Our planet is facing unprecedented ecological and social crises. Change is urgently needed, yet the way we fund it is broken. Traditional philanthropy often operates from a top-down perspective, funneling resources through bureaucratic systems that leave grassroots initiatives underfunded, under-supported, and buried under restrictive grant applications and reporting requirements. The very people who are most connected to their land and communities – the ones with the most knowledge and direct experience – are the least likely to receive funding.
What if there's a better way?
Bioregional Flow Funding is a model that shifts financial resource decision-making into the hands of those who know their ecosystems and communities best. It's about trusting local leaders, providing direct resources to bioregional organizing teams, and creating a global network of place-based regeneration.
Kinship Earth and the Earth Regeneration Fund are working together to empower bioregions to self-organize, share knowledge, and flow funding where it will have the greatest impact.
This isn't just a new funding model – it's a shift in mindset. It's a commitment to resourcing those on the frontlines of regeneration and ensuring they have what they need.
Despite billions of dollars being pledged annually to address environmental and social crises, most grassroots organizations struggle to access funding due to systemic barriers in philanthropy. Some of these barriers:
Unrestricted funding gives grantees the autonomy to innovate, respond to crises, and build long-term solutions. It's what they need, but rarely receive.
— Edgar Villanueva, Decolonizing Wealth
Flow Funding takes funding down to the grassroots. Grassroots initiatives outperform top-down approaches in disaster response (Global Humanitarian Assistance Report, 2021). Grassroots organizations often operate on less than $50,000 annually, but achieve high impact (Global Greengrants Fund). Community-led conservation is 2.5 times more cost-effective (International Institute for Environment and Development). Community-driven projects have a 50% higher success rate due to local knowledge and ownership (World Bank).
Flow funding trusts the people who live and organize on the ground to allocate resources themselves. It puts decision-making power directly in the hands of those best positioned to effectively use funds. By shifting financial decision-making away from institutions and into grassroots leadership, Flow Funding removes bureaucracy, accelerates real impact, strengthens local economies, and ensures resources go directly where they are most needed.
The basic process of Flow Funding is that a funder gives money – with little paperwork or constraints – to an individual or group in a community with whom they've built a trusted relationship. The recipient is then free to give out the money over time, usually in small amounts, to people/projects on the ground that need the boost in a moment of opportunity or need. Essential reporting requirements focus on who received the funds and for what purpose, with no mandated outcomes. In Kinship Earth's case, recipients are invited to reflect after their one-year term serving and answer four questions: What inspired you? What surprised you? What challenged you? What moved you? This approach values trust and storytelling over rigid metrics.
The whole idea of Flow Funding is that money flows through a community, at a grassroots level, like water.
To see the impact of Flow Funding, take a look at successful models like The Fountain, River Network, and Regenerosity. These initiatives demonstrate how shifting power to local leaders leads to faster, more effective, and more equitable outcomes.
Flow Funding is already working. It's proving that when we trust communities, provide them with direct resources, and remove unnecessary bureaucratic obstacles, real change happens.
Bioregional Flow Funding is a trust-based, decentralized funding model that removes institutional bottlenecks and allows financial resources to flow directly to bioregional organizing teams – coalitions of local leaders who understand their land, ecosystems, and communities.
The concept of bioregionalism emerged in the 1970s as a powerful framework for organizing human societies based on ecological and cultural landscapes rather than political or economic boundaries.
At its core, bioregionalism recognizes that regenerating the planet at scale requires aligning human governance with ecological realities. This means shifting from top-down, siloed approaches toward collaborative, place-based approaches that honor the unique characteristics of each area. Instead of competing for scarce resources, a bioregional approach emphasizes shared budgets and collective decision-making across a bioregion. This can strengthen social cohesion, environmental stewardship, and economic resilience.
Key benefits of bioregional organizing:
Bioregional organizing in Cascadia has been growing since the 1980s. The first Cascadia Bioregional Congress was held in 1986 at Evergreen State College in Washington, bringing together ecologists and community leaders to design a more regenerative and locally-driven future.
Committees and forums were voluntarily created to address issues ranging from grassroots democracy, forestry, recycling, and nuclear concerns to decentralized economics. Resolutions were drafted by hybrid consensus, and topics like direct action, Indigenous inclusion, and gender equality were central to the movement.
— Cascadia Bioregional Movement
Cascadia's bioregional movement has made an impact in several ways:
Regenerate Cascadia is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit program of the Department of Bioregion that's dedicated to supporting grassroots initiatives and regenerative culture-building in the bioregion. Kinship Earth has made Flow Funding grants to Regenerate Cascadia to enable them to deploy financial resources directly to local, community-led projects.
What if every bioregion had its own Flow Fund?
The Earth Regeneration Fund is working with Kinship Earth to make that a reality.
The Earth Regeneration Fund is a funding initiative and a collaborative platform bringing bioregional leaders together to tell a new story about how humanity can live in harmony with the planet.
Six real-world bioregional contexts launched the fund in September, 2024 – Barichara, Cascadia, Forests of the NE, Greater Tkaronto Bioregion (GTB), Northern Andes, and Ogallala. Kinship Earth has already brought Flow Funds to Barichara, Cascadia, and the GTB.
Kinship Earth's ongoing role is fundraising to resource bioregional core teams, and to work with the Earth Regeneration Fund to provide several pathways for donors and grantors to give. Contributions can be made to the Earth Regeneration Fund, to Kinship Earth, and/or directly to specific bioregional organizing teams – each with distinct structures to accommodate funder preferences, ensuring strategic and effective deployment.
My journey into Bioregional Flow Funding didn't start in a boardroom or through policy work – it began with my hands in the soil, surrounded by community, learning-by-doing.
It started with Permatours, a grassroots initiative and 501(c)(3) dedicated to permaculture action, natural building, and community regeneration. For four years, we've been traveling from site to site, organizing immersive, hands-on experiences where people come together to build infrastructure, plant food forests, and support land-based community centers. These centers provide education, affordable housing, healthy food, and/or spaces for deep connection. But many struggle with a common challenge: a lack of financial resources to sustain or expand their work.
Permatours itself is challenged by the same obstacle. We do a lot with very little financial resources.
That realization led me to Kinship Earth, where I stepped into the role of Executive Director to help the organization pivot and adopt Flow Funding as its primary focus.
In mid-2024, Kinship Earth decided to take a bioregional approach to Flow Funding. In addition to distributing grants to individual Flow Funders, we are also focused on funding bioregional organizing groups – coalitions of leaders working across different initiatives within a specific landscape.
This model encourages cross-sector collaboration, breaking down silos between food sovereignty advocates, water protectors, community organizers, conservationists, regenerative farmers, etc. – all of whom are deeply interconnected in their work.
Bioregional Flow Funding is about redefining philanthropy so that resources are no longer gatekept by institutions but are instead flowing freely to the people and communities actively restoring the planet.
At Kinship Earth, our impact spans multiple interconnected focus areas, each essential to restoring ecosystems, strengthening communities, and advancing social and economic justice.
We flow resources into:
Kinship Earth provides donors with the opportunity to direct their support to issue-based initiatives (e.g. food sovereignty, climate resilience, Indigenous land rematriation, etc.) OR specific bioregions (funding place-based regeneration efforts that align with their values).
Here are some real-world examples of how Kinship Earth's Flow Funders are driving tangible, transformative change:
Through our work at Kinship Earth, we've learned that Flow Funding isn't just about moving money differently – it's about shifting mindsets, relationships, and structures. As we continue refining this model, we're identifying what works, what challenges remain, and how we can make Flow Funding even more effective.
Here are key lessons we've learned in practice:
To support Bioregional Flow Funding, Kinship Earth is developing resources, events, and hands-on support to help organizing groups create and manage Flow Funds. We're developing a Resource Center with materials shared by experienced Flow Funding practitioners as well as examples of the diverse applications of this approach to philanthropy – providing newcomers with insight into the different implementation models.
Our Flow Fund Starter Kit, launching soon, is set to include:
Our vision is that every bioregion has an independent Flow Fund, managed by local leaders and capable of raising and distributing resources sustainably. By providing guidance, we strive to build a thriving, interconnected network of Bioregional Flow Funds to drive grassroots-led regeneration.
Want to be part of this exciting shift in funding bioregional Earth regeneration? You can find out more about bioregional organizing through the Design School for Regenerating Earth. You can donate to the Earth Regeneration Fund or donate to Kinship Earth.
