Footwear brand KEEN have announced the latest 2019 beneficiaries from their Critical Coastlines grant campaign and have unveiled their Youth grant programme, a one-year special that will run alongside their original benevolent scheme.
With 2019 marking the sixth anniversary of the programme, this grant cycle puts a call out to grassroots organisations and not for profits across the world that work locally to build stronger communities and a healthier planet.
An integral element of KEEN’s #Bettertakesaction campaign, this grant scheme is a key pillar of the brand, built around their long-standing philosophy that doing good, giving back and reducing impact through actions big and small can make a better world.
In 2004, KEEN dedicated their first grant to help communities impacted by the disastrous tsunami that tore through South-east Asia, defining the brand as a values-led business willing to take action, and one that is firmly committed to seeking to protect the global environment.
For 2019, KEEN is specifically supporting coastal communities addressing a new era of coastal threats with novel solutions. This, their inaugural Critical Coastlines Grant Programme, supports community-based organisations from around the world working on projects to improve the resilience of coastal ecosystems through interventions that help both the community and coastal ecosystems adapt to emerging threats.
KEEN is proud to announce that this globally inclusive scheme has seen a total of five grants being distributed for programme funding through 2019. Partners have been chosen from across the world, each situated on a different major continental coast and working at the intersection of coastal communities and ecosystems.
Addressing a wide variety of problems, all relatively small, impactful, community-based organisations, will each receive a $10,000 grant to implement on the following projects:
OISCA – Japan (Western Pacific) building nature-based defenses such as coastal forests
ActionAid – India (Indian Ocean) implementing sustainable economies that support the local ecology instead of degrading it
Final Straw Solent – UK (Eastern Atlantic) – organising pollution controls including ocean plastics cleanups
Galveston Bay Foundation – US (Western Atlantic) – practicing community-driven stewardship to increase local stakeholder investment
Cedar Coast Field Station – Canada (Eastern Pacific) – conducting research on species, ecosystems and human communities
Based in Emsworth, Hampshire, the Final Straw Solent are a group of people from all walks of life, who have come together as a community to minimise the amount of plastic entering local seas.
Perry Laukens, Marketing Director EMEA, said: “KEEN’s grant programme gives us a unique opportunity to reach out to fans about what is important to them in their local communities. We are privileged to be working with a UK-based organisation who share a great synergy with us as a brand that taking action, however big or small, can help to forge change for a better environment for the future.”
Since 2013 KEEN have worked with 90 not for profit organisations in 16 Countries through their grants programme alone. The next round of grants for the Critical Coastlines fund will be open later in 2019. Stay tuned for further details at keenfootwear.com/grants
For 2019 KEEN are also proud to unveil their latest scheme – the inaugural KEEN Effect Youth grantprogramme, a one-year legacy project that aims to support responsible outdoor participation by building the next generation of outdoor stewards.
KEEN is actively seeking charities and and non profit organisations who work towards getting young people (especially those communities which are underserved) better connected to the outdoors to apply for a grant to support their goals. Suitable candidates will feature outdoor recreation, nature-based learning and environmental stewardship activities as a part of their curriculum. The programme is open for application from January 28 – February 28 with grantees being announced on Earth Day, April 22. Successful candidates will be awarded and maintain funding through 2020.
Grantees will be selected by a panel of KEEN employee reviewers and selected for either a $10,000 or $20,000 grant, disbursed over two years. Apply on line at keenfootwear.com/grants
