Jewish Climate Leadership Coalition

Any Jewish nonprofit organization can apply to join the Jewish Climate Leadership Coalition. While the Coalition is open to Jewish community organizations anywhere, our climate action resources are geared towards North American Jewish institutions.

You can start right now by registering to join the Coalition or sending the registration link to the chief executive or rabbi of your organization!  Once your organization registers, you will receive email confirmation and information about upcoming Welcome Sessions (mandatory for all new members).

Coalition members will be connected with their communities of practice upon registration.  Communities of practice will begin meeting in January 2023.

Not sure if you’re ready to join yet? Join us for an upcoming Coalition Info Session to find out more about the Coalition and see if this program aligns with where you are on your climate journey.

Yes! We host monthly Welcome Sessions to welcome new members year-round.

While organizations can join at any time, all Coalition members are expected to submit and share their Climate Action Plans annually around Tu BiShvat (January/February).

Coalition members who join in 2022/2023 will submit and share their Climate Action Plans before Tu BiShvat (January) in 2024. Ready to get to work sooner than that? Great! Climate action work can start immediately… only the sharing of Climate Action Plans needs to wait.

If a Coalition member joins with less than six months before Tu BiShvat, they can choose to share their Climate Action Plan the following year.

Tu BiShvat, the fifteenth day of the Hebrew month of Shevat, is the new year for trees according to rabbinic Jewish tradition. Trees have their own new year, as a variety of traditional Jewish laws related to fruit trees depend on accounting for the tree’s age. In modern times, Tu BiShvat has been embraced as a day of renewal and celebration for the Jewish environmental movement.

Tu Bi’Shvat is ultimately a Jewish day of nature accounting, taking stock of the past year and looking ahead towards the future. Similarly, we will use this date to account for our climate action work, each year noting the ways we are ensuring the future health and abundance of the natural world. What better way to honor the new year of the trees than by sharing out our collective Jewish community response to the climate crisis!

Participation in the Jewish Climate Leadership Coalition is ongoing. Organizational membership is conditional on annual updating, strengthening, and sharing of Climate Action Plans.

Coalition members should anticipate spending 2-5 hours/month engaging in climate action work. Your time might be spent participating in communities of practice meetings, attending Climate Action webinars, asking questions of Adamah staff during scheduled office hours, and/or working with your organization’s staff and lay leadership team to draft, implement, and evaluate your Climate Action Plans.

Nope! In fact, joining the Coalition offers your organization the possibility of receiving grant and loan funding for climate action through the Climate Action Fund.

Yes! Coalition members are eligible to apply for interest-free loans and matching grants through Adamah to support your efforts to get to zero GHG emissions. Interest-free loans of up to $100,000, with a five year pay-back, and matching grants of up to $10,000 will be available. There is a Baltimore Green Loan Fund and a matching grant fund available to Coalition member organizations based in Orange County, CA. Additional loan and grant opportunities will be added as funds are available. Details on all of the funds are available on the member’s page of the Coalition website, so once you join the Coalition all the information is readily available.

Here are our recommendations for ensuring your organization gets the most out of the Coalition and is successful in your climate goals.

• Identify a strong staff liaison. Your staff liaison could be someone on your organization’s senior leadership team (or someone who has access to your senior leadership team) who cares about climate change and is eager to take on this role. While familiarity with climate solutions is helpful, it is absolutely not required.
• Develop a Climate Action Committee and engage your Board and lay leadership. While Coalition members are required to identify only a single staff liaison, the more support that person has the more likely your organization will achieve its climate action goals. And since some climate actions will require Board approval to move forward, we recommend engaging your organization’s Board and lay leadership in your climate action work as early on and fully as possible, ensuring their buy-in and support (for example, you can have your Board pass a resolution approving the signing of the Founding Statement.)
• Take advantage of the wide variety of climate action resources and supports available to Coalition members. The Jewish Climate Leadership Coalition has been designed to provide the knowledge, support, and connections necessary to achieve your climate action goals. Make the most of the resources available:
  • Sign up for a Welcome Session after you register;
  • Actively participate in your organization’s community of practice;
  • Attend relevant webinars;
  • Read the monthly newsletter (which will have information about upcoming learning and funding opportunities!);
  • Join one or more of the Adamah staff person’s office hours with your questions. Consult the Climate Action Resource Guides.

Having a Climate Action Committee will ensure your organization has the capacity to make use of all of these resources.

Yes! Each Coalition member will develop a Climate Action Plan that reflects their unique situation. So whether you are a renter, building owner, or don’t even use a building, you can join the Coalition and identify climate actions that are meaningful and achievable for you.

Yes, we can help you!

We at Adamah regularly feel overwhelmed by the climate crisis and we use the words of Rabbi Tarfon to remind us “Do not be daunted… You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.” Or, in the words of environmental activist Pattie Gonia: “Here is the truth: We don’t need a handful of people taking perfect action. We need millions of people taking imperfect action.  Every. Single. Day. So, take your talent, skills, resources and all your forms of capital and ask yourself, ‘What I can I do for our planet today?’”

We are not asking you to solve the climate crisis. You can, however, do your part by joining the Jewish Climate Leadership Coalition and committing to the doable and high-impact process outlined above. We will guide you through – one step at a time.