Jameka Hodnett

Managing Director of Programs, Chisholm Legacy Project

2023 C3E Advocacy Award Winner

Jameka Hodnett is a passionate and dedicated advocate for climate justice. She combines her skills of campaigning and lobbying to fight for policies that reduce carbon pollution, create green jobs, and jump-start the transition toward a clean energy economy. Currently, Hodnett is working as the Managing Director of Programs for the Chisholm Legacy Project, where she furthers climate policies that are clearing a pathway for a just transition. Hodnett is also an Afro-Futurist Fellow with the American Bird Conservancy, where she is creating a guide to help infuse imagination, creativity, anti-racism, anti-oppression, and innovation into the environmental movement ecosystem.

Hodnett is also a Senior Advisor for Rise to Thrive, which she co-founded in 2018. The primary mission of Rise to Thrive is to empower and support women and femme leaders of color in the climate, environmental, and conservation movement. Formerly, she served as National Director of Campaigns at Dream.org, where she led state and federal Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) implementation. She also worked to ensure that the benefits of the IRA and Justice40 reached historically underinvested-in communities as a Local Climate Action Policy Fellow with Elemental Impact and the African American Mayors Association. In addition, Hodnett was the Executive Director of Climate Equity with A/B Partners, where she led a multimillion-dollar climate disinformation war room campaign for the Climate and Clean Energy Equity Fund. She has also served as Deputy National Organizing Director at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), where she led the organizing team to mobilize ACLU’s four million members to pass legislation; Head of Field Organizing & Campaigns at 350.org, where she worked with the organization’s 150 local groups to pressure legislators to phase out fossil fuels at the federal and state levels; Deputy Director of Civic Engagement at the League of Conservation Voters, where she restored access to the vote for over 1.4 million people; and Director of Programs at DC Solar United Neighborhoods, where she implemented DC’s Solar for All Program, which aims to bring the benefits of solar energy to 100,000 low- to moderate-income families in the District of Columbia.

Hodnett has a JD from the University of the District of Columbia David A. Clarke School of Law and a BA in International Affairs and Climate Policy from Trinity University.