Who We Are

As a member-supported organization, our mission is to connect community-based climate action groups through a national network to share resources, co-create innovative programming, and elevate our collective impact.

Fundamentally, we believe our model — which honours, mobilizes, and builds the knowledge and capacity found within communities — is and should be rooted in an environmental justice framework. We understand the climate crisis is also a crisis of inequity and disparity. Through our work we are committed to a path that is inclusive, humble, and contributes to reconciliation through action.

Our work is informed by our core values:

1. APPRECIATIVE

   Deeply appreciative of this planet and the living systems that sustain all those that call it home.

2. COMMUNITY-BASED

   Driven to pursue community-based solutions and to support the people and organizations acting locally.

3. HUMBLE

   Open, humble, and always learning from others and from the land in this complex and dynamic world.

4. COLLABORATIVE

   Creative and collaborative in our approach, recognizing the strength to be found in diverse experiences.

5. INCLUSIVE

   Determined to be inclusive and to take active steps toward supporting greater equity in our work and in the sector.

6. ACCOUNTABLE

   Committed to evidence-based decisions, transparency, and dialogue, ensuring accountability is centered in our approach.

Strategic Direction

As a membership-based organization, our goal is to support and sustain grassroots-led climate action through leadership, connection, training, and funding. GCC is celebrating more than 25 years of collective impact, and as we look toward the next decade, we do so recognizing how pivotal this time is for the future of humanity and the planet.

Over the next five years, our aspirational strategic plan will guide our work as an organization; directly impacting our membership and rippling outward into the communities in which they, and we, belong.

Between 2022 and 2026, GCC will not only grow and diversify our membership, but will broaden the funding, resource-sharing, training, and backbone supports we provide to our members, because we know investments in community are essential to deepening their impact and ours.

Through our Strategic Plan, we commit to reconciliation not as a single objective but as an ongoing process in which we are invested. Our actions and approach will respect Indigenous rights, jurisdiction, and perspectives, and as we move forward, we will work to build stronger and more caring relationships.

GCC also commits to being accountable about our progress. We will publish an Annual Report that includes key indicators related to our Strategic Goals. We will identify where we are succeeding, where we are meeting challenges, and how we are adapting and growing.