The second understanding of the Global Green Fund is that most environmental problems should be finally solved at the local grassroots level. Environmental problems are constantly globalizing, but the methods to solve these problems are becoming more and more localized. In a developing country like China, grass-roots organizations are effective, and with little money and a lot of volunteers' energy, environmental problems can be solved with half the effort.
In many parts of the world, there are some active environmental groups that play an active role in social progress: they help people raise environmental awareness, carry out environmental education activities, participate in promoting various environmental work, and serve as local environmental supervisors. At the same time, their efforts to help protect the natural environment and public health at local, regional and national levels have promoted people's participation in the democratization process, thus helping emerging democracies to enrich their civil society.
The Global Green Fund believes that developed countries have an unshirkable responsibility for the problems brought about by the process of economic globalization and the transfer of pollution to other countries. One of the solutions is to give great help to those groups exploring environmental sustainable development in their respective countries.
In the past decades, the environment in North America and Europe has been improved. However, this actually increases the environmental pressure of developing countries. Companies that exploit resources and polluting enterprises come to poor countries with relatively imperfect laws and regulations to escape severe environmental pollution sanctions in their own countries. Environmental activists in developing countries need to win momentum in the environmental and economic fields of their respective countries, and environmental sponsors in developed countries have the unshirkable responsibility to provide necessary financial support for this.
In order to promote private foundations and individual donors to better help the grassroots environmental protection movement in developing countries, the Global Green Fund was established in San Francisco on 1993, and then headquartered in Colorado. The Global Green Fund supports community environmental activity groups that can most effectively sponsor small grants. The amount of funding ranges from $200 to $5,000.
These grants are used to help various small volunteer groups with little external support. Around the world, many funded environmental organizations received the first donation from the Global Green Fund. For these groups, the basic expenses of these organizations, such as funds, telephone fees, printing fees and other office expenses, can help them build their own organizational capabilities. At the same time, these subsidies also give them self-confidence, improve their credit, and enable them to promote local environmental protection more effectively.
The Global Green Fund has advisory committees in many countries and regions. It is composed of environmental leaders who know how to make the best use of local limited resources. The Advisory Committee is responsible for selecting organizations that can receive assistance. This participatory and group-based working method is conducive to the establishment of democratic mechanisms in the environmental field. At the same time, the Advisory Committee's understanding of local environmental groups and their needs also benefited donors.