FLOWS: Centering Community Leadership

THIS FUNDRAISER IS NO LONGER ACTIVE, PLEASE SUPPORT US HERE:

https://www.coloradogives.org/story/Weareflows

Support Environmental Justice and Community Leadership!

FLOWS (Foundations for Leaders Organizing for Water and Sustainability) is one of a handful grassroots community organizations led by and working with communities of color, immigrant and other Frontline communities in Colorado. We turned 7 this year and now we’ve become a standalone non-profit (as a project of Colorado Nonprofit Development Center). Your contributions help reclaim cultural sustainability legacies and build solutions for injustices and climate chaos at the same time. 

We are a unique Women of Color, Frontline community led and founded organization doing this work in Boulder County. 

YOUR INVESTMENT SUPPORTS OUR ABILITY TO:

1. Build community capacity and interest in solar installation, greywater, water harvesting, green infrastructure businesses, native plant nursery, forest garden demonstration, heat pump installation, weatherization and more (including FLOWS incubating such businesses)

2. Create platforms for community members to share their expertise and connect community to policy-maker tables

3. Host events and trainings paired with action that fuse environmental and social justice approaches for our communities 

4. Celebrate and reclaim culturally-rooted sustainability practices

UPLIFTING OUR COMMUNITIES 

We have done everything from installing solar panels, planting an Agrovoltaics Healing System (planting medicinal plants between rows of solar panels, harvesting water and restoring degraded land) with partners. We’ve installed rain barrels in affordable housing, trained mobile home residents in climate justice, Spanish speaking immigrants on reclaiming agricultural innovation, led equity workshops for businesses and organizations, spoken in classrooms and on panels and provided significant input into local government water and climate plans (2023 Water Efficiency Plan, pg. 84). When Admiral Rachel Levine and Department of Health and Human Services federal staff toured the country seeking input from community-led climate justice organizations, FLOWS was invited to the Roundtable. We invited other community leaders and shared on the importance of letting communities most negatively impacted by the dirty economy lead in the creation of a cleaner, greener, more equitable world. 

Check out KGNU’s series celebrating FLOWS leaders and our approach to more holistic, beautiful environmental solutions.

MISSION

FLOWS (Foundations for Leaders Organizing for Water and Sustainability) works towards social and environmental justice by reclaiming ecological wisdom, celebrating cultural wealth and leadership and creating economic opportunities towards a Just Transition. We build community capacity, beautify environments and transform systems for justice and resilience led by and for People of Color, immigrants, affordable housing residents, mobile home residents, LGBTQIIA+ and Frontline communities.

THE MEANINGFUL TRANSFORMATION WE NEED

The realities and impacts of climate change locally and globally will continue to impact us, especially communities of color and our ecosystems in disproportionate ways. Frontline communities are typically excluded from decisions that greatly impact our communities and although we’ve contributed the least to causes of climate change, we bear the biggest burdens. Since 2016, FLOWS has been making waves through our commitment to advocating for the need to center equity and the expertise of Frontline communities in climate initiatives. We partner with the City of Boulder and Boulder Housing Partners staff and residents to facilitate trainings, education, events and focus groups to build up our communities.  

TESTIMONIALS

"FLOWS has been an integral part of my climate justice work... The ability to connect with the larger Boulder community grounds my studies in leadership and environmental engineering. Learning with different voices and through intergenerations creates a unique space very much needed in Boulder...The food justice event helped me to better understand issues with community oriented farming in Boulder... Increasing access to farmland to all community members, especially indigenous members, seems essential to any climate justice. It's always an amazing feeling going to FLOWS event(s) because you are also surrounded by people similarly curious about these issues." CU BOULDER STUDENT

“In my first year with FLOWS, I have learned more about Climate Justice than in any other group I have been a part of...the group allows me to be myself and develop my capacity to be a leader within my own community." FLOWS TEAM MEMBER