Meet the Flow Funders & Their Past Flow Fund Recipients

River Rally 2022 panel speakers including Flow Funders Teresa Davis and Arthur Johnson (center). Photo by Imagine Photography.

Since 2021, we have awarded $491K to flow funders and recipients. From 2021 t0 2025, these included grants to nearly 40 organizations–without restrictions or constraints. In 2025 alone, the Fund gave 13 organizations a total of $109,000. These community organizations promoted water equity; built resilience across communities in the Great Lakes, Atlantic and Gulf Coasts; and connected young people and seniors to green spaces and nature through education, action and the arts.

💦 Stories from the Flow Fund

💧March 2025: Explore the Flow Fund’s impacts and the stories of Flow Fund recipients.

🧡 August 2023: Listen to our interview with Flow Funder Daniel Joseph Wiley and recipient Sharee Harrison.

✨ May 2023: Listen to our interview with Flow Funder Teresa Davis.

⚜️ July 2023: Explore our story map featuring Flow Funder Arthur Johnson’s work in New Orlean’s Lower Ninth Ward.

🎧 July 2022: Listen to Lisa Runkel and Renée Mazurek’s first-year reflections, as well as clips from the Flow Funders themselves, reflecting on the process.

Sharee’s Flow Fund Recipients

Sharee, a Flow Fund recipient in previous years and a 2024 River Hero, joined the Flow Fund as a funder in 2025. You can find Sharee’s 2026 recipients on the main Flow Funding page.

“Listening to a lot of the stories [from network members at River Rally 2024], it’s like, ‘oh my god people are really impacting,’ and then I realized, ‘you are too!’ Though people are doing great stuff here, I wanna tell you that guys, like great stuff, but, I am too.”

-Sharee Harrison

Tricia’s Flow Fund Recipients

Tricia joined the Flow Fund as a funder in 2026. You can find Tricia’s 2026 recipients on the main Flow Funding page.

Tricia joined the Rio Grande International Study Center (RGISC) in 2010 where she currently serves as executive director of Laredo’s only environmental nonprofit organization. Her primary focus is to understand and improve the Laredo and South Texas environment in the face of the realities of climate change, and seeks to achieve that end by restoring the resilience of nature and natural systems. RGISC programs are centered on river restoration, water security, air quality, cultural organizing and border narrative shifts.

  • Arthur Johnson
    Arthur Johnson Chief Executive Director, Lower 9th Ward Center for Sustainable Engagement and Development (CSED)

Arthur’s Flow Fund Recipients

Students presenting at the State of our Coast Conference in June, 2023. Photo by Dr. Bernard Singleton
Students presenting at the State of our Coast Conference in June, 2023. Photo by Dr. Bernard Singleton
River Network staff and Flow Funders with Leona Tate (in pink jacket) in March 2023. Photo by Renée Mazurek.
River Network staff and Flow Funders with Leona Tate (in pink jacket) in March 2023. Photo by Renée Mazurek.
Shawon Bernard helps register two young black voters who are seated at a table.
Shawon Bernard works to register voters. Photo by Lower Ninth Ward Voter’s Coalition.

“I felt it was important to tie these [the Leona Tate Foundation and Lower Ninth Ward Voters Coalition] together with Dr. Singleton…He knows the importance of science and education and research into building stronger community. If you build stronger community, you build stronger people…from the ground up. Then those communities start to make more connections.”

Arthur Johnson, speaking about why he selected these three Flow Fund Recipients

“[These] stories make the funds such a heroic infusion… to have the fluidity and the creativity for us to do it in a way that is unhampered. No restrictions other than that these people are serving in a way that is impacting environmental justice, especially as it relates to water. At least that’s the template we use, and then we figure it. But there is just no way that the flow fund can’t continue to flow. It has to.”

-Monica Lewis-Patrick

Monica’s Flow Fund Recipients

RN CEO Raj Shukla and Mother Gwen Howard. Many of Monica's recipients shared with the River Network Board at its meeting in May 2023.
Cicely Allen (top left) and Gwen Winston (top right) from Wisdom Institute, and Mother Gwen Howard (bottom right) with RN VP of Philanthropy Lisa Runkel (bottom left) at a restaurant in Ann Arbor, MI, May 2023.
Cicely Allen (top left) and Gwen Winston (top right) from Wisdom Institute, and Mother Gwen Howard with RN VP of Philanthropy Lisa Runkel (bottom left) in May 2023.
  • Teresa Davis
    Teresa Davis Servant Leader & Founder of Communities of Love In Action, C.O.L.I.A

Teresa’s Flow Fund Recipients

Teresa Davis (right) and Flow Fund recipient, Bridgette Murray (left) from ACTS, meet to discuss their flow funding partnership, and receive a coincidental sign from their waiter that they're on the right path. Photo by Teresa Davis.
Teresa Davis (right) and Flow Fund recipient, Bridgette Murray (left) from ACTS, meet to discuss their flow funding partnership, and receive a coincidental sign from their waiter that they're on the right path. Photo by Teresa Davis.
Ms. Delores McGruder, one of Teresa Davis's flow fund recipients, leads community members on a garden tour. Photo by Teresa Davis.
Ms. Delores McGruder, one of Teresa Davis's flow fund recipients, leads community members on a garden tour. Photo by Teresa Davis.

“I think that it’s the delivery of hope. It’s one thing to believe that you will arrive at the intended outcome or to reach your goal. It’s something different to witness accomplishing those goals and seeing the difference that it makes when you have accomplished something. And so there’s a delivery of hope that’s transferable through the entire journey through this entire process that keeps me inspired.” 

– Teresa Davis, in a 2023 Meet Your Network interview

Daniel’s Flow Fund Recipients

  • Sheena Ocot, funded 2024
  • Dalila Navarro (Resilient NJ), funded 2024
  • Not Orange, funded 2024
  • “Trail Mix” by Sharee Harrison, funded 2023, 2024
  • “Orange Patches” by Haile Bennett, funded 2022
Sharee Harrison leads youth from the Orange and East Orange community in the South Mountain Reservation along the Fairy Trail. Trail Mix serves as a guided tour for youth, seniors, and everyone in between to be introduced or rediscover the accessible land preserved close to them.
Sharee Harrison leads youth from the Orange and East Orange community in the South Mountain Reservation along the Fairy Trail. Trail Mix serves as a guided tour for youth, seniors, and everyone in between to be introduced or rediscover the accessible land preserved close to them.
Haile gardening. Photo via @orangehubb on Instagram.

“Trail Mix serves as a guided tour for youth, seniors, and everyone else in between to be introduced or rediscover the accessible preserved land close to them. During the tour, folks learn about the history of the land, the importance of the Rahway River, and encourage everyone to advocate for green spaces and clean water in their communities. It also addresses the importance for accessibility to safe, natural spaces for the well-being of BIPOC communities.”

Daniel Joseph Wiley, via email when sharing pictures and providing an update on his recipient

“Getting Unstuck: Stepping Into Power with Philanthropy”

As River Rally 2022 approached, we knew trust-based philanthropy would be a powerful, important, and timely topic for a plenary panel. Panelists Mike Harris (a Flow Fund recipient), Melanie Allen (The Hive Fund), Teresa Davis (a Flow Funder), Arthur Johnson (a Flow Funder), Tyeshia Wilson (Philanthropy Together), and moderator Ronda Chapman (River Network board member) encouraged us to rethink our relationships to wealth and community and shared inspiring stories about novel approaches that both democratize philanthropy from the ground up and use trust as a vehicle for shifting power. If you missed the panel at Rally or weren’t with us in DC, we’re thrilled to share the panel in full, free for all to watch and listen to.

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