VIBES: ICE COLD
Many of us are acclimating to some frigid weather the last couple of days but we gonna keep it pushing. Channeling some throwback Outkast for some Southern 🔥
Table of Contents
💰 Funding Opps 25+
Mississippi Made Competition by Mississippi State
💰 $10,000
✍🏾 Business plan competitions with $100k+ in prizes for Mississippi companies and student-owned startups across the US.
📅 Mar 9, 2026 📍 Mississippi💪🏾 Apply Now
Call for Financing Applications by MN Climate Innovation Finance Authority
💰 $500,000 - $5,000,000
✍🏾 Loans for Minnesota clean energy projects that reduce costs, drive innovation, and expand opportunities in underserved communities.
📅 Mar 10, 2026 📍 Minnesota
💪🏾 Apply Now
Environment and Climate Justice by the Southern Black Girls and Women's Consortium
💰 $10,000 - $20,000
✍🏾 Grants for Black women and girl-led organizations in the South advancing environmental and climate justice.
📅 Mar 10, 2026 📍 AL,AK, FL, GA, KY, LA, MS, NC, SC, TN, VA, WV, TX
💪🏾 Apply Now
Democracy x AI Cohort by the Mozilla Foundation
💰 $50,000
✍🏾 Funding for technologists building AI systems that strengthen democratic practices globally
📅 Mar 16, 2026 📍 United States
💪🏾 Apply Now
2026 Fellowship by O'Shaughnessy Ventures (OSV)
💰 $100,000
✍🏾 Fellowships for bold researchers, builders, and creatives working on path-breaking ideas to advance humanity.
📅 Apr 30, 2026 📍 United States
💪🏾 Apply Now
💼 Jobs & Fellowships 110+
Development Fellow for the Hive Fund for Climate and Gender Justice
💵 $85,000 - $100,000
✍🏾 Support fundraising operations and donor relationships for a climate and gender justice fund focused on the US South.
📅 Mar 9, 2026📍 U.S. South; Remote
💪🏾 Apply Now
Institutional Giving Officer for Foundation for Louisiana
💵 $70,000-$85,000
✍🏾 Manage institutional fundraising portfolio and secure five- to seven-figure grants for Louisiana social justice work.
📅 Mar 3, 2026 📍 Louisiana; Remote💪🏾 Apply Now
Associate, Procurement Excellence Network for Partners for Public Good
💵 $100,000
✍🏾 Support procurement innovation for government leaders through project management and data analysis in a remote role.
📅 Mar 9 📍 United States; Remote
💪🏾 Apply Now
Senior Fellows for the Urban Ocean Lab
💵 $100,000 - $150,000
✍🏾 12-month fellowship to strengthen urban and coastal climate resilience systems for cities facing intensifying climate impacts
📅 Mar 20, 2026 📍 United States ; Remote
💪🏾 Apply Now
Senior Director of Programs for Center for Women & Enterprise
💵 $87,550 - $100,424
✍🏾 Lead programs team supporting women and veteran entrepreneurs across New England through business education and outreach services.
📅 Mar 20, 2026 📍 New England; Hybrid
💪🏾 Apply Now
📝 RFP & Contracting 15+
Call for Applicants: Co-op Education Consultant for L.A. Co-op Lab
💲 $44 per hour, up to 420 hours total✍🏾 Part-time consultant to design bilingual cooperative education curriculum focused on Latin American perspectives for immigrant-led worker cooperatives.
📅 Feb 27, 2026 📍 Los Angeles, Hybrid
💪🏾 Apply Now
RFP: Executive Recruitment Pilot - Business Plan and Go-to-Market Strategy Consultant for Work for America
💲 Not disclosed✍🏾 Consultant needed to design business plan and pilot strategy for government executive recruitment service
📅 Mar 6, 2026 📍 United States
💪🏾 Apply Now
RFP: Reparations Narrative and Communications Projects for Liberation Ventures
💲 $10,000 - $50,000
✍🏾 Project grants for narrative change work to advance reparations advocacy through media, culture, and curated experiences.
📅 Mar 3, 2026 📍 United States💪🏾 Apply Now
SOMETIMES YOU NEED A LIL EXTRA
⚜️ Lagniappe
Data center wants subsidies of $6.4 million per job by J. Dale Shoemaker for Investigative Post
The Take: The amount of tax subsidies local governments are offering to incentivize the AI data center buildout is 🤯. It appears this is incentivizing a race to the bottom where the infrastructure is being built (or sold) to the highest bidder leaving communities holding the bag.
Five Black leaders redefining climate action by centering equity, health and justice by Katherine McLaughlin for the Kresge Foundation
The Take: For many of us, there’s no “playbook” for how to build the lives, careers, and have the impact we desire. Yet there are folks who’ve gone before us that have shaped so much of the field of climate, clean energy, and environmental justice. This Kresge piece features such contemporary leaders. Their words are giving me encouragement.
“My career makes sense looking back, but living it in real time, it didn’t feel particularly linear. The advice I’d give my younger self is: every step on your journey matters, even when the connections aren’t obvious yet. Those throughlines will reveal themselves over time, especially when you zoom out and look through a systems lens. …What I learned from that was the power of learning by doing — of staying focused on the mandate in front of you, the partners alongside you, and what you can build together in the present moment.
SOME GOOD ENERGY FOR Y’ALL
⚡️ Recharge
Last week the world lost a giant, who lended his voice to the cause of environmental justice as well as to community wealth building. I often wonder what it would have been like for MLK or other Civil Rights icons had lived to see old age - and Rev. Jesse Jackson gives as a glimpse into what could have been. In 1991, he delivered a fiery speech that rings true some 35 years later. Take a quick listen. Shoutout to WeACT for EJ for pointing us in this direction and Arielle V. King for IG clip!
“Its time to build an authentic coalition that represents the people affected…for they may dump toxic waste on the poor side of the town today - but as surely as the wind blows…as surely as its one earth - what effects one of us in morning, affects the rest of us by sundown. We either live together as brothers and sisters or perish apart as fools. There can be no elite environmental movement, it must be a universal environmental movement”
For those of us from the frontlines, for those in solidarity with us, for those who want to ensure that the transition of our economy away from extraction is into a regenerative one where we all have sustainable, prosperous futures — Common River is for you.
Thank you for being here.
In solidarity,
Trace