will not achieve our climate and environmental goals if we don’t build a stronger, better-connected movement that is capable of driving and sustaining meaningful change.

Supporting strong field-wide infrastructure, an essential element of successful movements
Academic experts and movement leaders & practitioners agree that infrastructure is critical to the success of all social movements. It is as important as money. Investing in missing movement infrastructure is particularly relevant to the environmental field today because it can amplify the field’s strengths, including size, financial resources, and broad issue focus, and diminish weaknesses. To boost the field’s power, Mosaic invests in four types of movement infrastructure judged most critical by diverse leaders and academic experts – narrative, leadership, connection & trust, and advocacy tools & training.

Empowering leaders & infusing movement expertise
As one of the largest participatory grantmakers in the US, Mosaic centers the movement’s leadership in identifying and supporting the field’s infrastructure. A diverse rotating Leadership Council that includes leaders across NGO, grassroots, and philanthropy, leads Mosaic and sets strategy in close partnership with a small staff team. The Leadership Council provides a transformative leadership experience to some of our foremost movement leaders, who come together to build their collective and individual leadership capacity.

Funding shared capacity for large-scale change
Mosaic invests in tools and relationships that are widely beneficial to organizations, advocates, and activists. Individually and collectively, these grants—supporting diverse leaders, training, communications, backbone services, networks, and more—are making environmental and justice advocates more powerful now and in the future. Launched in 2020, Mosaic has made 350+ grants to date through 5 national RFPs that have provided approximately $26 million to 660+ co-applicants and 5,700+ benefiting organizations.

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Inviting and opening opportunities for collaboration
Mosaic solicits collaborative movement infrastructure proposals from across the country through annual national, open grantmaking processes. This annual process – in concert with regular webinars, surveys, and other engagement tools – create opportunities for direct collaboration, to identify and address needs directly, find new partners, establish relationships, and accelerate progress together.