WASHINGTON, DC—Rachel’s Network announced the awardees and finalists of its 2025 Catalyst Award. Now in its seventh year, the Catalyst Award honors women leaders of color for their commitment to a healthy planet, and provides them with financial and leadership support, and public recognition.
Women of color are leading the environmental movement, advocating for clean air and water, building a green economy, fighting polluters, expanding access to healthy food, and much more. Despite this critical work, they do not receive adequate funding, support, or recognition for their leadership. Less than 1 percent of foundation giving goes to women and girls of color, and according to Green 2.0, organizations led by people of color receive less than one percent of multiyear operational budget grants.
Rachel’s Network, a nationwide community of women environmental funders, is working to address this disparity. They launched the Catalyst Award in 2019 to shine a light on women of color carrying Rachel Carson’s legacy. Each year for three years, the award provides women environmental leaders of color with a personal prize ($10,000); a well-being stipend ($5,000); and an organizational grant ($10,000, if applicable).
The six awardees (in alphabetical order, pictured above) are:
LaTricea Adams, she/her, Memphis, Tennessee, is the founder and president of Young, Gifted & Green, a national environmental justice and civil rights organization which advocates against the crisis of lead exposure and environmental injustice in disadvantaged communities. LaTricea was the youngest African American woman appointed to the historical White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council (WHEJAC) where she served as Co-Chair of the Executive Order on Revitalizing Our Nation’s Commitment to Environmental Justice for All Working Group and the Climate Economic Justice Screening Tool Working Group Member where she fought for the inclusion of birth outcomes.
“As a servant leader, I have dedicated my life to uplifting and empowering the communities that have been hit hardest by the twin crises of lead exposure and climate change. Just as my ancestors fought for a more equitable world, so too do I wield the power of my voice, my pen, and my unwavering spirit.”- LaTricea Adams
Tricia Cortez, she/her/ ella, Laredo, Texas, serves as the executive director of Rio Grande International Study Center, where she oversees strategic programs related to river restoration, water security, air quality, nature-based programming, and climate resilience. She believes that fusing cultural organizing with environmental advocacy can shift narratives, transform lives, restore nature, and promote pride of place and a vibrant bicultural heritage. She has led advocacy efforts involving the border wall, ethylene oxide, PM2.5, and single-use plastic bags and is committed to coalition building and grassroots organizing. She seeks to create partnerships that will lead to systemic changes and improved quality of life for those who live along the Texas-Mexico border.
“I want to open the eyes of young people and let them explore nature. I want to awaken in people the urgency of climate change and to demand change.”- Tricia Cortez
Viviana Moreno, she/they/ella, Chicago, Illinois, is a Senior Food Justice Organizer with the Little Village Environmental Justice Organization (LVEJO). She is the co-founder of LVEJO’s La Villita Farm, located in La Villita Park, a former superfund site transformed into a park after 15 years of community organizing. Viviana created and facilitated Food Justice Programs for youth and stewarded Semillas de Justicia Community Garden, along with 40 immigrant families. Viviana is also a founding co-owner of Catatumbo Cooperative Farm, a worker-owned Immigrant, and LGBTQ led farm on the Southside of Chicago that provided Mesoamerican and South American crops to Greater Chicago.
“It is my gift and my duty to ensure my child, and children in our community grow up knowing that land tenders, ecosystem stewards, and immigrants fighting for beautiful spaces have always existed.”- Viviana Moreno
Born and raised in Guahan in the Mariana Islands, Maria Hernandez May, she/her, Tamuning, Guam, is a mother of three and a community organizer tackling issues at the intersection of indigenous rights, environmental justice, and decolonization in Guahan. Maria is co-Executive Director of Micronesia Climate Change Alliance, and co-founder of Hita Litekyan, a coalition of CHamoru families advocating for environmental preservation and CHamoru land rights issues. Grounded in grassroots activism, Maria actively engages with Indigenous communities across the Marianas, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Turtle Island, Europe, South Africa, and South America respecting their diverse perspectives and incorporating their voices into the broader discourse.
“In our matriarchal society, we ask ourselves what kind of home are we leaving for our children.”- Maria Hernandez May
Healani Sonoda-Pale, she/her, Honolulu, Hawai’i, is a Native Hawaiian activist, educator, and community leader, deeply involved in advocating for issues affecting Hawaiʻi’s land, water, and indigenous people. She serves as spokesperson for Ka Lāhui Hawaiʻi, a grassroots initiative for Native Hawaiian self-determination and self-governance and also as the lead community organizer with the O’ahu Water Protectors successfully calling for the shutdown and defueling of the Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage facility. Her advocacy spans topics such as the commodification of Hawaiian culture, women’s safety, intellectual property rights, protecting traditional burials, climate change, environmental justice, and the ongoing impacts of military presence in Hawaiʻi.
“Our genealogy connects us as indigenous peoples to the land, to the sky, and to all things in nature. Therefore, we have a huge kuleana or responsibility to take care and mālama of this place not just for us, but for future generations.” – Healani Sonoda-Pale
Candice Youngblood, she/her, Los Angeles, California, is an environmental justice activist and senior attorney at Earthjustice whose work is shaped by her upbringing in Greater Los Angeles. Growing up asthmatic in “diesel death zones,” Candice experienced firsthand the devastating effects of environmental injustice on low-income communities and communities of color which led her to found Youth on Root (YoR). YoR empowers frontline youth in California to advocate for their communities through an innovative environmental justice leadership program and creates an accessible community in which underserved youth can conceptualize, contextualize, and combat environmental racism.
“My work is guided by a dual purpose: to amplify the power of grassroots movements in the fight for environmental justice and to diversify the voices heard within the movement.”- Candice Youngblood
Our six finalists are:
Sparked by her love of Louisiana folktales and inspired by her Afro-Creole heritage, Jo Banner, she/her, Vacherie, Louisiana, founded The Descendants Project, where she works to gain recognition of the burial grounds of the enslaved as sacred sites and aims to protect communities from degradation caused by heavy industry and petrochemicals.
“Your most important tool is your voice. Use it consistently and stay rooted in your voice.”- Jo Banner
Keisha Cameron, she/her, Grayson, Georgia, is a farmer, artist, educator, and advocate deeply committed to cultural conservation, preservation, and social justice. As co-owner and shepherdess of High Hog Farm, a fiber and natural dye farm in Grayson, Georgia, she and her family steward the land using regenerative and indigenous practices.
“I dream of creating spaces where others can reclaim their agrarian roots, practice self-determination, and pass these traditions on to future generations.”- Keisha Cameron
Crystal A. Cavalier-Keck, she/her, Mebane, North Carolina, is a citizen of the Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation and co-founder of 7 Directions of Service, an Indigenous grassroots environmental nonprofit based in Mebane, North Carolina. She is also the Chapter Director of the 17 Rivers American Indian Movement (AIM), the first woman to hold this position in North Carolina.
“I believe that our relationship with the land is sacred and that communities—predominantly Indigenous and historically marginalized ones—deserve clean air, drinkable water, and a future free from environmental destruction.”- Crystal Cavalier
Shilpi Chhotray, she/her, Oakland, California, is the Co-Founder and President of Counterstream Media and host of A People’s Climate for The Nation. With over a decade of experience in environmental policy, communications, and grassroots organizing, Shilpi has led global campaigns on plastic pollution, challenged corporate greenwashing, and built platforms that shift power back to communities most impacted by pollution and the climate crisis.
“Persistence in this work is fueled by the relationships I’ve built with frontline leaders, storytellers, and movement builders who embody care, creativity, and radical imagination. I see the act of sharing stories as a form of mutual exchange — a way to remind one another that we are not alone in this fight.”- Shilpi Chhotray
Deseree Fontenot, she/they, Oakland, California, is a Co-Director of Movement Generation: Justice and Ecology Project (MG), where she has been a leader on land justice movement building, regenerative land stewardship, curriculum design and ecological education. In 2022, Deseree co-led the process of MG partnering with Sogorea Te’ Land Trust to rematriate 43 acres of land in the East Bay, which is now becoming a resilience hub for movement building, cultural revitalization and ecological restoration.
“The restoration and stewardship of land is inseparable from how we transform how land is governed, how land is held, and what land liberation could look like.”- Deseree Fontenot
Marnese Jackson, she/her, Pontiac, Michigan, is an environmental and climate justice activist, advocate, trainer, educator and a mother of two children. She is the inaugural and first Black Woman Executive Director of Midwest Building Decarbonization Coalition. Marnese is on the board of USCAN, and a chairperson of the Michigan Environmental Justice Coalition as well as a member of the 2020 Michigan Clean Energy Leaders Cohort. Marnese was appointed council member in 2021 to Governor Whitmer’s Michigan Council on Climate Solutions.
“Everyone has a place in advancing clean energy inside the places where we spend most of our time: our homes, our schools, our places of employment, and our places of worship. It’s time to show the world that this is an intersectional movement that impacts us all.”- Marnese Jackson
If you’d like to contribute to the Catalyst Award to support women environmental leaders of color, click here. And stay tuned for the opening of the next application cycle in early 2026!