cultivating the grassroots - national committee for responsive

A Philanthropy at Its Best® Report

CULTIVATING THE GRASSROOTSA Winning Approach for Environment and Climate Funders

By Sarah Hansen

About the AuthorSarah Hansen consults with foundations and nonprofit organizations to advance multi-issue, pro-gressive social change agendas. She specializes in developing big-picture strategies and long-termvisions connected to concrete, manageable work plans. Sarah currently serves as program advisor tothe Elias Foundation in Westchester County, N.Y., which seeks to promote a more equitable societyby supporting community organizing. She also leads an initiative at the Ford Foundation to convenefour successful community-led public foundations.

Previously, Sarah served as the associate director and senior program officer of the V. KannRasmussen Foundation, doing grantmaking in the environmental health and climate change arenas.She also led the Starry Night Fund of the Tides Foundation through a theory of change process andhelped the fund determine its $8-million grants portfolio. Prior to that, Sarah served for eight years asexecutive director of the Environmental Grantmakers Association, providing leadership in connectingenvironmental issues to issues such as globalization, economic inequality, racial justice and commu-nity empowerment. Sarah helped to found the Funders Network on Trade and Globalization as wellas the Gulf Coast Fund for Community Renewal and Ecological Health. Sarah recently served as aboard member of the North Star Fund, one of New York City’s leading community foundations dedi-cated to building social change. She currently serves on the solidarity board of Community VoicesHeard, an organization of low-income people working to build power in New York City and NewYork State to improve the lives of families and communities by connecting public policy with grass-roots organizing and leadership development. Sarah lives in Brooklyn with her partner, Sally Kohn,and their three-year-old daughter, Willa. She can be reached at [email protected].

AcknowledgmentsThis report is the collaborative result of a visionary and dedicated group of individuals.

First and foremost, I am grateful to the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy for askingme to author this paper. For Aaron Dorfman, a thank-you for his tireless efforts and just vision for phi-lanthropy. For Niki Jagpal, a thank-you for her fearless editing and intellectual firepower. For KevinLaskowski, a thank-you for his data prowess and impeccable edits.

It was a happy privilege to work with the advisory committee, and I am particularly indebted to LisaAbbott, Millie Buchanan, Jeffrey Campbell, Bill Gallegos, Heeten Kalan, Roger Kim, Martha Matsuoka,Peter Riggs and Jen Sokolove. In addition, my deepest thanks to the devoted team of Benno Friedman,Lois Gibbs, Peter Montague and Cheryl King Fischer for their unfailing advice and guidance. In particu-lar, Peter Montague has my everlasting loyalty and affection for being a constant resource of information.Heartfelt thanks as well to Jeffrey Campbell, Danielle Deane, Denise Joines, Lisa Pike Sheehy and KoluZigbi for providing superb case studies that strengthen this report immensely. And thank you to JanetKeating, Terry Odendahl and Michele Prichard for allowing me to include exemplary examples of theirorganizations’ work in this report.

A number of people were good enough to read drafts along the way and offer their expert advice:Harriet Barlow, Sarah Christiansen, Jon Cracknell, Annie Ducmanis, Hugh Hogan, Cathy Lerza, BruceLourie, Anita Nager, Mark Randazzo, Marni Rosen, Jenny Russell, Kathy Sessions, Shelley Shreffler,Midge Sweet, Lee Wasserman, Maya Wiley and Ken Wilson.

Thank you to Rachel Leon and everyone at the Environmental Grantmakers Association for allowingAaron Dorfman and me to introduce a preliminary draft of this report at the organization’s 2010retreat. The advice we received there was pivotal to the project.

Thank you to Jen Naylor and Kate Frucher for offering up their beautiful home to me as a quietdaily writing space. Most importantly, loving thanks to my family, especially Zachary, Gloria andJeffrey Welcker, who provided great edits and title ideas. And to my partner, Sally Kohn, and ourdaughter, Willa Hansen-Kohn, who are a constant source of inspiration and support.

Cover – Left column, center: Sierra Student Coalition Director Quentin James speaks at the “Stop the Keystone XL Pipeline” rally outside the DC hearing. Photo by Heather Moyer,

courtesy of the Sierra Club. Top right: Image courtesy of Communities for a Better Environment.

Table of Contents

Executive Summary ..................................................................................................................1

I. A Call to Opportunity ............................................................................................................3The Root of the ProblemWe Have to Change to Make ChangeCivic ParticipationEducation and Health

II. The Case for Funding Grassroots Organizing ....................................................................11Change Consistently Grows from the Ground Up There is Effective Organizing on Which We Can BuildNature Favors Diverse Strategies

III. Funding the Grassroots to Win ........................................................................................32

IV. Conclusion ..........................................................................................................................38

References ..............................................................................................................................40

Advisory Committee

Organization affiliation for identification purposes only.

Lisa Abbott KENTUCKIANS FOR THE COMMONWEALTH

Michael Brune SIERRA CLUB

Millie Buchanan JESSIE SMITH NOYES FOUNDATION

Jeffrey Y. Campbell THE CHRISTENSEN FUND

Bill Gallegos COMMUNITIES FOR A BETTER ENVIRONMENT

Heeten Kalan THE NEW WORLD FOUNDATION

Roger Kim ASIAN PACIFIC ENVIRONMENTAL NETWORK

Aileen Lee GORDON AND BETTY MOORE FOUNDATION

Rachel Leon ENVIRONMENTAL GRANTMAKERS ASSOCIATION

Martha Matsuoka OCCIDENTAL COLLEGE

Ed Miller THE JOYCE FOUNDATION

Peter Riggs FORD FOUNDATION

Robby Rodriguez THE ATLANTIC PHILANTHROPIES

Jennifer Sokolove COMPTON FOUNDATION

Executive Summary

The pace of social change is quickening inthe United States and across the world. Froma historic presidential election in 2008 to theArab Spring and Occupy Wall Street, long-standing barriers to justice and equality arebeing challenged in every corner of theglobe. Unfortunately, the environmentalmovement is not keeping up. New environ-mental initiatives have been stalled andattacked while existing regulations have beenrolled back and undermined. At a time whenthe peril to our planet and the imperative ofchange should drive unyielding forwardmomentum, it often seems as if the environ-mental cause has been pushed back to thestarting line.

The goal of this report is to help environ-ment and climate funders become effectiveresources of a strong and successful move-ment for change. This report argues that wecan secure more environmental wins bydecreasing reliance on top-down fundingstrategies and increasing funding for grass-roots communities that are directly impact-ed by environmental harms and have thepassion and perseverance to mobilize anddemand change.

History supports this approach. Fromwomen’s suffrage to the civil rights move-ment to early environmental wins, grassrootsorganizing has clearly been a vital lever ofvictory. Campaigns against dirty energy aswell as, notably, the success of grassrootscampaigns against environmental regulationsshow the power and impact of community-driven change. It’s not merely that grassrootsorganizing wins change at the local levelbut, in case after case, builds the politicalpressure and climate for national change aswell. Moreover, testing a given agenda at thelocal level is a practical threshold assess-ment to determine whether a campaign can

resonate more widely, building from theground up to create broad public demandfor change.

The case for supporting grassroots envi-ronmental efforts is especially strong.Grassroots organizing is particularly powerfulwhere social, economic and environmentalills overlap, as is all too common in lower-income communities and communities ofcolor. By engaging with the organizationsthat serve these communities and nurturingthe growth of their leaders, we not only areinvesting in a healthy planet and people now,but also building a movement that reflectsthe future demographic majority of America.

This funding strategy will require a dra-matic shift in our philanthropy. In 2009, envi-ronmental organizations with budgets ofmore than $5 million received half of allcontributions and grants made in the sector,despite comprising just 2 percent of environ-mental public charities. From 2007-2009,only 15 percent of environmental grant dol-lars were classified as benefitting marginal-ized communities, and only 11 percent wereclassified as advancing “social justice”strategies, a proxy for policy advocacy andcommunity organizing that works towardstructural change on behalf of those who arethe least well off politically, economicallyand socially. In the same time period, grantdollars donated by funders who committedmore than 25 percent of their total dollars tothe environment were three times less likelyto be classified as benefitting marginalizedgroups than the grant dollars given by envi-ronmental funders in general. In short, envi-ronmental funders are expending tremendousresources, yet spending far too little on high-impact, cost-effective grassroots organizing.

The good news is there are many effective,powerful organizations on the ground,

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Cultivating the Grassroots: A Winning Approach for Environment and Climate Funders

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advancing a pro-environment agenda everyday. But they are under-resourced and under-utilized in our overall advocacy infrastruc-ture. As environment and climate harmsbuild up, the number of communities ripe fororganizing also continues to grow. Aroundthe globe, there is a constituency for environ-mental change, one that can expand andmobilize at a massive scale if we fund theinfrastructure needed to do so.

This report is written for funders workingon the full range of environmental change –from conservation to environmental health,green jobs to climate science, environmentaljustice to global sustainability. It shows thatsuccess will require grantmakers who:• Provide at least 20 percent of grant dollars

explicitly to benefit communities of thefuture.

• Invest at least 25 percent of grant dollarsin grassroots advocacy, organizing andcivic engagement.

• Build supportive infrastructure.• Take the long view, preparing for tipping

points.

Filled with case studies and examples thatillustrate the impact of funding grassrootsorganizing for environmental change, thisreport provides concrete recommendationson how funders can increase their engage-ment with this vast potential constituency.Together, we can and must support andexpand motivated, grassroots communitiesthat, by speaking out and taking collectiveaction, can help advance the bold changeswe all desire.

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NATIONAL COMMITTEE FOR RESPONSIVE PHILANTHROPY

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If you are reading this report, you are likelyamong those advocates and activists clamor-ing for positive change to heal our ailing nat-ural world. And, as this report is targeted atindividual donors and institutional founda-tions, you may have some wherewithal toeffect such change. The goal of this report isto help you channel your resources to organi-zations that are best equipped to transformyour financial support into a healthier planet,backed by a resilient community of peoplecommitted to protecting it. Grassroots organ-izing has been a central strategy of almostevery major social and economic transforma-tion in world history. Why, then, is the envi-ronmental funding community not supportinggrassroots organizing?

A. THE ROOT OF THE PROBLEM

Social movements are at once the symptoms and the instruments of progress.

—Walter Lippmann

The recent struggle to pass cap and trade leg-islation is a classic example of environmentaladvocates’ stymied attempts at winningchange, and shows how such issues do notgain traction if policy strategies are notdirectly linked to and organized around self-interest and grounded in broad-based supportof on-the-ground constituencies.

Cap and trade ideas began in efforts to reg-ulate national air pollution in the late 1960sand early 1970s. The Acid Rain Program useda cap and trade structure to reduce sulfurdioxide emissions in the 1990s. As it has inother situations, the financial industry soughtto capitalize on these schemes for its ownbenefit. In 1993, the Enron Corporation pro-

posed a system through which companieswould pay for and trade the right to emit car-bon dioxide.1 Then, in 2008, Goldman Sachsspent $3.5 million to lobby Congress on cli-mate issues, including an aggressive push forcap and trade proposals. Its focus was on cre-ating new markets for carbon.

According to polls, by a two-to-one mar-gin, Americans would rather tax all carbonemissions than create a cap and trade system.2

Communities most directly impacted by dirtyenergy in particular oppose cap and trade leg-islation, given the likely impact of carbon off-sets on their already-overly polluted neighbor-hoods – concentrating pollution next to theirhomes. Yet, large national environmentalorganizations and leading politicians inWashington continued to promote cap andtrade as the hallmark of environmental reform.Advocates and funders supporting this agendabelieved this was a high risk/high return strate-gy. They believed that it was absolutely criticalto the future of our planet to limit carbonemissions as soon as possible, and their politi-

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I. A Call to Opportunity

CBE organizer Alicia Rivera at an action outside the California EPABuilding in Sacramento. CBE joined with the Center on Race, Poverty& the Environment (CRPE) in bringing a couple of hundred Californiaresidents to a hearing of the California Air Resources Board on AB 32,California’s landmark 2006 climate change solutions legislation. Imagecourtesy of Communities for a Better Environment.

cal calculations indicated that cap and tradewas the most likely policy vehicle to makethat happen. They might have believed thatlocal struggles would be more successful oncefederal legislation passed. It was not complete-ly unreasonable to suspect they might havesucceeded.

However, Anthony Leiserowitz, director ofthe Yale Project on Climate ChangeCommunication, observes that environmentaladvocates “did little to nothing substantial (orat least effective) to inform, educate or sellcap and trade to the American people.”3 It isa complicated idea especially hard to com-municate when other Wall Street markets areswirling with corruption and controversy.

Proponents failed to sell the concept – ordid not even try. Says Leiserowitz: “I thinkthey decided to pursue a primarily inside-the-Beltway legislative strategy and got burned.”The national advocacy groups lacked suffi-cient power on their own to push the legisla-

tion through, especially when many grass-roots activists, if they understood cap andtrade, did not support it. Many communitiesalready were dealing with extensive air pollu-tion and related health problems from dirtypower plants and were rightly concernedabout the lack of public health protectionsbuilt into most cap and trade plans. Wherewould the “trades” allowing dirtier operationsgo? Not to mention several business model-based studies that raise profound questionsabout the efficacy of market strategies to reg-ulate carbon.4

Had environmental advocates engagedwith grassroots communities up front, thoseconcerns and legitimate critiques would havebeen paramount in the discussion or mighthave been sufficiently convincing, perhapsleading to another more viable policyapproach entirely. In other words, grassrootsorganizing is not only a strategy for buildingpublic pressure on an issue, but also candetermine whether public will exists in thefirst place.

Environment and climate funders tend tofavor influencing national policy directly –whether because, in their personal experi-ence, change has always been top-down orbecause, faced with the urgency of ourwarming planet, they believe top-downapproaches are the most expedient option.5

Perhaps this approach has its appeal becauseof current philanthropic trends whereby theboards and CEOs of large foundations desirebig impact, or maybe, especially for largefunders, it’s easier to make grants to a smallnumber of top-down institutions than manysmaller grants to smaller grassroots organiza-tions or even funding intermediaries that re-grant smaller amounts.

Whatever the reason, the tendency towardfunding large, national, top-down environ-mental organizations carries with it theassumption that if we assemble and concen-trate resources, we can move the needle.Sometimes it works, but more often than not,the power of anti-environment campaigndonors with immense financial resources,combined with the disinclination of policy-makers to rupture the status quo, means that


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Environmental Grantmaking:The Landscape

According to the Foundation Center, a national sam-ple of 1,384 larger grantmakers (including 800 of thenation’s largest grantmakers by total giving) gave $1.4billion to environmental causes in 2009.6

Environment grants claimed the sixth-largest share(6.3 percent) of total foundation dollars in 2009 – fol-lowing education (23.3 percent), health (22.6 per-cent), human services (13.1 percent), publicaffairs/society benefit (11.8 percent), and arts and cul-ture (10.5 percent).7

Grantmakers made at least $10 billion in grants toenvironmental causes from 2000 through 2009,8

funding primarily top-down strategies. Yet, we have not experienced significant policy

changes at the federal level in the United States sincethe 1980s remotely commensurate with the level offunding invested toward these ends. From 1989 to 2009,among all environmental public charities, environmen-tal organizations with budgets higher than $5 millionconsistently received 40-50 percent of the contribu-tions, gifts and grants, and 50-60 percent of revenue.9

an anti-environmental agenda dominates. Significant change usually comes about

when a critical mass of ordinary peopleengages directly with decision-makers, voicesits concerns and pushes for changes thatelites would not otherwise have made.

“We’re not going to make big changes in cli-mate as long as climate is seen solely as anenvironmental issue,” says Ed Miller, environ-ment program manager of the Joyce Foundation.Especially at a time when government is underattack for infringing on individual liberties, it isall the more essential to link our agenda explic-itly with the ways in which it helps people andcommunities and to invest in base-buildingorganizations that make that link.

As the adage goes, you can change policyby whispering in the king’s ear, but someonemight whisper differently tomorrow, and theking might change his mind. A vocal, organ-ized, sustained grassroots base is vital toachieving sustained change.

B. WE HAVE TO CHANGE TO MAKECHANGE

Curiosity, obsession and doggedendurance, combined with self-criticism,have brought me to my ideas.

—Albert Einstein

The problem is not what environmental advo-cates and funders have done – but what wehave not done.

Most environmental activists and fundersshare a gnawing sense that something has tochange. Few environmental activists wouldargue that we have done what is needed torespond to environmental degradation. It’snot that we’re not trying. But we are repeat-edly banging our collective head againstwalls of politics and public opinion wethought we tore down 30 years ago. We haveachieved some important victories. Why arewe not achieving transformative wins toaddress environmental problems and climatechange and to advance holistic environmen-tal solutions that serve people and the planet?

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Source: Environmental Grantmakers Association, Tracking the Field Report.

Advocacy and Organizing Givingby EGA Members

Data from the Environmental Grantmakers Association(EGA) reveal significant funding of advocacy, organizing,movement-building, education and youth organizing andpublic policy-related strategies. In a survey of 196 EGAmember foundations, more than half of respondents’environmental grant dollars and nearly three-quarters ofclimate dollars went to these strategies in 2009.

A. Advocacy, Organizing and Public Policy-RelatedStrategies, 52.1%

B. Capacity Building andGeneral Operating, 18.9%

C. Communications / Media, 2.6%

D. Research: Scientific /Environmental, 8.4%

E. Stewardship / Acquisition /Preservation, 16.6%

F. Not Provided, 1.4%

Distribution of Environmental Grants Awarded by EGAMembers Based on EGA Strategies, Circa 2009

Distribution of Environmental Grants Awarded by EGAMembers Based on EGA Strategies for Climate andAtmosphere, Circa 2009

A. Advocacy, Organizing and Public Policy-RelatedStrategies, 74.0%

B. Capacity Building andGeneral Operating, 5.7%

C. Communications / Media, 5.4%

D. Research: Scientific /Environmental, 12.0%

E. Stewardship / Acquisition / Preservation, 2.3%

F. Not Provided, 0.5%A

B

C

D

E

F

B

C

D

E

F

A

Recent data from the National Center forCharitable Statistics document that fundingresources generally go to larger, nationalorganizations, even while the number of newgrassroots environmental groups has grownsignificantly.

According to the Internal Revenue Service,there were 28,692 environmental public char-ities in 2011, reporting nearly $7.5 billion intotal revenue and $21 billion in assets.10

In 2009, those organizations with budgetsof more than $5 million made up just 2 per-

cent of environmental public charities, butthey received half of all contributions andgrants made in the field.11 Similarly in 2009,nonprofits in just four states – California,New York, Virginia and Massachusetts – andthe District of Columbia accounted for 48percent of contributions, gifts and grants toenvironmental groups.12 These five areas arehome to a quarter of environmental groupsand earn nearly half of the environmentalsector’s total revenue. That’s not to say theselarge nonprofits are not doing worthwhile

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Using screens developed by theEnvironmental Grantmakers Association(EGA), NCRP developed custom datasetsfrom the Foundation Center’s grants sampledatabase, which includes detailed annualgrants information on more than 1,300 of thelargest foundations in the United States(1,339 in 2007; 1,490 in 2008; and 1,384 in2009). The database includes all grants of$10,000 or more awarded to organizationsby these larger foundations.

All NCRP data are based on a three-yearaverage (grantmakers appearing in each ofthe 2007-2009 samples), which avoids theinfluence of potential outliers, such as a largegrant made only in one year that could influ-ence the data. The resulting sample was amatched set of 880 largest foundations (foun-dations that appear in all three annual sam-ples), of which 701 grantmakers (80 percent)made at least one grant on average to theenvironment.

Over the time period analyzed, these 701grantmakers collectively gave an average of$18 billion, including $1.6 billion for theenvironment (9 percent of total grantmaking).

Grants then were analyzed by intendedbeneficiary to determine the proportion thatwere classified as intending to benefit one ormore of 11 “marginalized” or “underserved”

populations, including but not limited tolower-income communities and communitiesof color.15

Collectively, only 15 percent of environ-mental grant dollars were classified as bene-fiting one of the 11 marginalized popula-tions included in NCRP’s analysis.

A report from the Foundation Center andthe Environmental Grantmakers Associationdiscovered a similar trend examining thereported beneficiaries of environmentalgrants in 2007. Among grantmakers in thatsample, 18 percent of environmental grantdollars were intended to benefit the econom-ically disadvantaged, and 3 percent of grant

Environmental Funding: Who Benefits and How?

Percentage of Environmental Grant DollarsClassified as Benefitting Marginalized Communities

15%

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work or should not be receiving any fundingbut, rather, we should question why grass-roots organizing groups are not receivingmore grantmaking support.

The federal climate change legislationexample above and others throughout thisreport prove the ineffectiveness of directingsignificant funding to national advocacyorganizations while under-resourcing thegrassroots base-building capacity withoutwhich national organizations lack muscleand credibility.

Bradford Plumer, associate editor of TheNew Republic, observed, “Green groups dohave vast resources at their disposal thatthey don’t seem to be using effectively.”13

As these data show, a majority of foundationdollars are going to larger, well-resourcedorganizations, suggesting a preference for atop-down strategy. Just as we know that envi-ronmental problems disproportionatelyimpact lower-income communities and com-munities of color,14 case studies in this reportand elsewhere show that organizing in these

dollars were intended to benefit ethnic orracial minorities. Grants may benefit one ormore of the populations indicated, includingthe general public. The authors noted that“the vast majority (87.1 percent) of environ-mental grants awarded in 2007 were eitherintended to benefit the general public or hadno specified beneficiary.”16

NCRP further analyzed the 701 grantmak-ers using the Foundation Center’s “social jus-tice” screen to determine, as closely as possi-ble, which environmental grants had policyor systemic change as a goal and, as such,likely included funds for advocacy, commu-nity organizing and civic engagement. The

Foundation Center defines “social justice phi-lanthropy” as “the granting of philanthropiccontributions to nonprofit organizationsbased in the United States and other coun-tries that work for structural change in orderto increase the opportunity of those who arethe least well off politically, economically,and socially.”17

Only 11 percent of environmental grant dollars were reported as advancingsocial justice.

In fact, there is a seemingly contradictorycorrelation: analysis shows the greater a fun-der’s commitment to the environment, theless likely it is to prioritize marginalizedcommunities or advance social justice in itsenvironmental grantmaking. For instance,grant dollars donated by funders that com-mitted more than 25 percent of their totaldollars to the environment were three timesless likely to be classified as benefitting mar-ginalized groups than the grant dollars givenby environmental funders in general.

If you want to learn more about your ownfoundation’s data and your institution is partof the Foundation Center database, pleaseemail [email protected].

Source: National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy,analysis of custom Foundation Center datasets, 2011.

Percentage of Environmental Grant DollarsClassified as Advancing Social Justice

11%

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Systems change in agriculture isn’t typicallyan alluring process, though the outcomes,when they reach our plates, often are entic-ing. For example, shoppers purchasing peatendrils and other delicacies from Hmongfarmers at a farmers’ market in Massachusettsmay be falling in love with a new delicacy.What they don’t know – and shouldn’t reallyneed to know – is the back story of policydevelopment, organizing and advocacy thatallowed the pea tendrils to be grown andreach their market. However, funders do needto know that story. They need to understandhow grassroots organizing and national policyadvocacy combine to create positive change.

In this case, the pea tendrils were the out-come of relationships between the group of

Hmong farmers, a local immigrant farmerorganization called Flats Mentor Farm and adecades-old national advocacy coalition thatthe Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation has sup-ported for many years, the Rural Coalition(RC). RC is accountable to a membership ofdiverse rural grassroots organizations whoseneeds and interests drive its advocacy agen-da. It listens to its members’ needs and thenworks with them to develop new policies andadvocate for their implementation.

That’s what happened with the pea ten-drils. Small farmers observed that the NaturalResource Conservation Service had money foron-farm innovations but would not fund whatthe immigrant farmers wanted most – hoophouses to extend their growing season. RC

communities strategically advances thebroader change agenda that affects us all.There is a strategic opportunity to fund com-munities affected by environmental ills. Byensuring that these communities are explicit-ly identified as the beneficiaries of our phi-lanthropy, we would boost our collectiveimpact while simultaneously contributing tothe public good. Not only would we be solv-ing environmental hazards in these commu-nities, we would be building powerful con-stituencies to demand change nationwide aswell as building social capital.

Systemic problems require systemic solutions.This report asks us to examine how we canbest effect change on a complicated environ-mental, political and economic system. Theenvironmentally devastating status quo iscaused by a tangle of backward policies, per-verse economic incentives to pollute andunsupportive public opinion and voting pat-terns. It will take more than a single, nation-al advocacy strategy to untie this complex

knot. If we lean too heavily on one strategyto advance our environmental goals, we arediminishing our potential to win the fight.

Through “systems thinking,” we canunderstand how a particular dynamic, normor structure is connected to an entire, inter-dependent system of other dynamics, normsand institutions.18 Although such thinkingmight seem natural to those of us who areintimate with the complexities of the naturalworld, in actual practice, systems thinking isunderused. Put differently, ignoring theinterconnectedness of any system’s con-stituent parts will inevitably lead to a dimin-ished impact. Race, gender, class and otheridentity markers work to constrain and keepcommunities and individuals from equalityof opportunity.

We cannot view the issue of poverty inisolation if we want to have impact; we mustview it alongside all the other factors thatinfluence the prevalence of that poverty. Weneed a holistic approach to solve the com-plex problems such as those our environmentand climate face today.

A Case Study in Community Organizing by Kolu Zigbi, Program Officer for Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems, Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation

Problems in our environment stem from along chain of complicated reactions andoverlapping factors. We cannot divorce theproblems of fisheries from problems facingfishermen. We cannot separate concernsabout factory pollution from concerns abouthigh unemployment in factory towns, espe-cially when more than 8 in 10 Americanslive in a metropolitan area.19 We cannot sep-arate the increase in poverty and decline inhousehold income from the desire of busi-nesses to manufacture goods in China andpollute the oceans shipping them to sell tostruggling consumers at rock-bottom prices.These issues are all linked and, perhaps moreimportantly, they are linked in the minds ofeveryday Americans. Conceptually and prac-tically, science is never isolated from culture,society and the economy.20

The State of Oregon’s recent adoption ofthe most stringent water quality standards inthe nation is a testament to the power of anintegrative approach to environmental prob-lems. Under the Clean Water Act, states areresponsible for setting their own water quali-

ty standards, subject to the approval of theEnvironmental Protection Agency (EPA).States derive their standards, in part, bydetermining how much fish people eat andthen regulating the concentration of pollu-tants in their waterways so that people cansafely consume that amount of fish. Statefish consumption rates must be at least ashigh as EPA’s national baseline rate of 17.5grams per day (roughly enough to top acracker). EPA has acknowledged for yearsthat its baseline standard is not sufficient toprotect certain consumers, such as subsis-tence fishermen. However, states have

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10%

started a letter writing campaign, mobilizedmembers to attend listening sessions and seeksupport for this practice in the Farm Bill andby the USDA, and engaged in “insider organ-izing.” This resulted in the agency agreeing tofund a pilot study to determine whether hoophouses are linked to environmental conserva-tion by reducing the amount of water andother inputs needed to grow vegetables.

Unsurprisingly, once the pilot was created,out of the many groups that applied toreceive funding, the winner was Flats MentorFarm. The group’s relationship with RC hadhelped develop its capacity so that it wasable to steward the application process for-ward with farmers who were “shovel ready.”What’s beautiful about this story is that immi-

grant farmers piloted the project, and theycontinue to see the benefits, with their pro-duction in the high tunnels surviving a severeflood in the wake of this summer’s hurricanesthat destroyed the rest of their production.However, once USDA evaluates high tunnelsas successful, the long-term result will be thatall farmers, whether fifth generation or firstgeneration, will be eligible to take part.Already, many more farmers who have notutilized USDA ever or in recent years, arecoming back for this and other services. Thisstory demonstrates the power of true systemsapproaches – empowering those who remainat the margins results in broad benefits for allin the long term.

We cannot view the issue ofpoverty in isolation if we want to have impact; we must view it alongside all the other factorsthat influence the prevalence of that poverty.

almost uniformly adopted EPA’s default fishconsumption rate in the interest of retainingbusinesses that might relocate to take advan-tage of more relaxed water quality standardsin another state.

This regulatory scheme created a seriousenvironmental justice problem among mem-bers of the Confederated Tribes of theUmatilla Indian Reservation. Oregon’s waterquality standards did not permit UmatillaIndians to safely subsist on fish, so the tribeshelped orchestrate a fish consumption surveyand fish contamination study establishing thattribal members face a disproportionate can-cer risk based on the amount of fish they eat.This information was so influential on theEPA that the agency ultimately rejected itsown baseline fish consumption rate whenOregon submitted it for approval. A cooper-ative effort by the Oregon Department ofEnvironmental Quality, Umatilla tribes andthe EPA to determine a fish consumption ratethat was more protective of Native Americansfollowed, and the EPA ultimately approvedwater quality standards based on a fish con-sumption rate of 175 g/day. The State of

Washington now is in the process of revisingits standards, and Native American fish con-sumption rates are again driving the discus-sion. Both of these states are going to havehealthier people and cleaner water becauseIndian people put a face on a perniciousenvironmental problem.

For too long, national environmental advo-cates and scientists have been hanging pleasfor environmental change on the apoliticalhook of rational appeals, expecting decisionmakers to do the right thing when confrontedwith powerful evidence. Yet, in many ways,complex political systems are like the humanbody. No matter how smart and articulate ouragenda, our pleas for change will continue tobe ignored if we lack the power to back themup. Even if we fund in single, focused-issueareas, we can benefit from a broader analysisof the systemic forces behind environmentalcrises and understanding how any one solu-tion complements or contradicts others. Wemust make our demands for change impossi-ble to ignore. That means working at everylevel of the system to achieve change, includ-ing the grassroots.

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The most persuasive reason for funding grass-roots organizing as a strategy to achieve envi-ronmental victories in public policy and pub-lic opinion is quite simple: mobilized andorganized communities can challenge powerand create lasting change with ripple effectsthat benefit us all.

A. CHANGE CONSISTENTLY GROWSFROM THE GROUND UP

A body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history.

—Mohandas K. Gandhi

The American environmental movement byno means began as a grassroots enterprise. Atthe start of the 20th century, conservationismwas led by elites like President TheodoreRoosevelt and groups like the Boone andCrockett Club – “American hunting riflemen”drawn from the top ranks of politics, businessand the military. Their concern was notindustrial waste poisoning crops or pollutionsickening new immigrants in tenement hous-ing. The early environmentalists primarilywanted to conserve nature for their recre-ational enjoyment.

In the 1960s, the movement changed.Through her groundbreaking book, SilentSpring, Rachel Carson showed everydayAmericans how environmental degradationwas threatening their health and way of life.Americans who had no real stake in conser-vation of nature for hunting and horsebackriding came to understand how they weredirectly affected by pollution and toxics.Carson, a biologist by training, was con-cerned early on with the dangerous effects of

pesticides. When, in 1958, she read a letterfrom a friend about the spontaneous death offlocks of birds resulting from aerial DDTspraying, Carson launched the research thatwould lead to Silent Spring. Carson spoke tothe concerns of tenement residents and work-ers’ rights activists who had long been con-cerned with urban and industrial pollutionbut channeled their critiques into housingand workplace reforms, not environmental-ism. Carson paved the way for local commu-nities across the United States to advocate forenvironmental health.

Around the same time, several high profileevents raised awareness among ordinaryAmericans of the extraordinary environmentalrisks facing their families and communities.For example, in 1969, the Cuyahoga River inOhio caught fire. The intensely polluted riverhad caught fire before, but this time the blazewas worse and ignited a national debate. AsTime magazine wrote, “Some river!Chocolate-brown, oily, bubbling with subsur-face gases, it oozes rather than flows.”

In 1970, the first Earth Day was organ-ized with the goal of sparking a nationalgrassroots movement. Founder GaylordNelson wrote, “I was satisfied that if wecould tap into the environmental concernsof the general public and infuse the studentanti-war energy into the environmentalcause, we could generate a demonstrationthat would force this issue onto the politicalagenda.” On the first Earth Day, 10,000schools and 2,000 colleges organized spe-cial classes about environmental issues. InPittsburgh, community-based organizations– derided as the “breathers’ lobby” by theWall Street Journal – marched throughdowntown wearing gas masks and carryinga coffin to demonstrate against the poorquality of the city’s air.

II. The Case for Funding Grassroots Organizing

In 1978, in the community around LoveCanal in upstate New York, mothers and fam-ilies organized to protest widespread healthproblems caused by 21,000 tons of chemicalwaste buried under their town’s publicschools. According to the leading Love Canalorganizer, Lois Gibbs, “Our struggle, like thestruggles that had come before, changedpublic opinion.”

The seeming increase in grassroots advo-cacy and growing public awareness of theera led to strong environmental laws like theWilderness Act (1965), the Clean Air Act(1967), the Occupational Safety and HealthAct (1970), the Clean Water Act (1973) andthe Superfund Act (1980).21 Awareness of thepower of organizing to effect such changes,combined with the disproportionate impactof environmental degradation especially onlower-income communities of color, drovethe emergence of the modern environmentaljustice movement that informs the critiquesand ideas contained in this report.

Throughout the environmental movement,grassroots organizing often has been thelinchpin for bringing an important issue to thenation’s attention. For instance, the pros andcons of nuclear weapons had been debatedbefore the atomic bombing of Hiroshima in1945. Scientists were concerned about thepotential for environmental and human catas-trophe. The bombing of Hiroshima raisedthose issues for American citizens and peoplearound the world, but most advocacy to bannuclear weapons came from the scientific andacademic communities.

Then, in 1961, spawned by increasedweapons testing on U.S. soil, a grassrootsorganization called Women Strike For Peaceorganized 50,000 women to march in 60cities across the country demonstrating

against nuclear weapons. As a direct result,two years later the United States and theSoviet Union signed a nuclear test-bantreaty.22 According to historian Lawrence S.Wittner, grassroots anti-nuclear organizingled directly to other policy shifts throughoutthe 1950s and 60s.23 In its September 1975issue, Forbes magazine stated, “The anti-nuclear coalition has been remarkably suc-cessful … [and] has certainly slowed theexpansion of nuclear power.”24 The recentvery human tragedy at Japan’s Fukushimanuclear plant in March 2011 and the result-ing activism against nuclear power is onceagain sparking this important public debate.

Throughout history, across issues, thegreatest political, economic and socialchanges have come about when people jointogether to demand a better future. Grassrootsenergy made the difference in the suffragemovement when, together, ordinary womenfought for the right to vote, and their workbegan at the Seneca Falls Convention in1848. Although a few individual, wealthywhite women were allowed to vote, even incolonial times, and Jeanette Rankin was elect-ed the first female member of Congress in1914, women did not get the legal right tovote until grassroots voices gained momentumthrough the years and rose up. The NationalWomen’s Party staged the first protest outsidethe White House in 1917, and three yearslater, women won the right to vote.

Mobilized grassroots and local communi-ties made the difference in the labor move-ment when ordinary working people formedunions and demanded reforms that helpednot just themselves but all workers – fromsafety standards to minimum wage laws andmore. Grassroots organizing is a meanstoward an end – building a coherent move-

Grassroots organizing is a means toward an end – building a coherent movement

that impacts change on a larger scale. It is a vital tool in the history of social change,

one that the environmental movement clearly cannot do without.


12

ment that impacts change on a larger scale.It is a vital tool in the history of socialchange, one that the environmental move-ment clearly cannot do without.

Grassroots activism made the difference inthe Civil Rights movement when ordinaryblack people demanded equal rights. In 1955,the Montgomery bus boycotts began and in1960, four black students sat down at a segre-gated lunch counter in Greensboro, N.C., andrefused to leave, helping spark mass move-ments throughout the North and South. Base-building and mass mobilization were criticalcomponents. Four years later, the Civil RightsAct of 1964 was signed into law.

It was, in fact, the grassroots engagementaspect of the Civil Rights movement that influ-enced the environmental movement toembrace issues of justice more broadly.Similarly, significant grassroots efforts led tothe last major piece of environmental policychange. In 1994, President Clinton recognizedthe prominence of the environmental justicemovement, signing an executive order requir-ing federal agencies to identify and address“disproportionately high and adverse humanhealth or environmental effects” of govern-ment programs and policies “on minority pop-ulations and low-income populations.”25

President Obama reaffirmed and extended thisorder26 and, under his administration, theJustice Department has met with grassrootsorganizations to investigate opportunities forlitigating environmental justice claims underthe authority of the Civil Rights Act.Worldwide, the growth of the international“climate justice” movement is yet another signof this vital trend. It is in part an outgrowth ofthe Civil Rights-rooted environmental justiceframe in the United States, as well as its inten-tional connections with impacted communi-ties in other countries and the broadeningglobal movement for social justice.

Grassroots-led movements can createbroad-scale change.The following examples from the struggleagainst coal plants are illustrative of thepower of grassroots-led movements to affect

large-scale change. In 2001, 17 proposedprojects for new coal-fired power plants wereon the table. Local environmental groups,understanding the need for a health-centricmessage, created a platform for health con-stituencies, brought in the local AmericanLung Association chapter, the respiratoryhealth association and others. Today, a well-coordinated constellation of 40 organizations,from village associations to local Mexican-American organizations, public health groupsand large national groups like Greenpeace,are focused on shutting down the two remain-ing Chicago coal plants, built in 1903 and1924, through a Chicago city ordinance.27

In Texas, the group People Organized inDefense of the Earth and her Resources(PODER) successfully shut down a majordirty power plant in the state. In MingoCounty, West Virginia, coal-mining waste waspolluting families’ drinking water wells. Withthe help of the Ohio Valley EnvironmentalCoalition, residents organized and were pro-vided a municipal waterline plus a legal set-tlement against the mining industry.Ultimately, the construction of more than150 proposed coal-fired power plants inmore than 30 states has been blockedbecause of the efforts of local grassrootsgroups – which continue to take proactivesteps to address the full life cycle of coal anddirty energy – transitioning innovatively

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Image courtesy of Communities for a Better Environment.

toward a clean energy economy. Includingthe advocacy of local Sierra Club chapters,grassroots organizing was able to effectchange. This is just one of many exampleswhere grassroots organizing has led to broadenvironmental change made possible bystrategic philanthropic investments.

The potential impact of grassroots organiz-ing evident in the opposition to pro-environ-ment goals also is instructive. In 2008, noone had heard of the modern-day “Tea Party.”By 2010, the movement was a householdname and, more importantly, a force to bereckoned with in Washington, D.C. TheRepublican Party and its most prominentpublic faces now work relentlessly to gainsupport of the Tea Party and use its cache tosupport their interests. The 2010 midtermelections ushered in a crop of Tea Party-endorsed members of Congress who upsetestablished Republicans’ rule. During thedebt crisis negotiations in the summer of2011, mainstream commentators observedthat the Tea Party Caucus held the politicaldebate “hostage.” And, regarding environ-mental policy, the Tea Party has vigorouslyand effectively opposed every promising pro-posal on Capitol Hill.

The New York Times reports, “Skepticismand outright denial of global warming areamong the articles of faith of the Tea Partymovement.”28 Dick Armey, author of GiveUs Liberty: A Tea Party Manifesto, told acongressional committee that environmen-talists are “hypochondriacs” and that worry-ing about global warming is “pretentious.”29

Tea Party activists have railed against every-thing from clean water regulations to effi-cient light bulb standards. Defending the

incandescent light bulb, conservative radiohost and Tea Party icon Rush Limbaugh said,“It’s not causing global warming; it’s notcausing a carbon footprint. All of this is ahoax.”30 Another Tea Party group argued thatthe regulation of carbon emissions shouldbe “left to God.”31 Sentiments like thesehave been echoed at local Tea Party ralliesall across the United States.

As a grassroots mobilization, the TeaParty offers environmental activists twoimportant lessons. First, the fact that conser-vatives have effectively mobilized communi-ties against environmental protection/conser-vation suggests the power of organizing ingeneral and the need for a pro-environmentgrassroots movement in particular.

Calling the Tea Party “grassroots” can becontroversial. After all, major national organi-zations backed by major establishment politi-cal donors have fueled much of the infra-structure for Tea Party energy. But still, socialmovement scholars like Theda Skocpol andVanessa Williamson note the Tea Partyauthentically engages and mobilizes grass-roots energy among conservatives, albeit a farsmaller and less representative swath ofextreme conservatives than the Tea Party proj-ects itself as representing.32 The values of theTea Party reflect exclusively the opinion of asmall segment of the white population. Itdoes not reflect the overall population’sviews on these issues, and, as other statisticscited in this report suggest, communities ofcolor and lower-income communities stillseem to place a high value on addressingenvironmental and climate harms.

Through organizing and spreading its mes-sage locally, the Tea Party has influenced manyother Americans. Polls show that Americans areless concerned about global warming todaythan they were just a few years ago.33 And,according to Gallup, Americans now believeeconomic growth should take precedence overenvironmental protection – reversing a 25-yeartrend in previous opinion polls.34 This downturnin opinion is particularly acute among conserva-tives. According to the Pew Research Center, inOctober 2010, 53 percent of Republicans saidthere is no solid evidence the earth is warming,


14

[Recent] positive developmentsunderscore both the power of grassroots organizing in

shaping public discourse and thevalue of linking environmentalism

to other causes.

15


while only three years prior 62 percent ofRepublicans said they did believe in globalwarming.35 In an exposé on failed climatechange legislation, New Yorker writer RyanLizza summed it up best: “The Republican Partyhad grown increasingly hostile to the science ofglobal warming and to cap-and-trade, associat-ing the latter with a tax on energy and moregovernment regulation.”36

Polls show that Tea Party loyalists are asmall minority of Americans.37 Nonetheless,by effectively organizing that minority, theTea Party has a major influence on politicaldebates. Despite concerns about the econo-my and the right’s efforts to sow doubtsaround climate change, the vast majority ofAmericans still support enacting and enforc-ing environmental policies and regulations ingeneral.38 Imagine what pro-environmentgrassroots organizing could achieve.

The second instructive lesson to belearned from the Tea Party is the role that fun-ders can play in prioritizing support of grass-roots organizing. In a jab at the Tea Party,President Barack Obama’s senior advisorDavid Axelrod called it “a grassroots citizens’movement brought to you by a bunch of oilbillionaires.”39

But jabs aside, the oil industry billionaireKoch brothers who have funded much of theinfrastructure that supports the Tea Party see

grassroots organizing as a key political strate-gy. “To bring about social change,” CharlesKoch said in one interview, “a strategy” isrequired that is “vertically and horizontallyintegrated,” spanning “from idea creation topolicy development to education to grass-roots organizations to lobbying to litigation topolitical action.”40 Through their support ofthe Tea Party, the Koch brothers and otheranti-environment funders did not just wishfor a grassroots movement, they financed it.Since 1997, the Koch brothers have funneledat least $55 million to bolster anti-environ-mental organizing at the grassroots level.41

The rapid advancement of their abhorrentgoals makes a strong case for pro-environ-ment funders to understand the value ofgrassroots organizing.

Fortunately, there is emerging, contempo-rary evidence of the effectiveness of grass-roots organizing to help the environmentrather than hurt it. In 2011, communityactivists in the Midwest and across theUnited States mobilized to protest the exten-sion of the Keystone pipeline that wouldbring toxically extracted oil from Canada’s tarsands through sensitive aquifers and farmlands to refineries in the South. Throughgrassroots pressure, opponents of the pipelinewon over unusual allies such as the conser-vative governor of Nebraska, who early on

The huge tar sands protest crowd starts to circle the White House on Nov. 6th, 2011. Photo by Javier Sierra, courtesyof the Sierra Club.

supported the expansion but came to under-stand the environmental threats to his stateand ultimately advocated against it. Activistsalso mobilized nationwide, including a seriesof actions with protesters chaining them-selves to and being arrested in front of theWhite House fence. These actions, engaginglocal activists coupled with the support ofnational environmental organizations, led theObama Administration to delay its decisionto approve the pipeline, and ultimately, inJanuary 2012, not to grant permission for thepipeline extension.

Combined with (at the time of this writ-ing) the still-growing impact of the OccupyWall Street movement, these positive devel-opments underscore both the power ofgrassroots organizing in shaping public dis-course and the value of linking environmen-talism to other causes. Occupy Wall Streetis an example of authentic grassroots energythat was so intense it needed little fundingto mobilize; now that it is spreading, fun-ders are rushing to catch up. As of this writ-ing, the Occupy Wall Street movement islarger than the Tea Party and enjoys broaderpublic support.42

Self-interest sparks collective action.There is confusion in our sector about exactlywhat we mean when we use terms like“community organizing,” “movement build-ing” or “infrastructure.” Some people thinkthat getting neighbors to sign a petition iscommunity organizing. Others believe thatInternet-based activism is community organ-izing. For the purposes of this paper, the fol-lowing definitions will clarify what we meanwhen we use these terms.

Community organizing builds power byhelping people understand the source oftheir social or political problems, connectwith others facing the same challenges andtake collective action to win concretechange. The classic example of a commu-nity organizing campaign is the residentsin a neighborhood worried about a dan-gerous intersection with only a stop signbanding together, pressuring the town gov-ernment and winning a new stoplight. But,as noted above, community organizingwas integral to ending slavery in America,obtaining the franchise for women to voteand catalyzing legislation requiring clean-er land, air and water.

One network of environmental base-build-ing groups defines grassroots organizing as“the process by which people in communi-ties rally around a common cause, acting ontheir own behalf with allies and networks,often against powerful interests, often build-ing new institutions needed to win a lastingchange.”43 The Funders Network onTransforming the Global Economy (FNTG),which advocates for grassroots organizingand movement-building, defines communityorganizing as:• Rooted in and accountable to the

frontline communities directly impactedby the issues addressed.

• Building local power, developing indigenous leadership, membership andinstitutions.

• Contending for power locally, but also,increasingly, at a much larger scale as well.

• Developing new kinds of alliances and

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Some signs at the Keystone XL tar sands protest at the WhiteHouse on November 6, 2011. Photo by Javier Sierra, courtesy ofthe Sierra Club.

coalitions to build political strength acrossorganizations, bridge issue silos, havegreater impact on national policy and sus-tain the infrastructure needed for massmovements.44

Importantly, this definition draws a linebetween national organizations that mightparachute into local communities for one-time policy campaigns versus authentic, localorganizations that not only work on thosesame short-term campaigns but, just asimportantly, build long-term leadership andcapacity in the community to amplify changein the future.

In short, community organizing engagespeople to win real changes for themselvesand for all of us.

Movement building is community organ-izing and mobilization taken to a mass scale.While community organizing groups may berelatively confined (such as to their ownmembers or own issue agenda), social move-ments spread out from such boundaries toengage a much wider group of people in amuch broader demand for change. Accordingto social movement scholar Doug McAdam,a social movement thrives on the interplay offour factors:45

• The right political moment or opportunity.• Readiness of indigenous, grassroots organ-

izations to take advantage of that moment.• A belief that the movement is leading in a

successful direction.• The support of external groups and allies.

In other words, social movements can andoften do grow from grassroots organiza-tions, but not necessarily so. Grassrootsorganizations can make the leap to be apart of a much broader, national or eveninternational call for change, but that leapis not necessary or automatic. While thereare many finer distinctions that could bemade here, for purposes of this paper, ourassumption is that mass movements forenvironmental health and justice are desir-able and that such movements can growstrategically from community organizing atthe grassroots level.

Infrastructure is part of what makes notonly social movements and grassroots organi-zations more effective but what ultimatelycan knit them together. According toFunding Social Movements, a 2003 report bythe New World Foundation, social move-ments are not built overnight, but in stages.46

They require strong anchor organizations,grassroots organizing, strategic alliances andnetworks among multiple constituencies.Groups that provide media training, fundrais-ing skills, leadership development or evenjust shared meeting space can be essentialback-end supports for movement organiza-tions and formations.

One example is the Center for Health,Environment and Justice (CHEJ), which pro-vides everything from technical assistance onlocal advocacy campaigns to small capacitybuilding grants. By nurturing emerginggroups and providing ongoing feedback andcoaching for more seasoned organizations,while convening meetings and alliances forall groups to connect and work together,CHEJ helps till the soil and spread the nutri-ents in which grassroots organizing andmovement building thrive.

The Institute for Conservation Leadership(ICL) is another organization that provides train-ing, coaching and other technical assistance tobuild the capacity of grassroots environmentand climate-focused groups and coalitions. ICLis an outgrowth of a small project initiated aspart of the National Wildlife Federation andbecame an independent group in 1990 withfunding from the Pew Charitable Trusts. It nowoffers a full range of capacity building and lead-ership development services to organizations atthe local, state, regional and national levelsfocused on protecting the environment andaddressing climate change issues.

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…Community organizing engages

people to win real changes for

themselves and for all of us.

B. THERE IS EFFECTIVE ORGANIZING ON WHICH WE CAN BUILD

The need for change bulldozed a roaddown the center of my mind.

—Maya Angelou

Awareness of environmental impacts begins ata local level – in a backyard, a nearby field, acreek at the end of the street or simply whereyou breathe the air in your neighborhood.Grassroots groups often have been the ones todiscover environmental hazards. And the haz-ards are significant. Consider, for instance: • High levels of toxic flame-retardants have

been found in pregnant women inCalifornia.47

• Light bulbs in New York City publicschools contain the carcinogen PCB.48

• Arsenic levels found in Mott’s apple juiceare five times higher than what’s consid-ered safe in drinking water.49

• Incidences of childhood cancer have risensteadily since 1992.50

• One in 12 Americans has diabetes.51

• Asthma prevalence remains at “historicallyhigh levels,” affecting 24.6 million peoplein the United States, with higher ratesamong females, children, AfricanAmerican and Puerto Rican persons, andthose with family income below thepoverty level.52

• Primarily because of our use of fossilfuels, the surface of the earth is about 1.4degrees Fahrenheit warmer than it was100 years ago, and that even slight warm-ing is causing an increase in the numberand danger of storms – including hurri-canes, tornadoes and blizzards.53

From these hazards arises an opportunity togrow our constituency for positive environ-mental change. Grassroots organizations areuniquely suited to take advantage of thisopportunity because, as explained below,they are adept at drawing people togetherwho are affected by a common environmen-tal ill and helping them transform their storiesinto lasting environmental and social change.

A Case Study in FundingCommunity Organizingby Denise Joines, Program Officer at the Wilburforce Foundation

Because protecting our shared resources on publiclands is the major focus of my funding portfolio,building public support for our grantees’ efforts is crit-ical to our foundation’s strategy. Grassroots organiz-ing is an important component of our strategy.

Our grantees find that connecting people to placeand building bonds to our public lands through vol-unteer efforts is an effective means of organizing citi-zens to take an active role in voicing their opinionson how our lands should be managed. As just oneexample, we fund the Sky Island Alliance (SIA), basedin Tucson, Ariz., a grassroots organization dedicatedto the protection and restoration of the rich naturalheritage in the Sky Island region of the southwesternU.S. and northwestern Mexico.

SIA engages a diversity of volunteers in a variety ofon-the-ground efforts, from physical restoration of pub-lic lands (removing roads, restoring streams and springs)to training volunteers to track wildlife to identify wildlifeconnectivity corridors. At the end of every training andfield session, SIA staff and volunteers sit together andwrite letters to decision makers and agency staff abouttheir experiences during their project, and how impor-tant continued conservation of our public lands is tothem. They also comment on specific managementplans, providing input that can be entered into the pub-lic record and considered during key decision points.Sky Island maintains relationships with volunteers overtime, encouraging them to either praise decision makerswhen programs and policy align with conservation orhold them accountable when they do not.

The result of SIA’s efforts is an engaged citizenry insouthern Arizona that looks very different than in therest of the state. Congressional representation fromthe region is among the most conservation-oriented inthe country, and agencies managing both lands andwildlife in SIA’s landscapes work collaboratively withNGOs and citizens in the development of their plan-ning processes. Although there are many factors con-tributing to the social and political salience of conser-vation in any landscape, we see SIA’s grassrootsorganizing as a strong factor in Arizona and are com-mitted to supporting their capacity for the long term.

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You would not think of Benham andLynch, Ky., as likely hotbeds of politicalactivism. Lying in a small valley at the baseof Black Mountain – the highest peak inKentucky – these are historic coal miningtowns where over the years people from 34different countries have made their homesand worked the mines. The lingering effectsof the mine economy are felt in the soil ofthe region and its residents’ lungs.Determined to define a future beyond coal,Kentuckians for the Commonwealth (KFTC)organizes the communities of Benham andLynch to enforce existing mining laws andadvocate for stronger regulations. Led bygrassroots community leaders, KFTC also isdeveloping sustainable economic alternativesto mining and promoting renewable energysources, key to getting all residents of thejob-starved state on board with change. As aresult, the towns are revitalizing economical-ly and the residents now are engaged partici-pants in their democracy.

KFTC is a statewide membership organiza-tion with a 30-year history of advancing eco-nomic, social and environmental justice at thelocal, state and national levels. What does itsorganizing look like? KFTC has helped thou-sands of individuals and hundreds of commu-nities like Benham and Lynch learn their wayaround federal laws and administrativeprocesses. KFTC has held technical work-shops (on topics such as how to read miningmaps, get permits enforced and test watersamples), and trained people in basic organiz-ing skills (such as how to run meetings, speakin public and use nonviolent direct action).The organization has built alliances withgrassroots organizations in other coalfieldsfrom Montana to Wyoming, from WestVirginia to Virginia, and from Black Mesa,Ariz., to Colombia, South America.

Since 2008, the coal industry has investedmillions in local propaganda campaigns thathave heightened the level of fear and hostilitythroughout tight-knit rural communities suchas Benham and Lynch. Despite that, saysorganizing and leadership development direc-tor Lisa Abbott, “KFTC’s persistent and patientorganizing created the conditions for ordinary

people’s voices to be heard. While we are along way from launching an economic transi-tion in the mountains or ending destructivestrip mining, we’re closer than ever before.And it’s hard to imagine where we would bewere it not for the long-term efforts of grass-roots organizing of groups like KFTC.”

Heeten Kalan, senior program officer forthe Environmental Health and Justice Fund atthe New World Foundation, has been fundingKFTC for many years and encourages otherfunders to consider the strength in such multi-issue organizations. “Kentuckians for theCommonwealth is a multi-issue organizationworking with thousands of its members toconnect issues of criminal justice to jobs tothe environment to people’s livelihoods andcommunity resilience,” says Kalan. “Theymake the connections, their members makethe connections. Why can’t funders makethose connections and start funding outsideour narrow silos? We are going to need morethan just the traditional environmental organ-izations to get anywhere, and it is time forthe philanthropic community to look beyondtraditional environmental organizations.”

This is just one example of the work ofKFTC, and KFTC, in turn, is just one exampleof many grassroots organizations that harnessthe anger and frustration of environmentallydevastated residents and communities toachieve positive change. In organizations thatset their agendas and build power according tothe passions and needs of everyday people,community engagement is not an afterthoughtbut is built into the process. In this manner,organizations like KFTC mobilize thousandsupon thousands of people to win change at thelocal, state and national levels. There areorganizations like KFTC in every corner of theworld, and even more communities likeBenham and Lynch hungry for organizing.

Investing in and building existing grass-roots organizations is more efficient andeffective than “parachuting in” national con-sultants and organizations for short-termcampaigns. John Mitterholzer, program offi-cer at the George Gund Foundation in Ohio,talks about the growing coalition of grass-roots environmental organizations building

19


power in his state. Mitterholzer wishes that,when national environmental funders want toinvest in Ohio around election time or a par-ticular policy campaign, they would invest inexisting local groups rather than dropping inon national groups or specialists. “When youparachute people in, if they’re really good,they are good, but when they leave, the data-

base and the resources leave, too,” saysMitterholzer.54 Community groups can besupported to achieve the same goals forshort-term campaigns. Plus, investing ingrassroots organizing builds the community’scapacity to win not just around elections, butconsistently over time, potentially buildingtoward even more change in the future.

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In 2004, the William and Flora HewlettFoundation launched a California grantmakinginitiative called “New Constituencies for theEnvironment” (NCE).57 The foundation investedmore than $20 million over a seven-year periodto strengthen the environmental movement inCalifornia by expanding the range of groupsadvocating for clean air to include medical, faith-based and labor groups, as well as environmentaland health organizations that had evolved inminority communities. Hewlett had traditionallysupported larger NGOs focused on these issuesbut, because of concerns about slowing progressand in the face of a rapidly growing and diversepopulation, the foundation theorized that includ-ing a broader range of groups would ensure con-tinued high-level public support for balancinggrowth with a healthy environment.

The NCE grantmaking differed fromHewlett’s usual way of functioning in some keyways. For example, the Environment Programconducted more extensive than usual pre-grant-making outreach over several months to identifypotential grantees, assessing their organizationalcapacity and overlap with the program’s strate-gies. To be strategic, and informed by outreachfeedback, grantmaking was targeted to organi-zations focused on air pollution policy andrelated climate and energy issues.

Hewlett invested in strengthening the organi-zations in a number of key areas. Hewlettengaged communications consultants to workspecifically with small and medium-sizedorganizations, bolstering their communications

capacity and ability to interact with journalists,editorial boards, elected officials and other poli-cy leaders. Hewlett also realized that it neededto engage with ethnic media more intentionallyand made changes to its annual environmentpoll to include ethnic media briefings thatincluded some of the NCE grantees. The foun-dation invested significant funds into improvinginformation sharing and collaboration amongregional and state grantees. Hewlett often sup-plemented regular grants with “OrganizationalEffectiveness” grants, to allow leaders to chooseconsultants to help build some aspect of staffcapacity. This proved especially useful forsmaller groups. Most sought consulting to beefup their staff’s fundraising strategies and skills,pointing to a real need – the underfunding ofthese groups. This must be addressed to helpgenerate the pressure needed for solutions thatalign with the scope of the problems we face.

We ensured researcher consultations withgrantees before, during and after reports werecommissioned. This helped us build trust and fos-ter peer learning, as well as bolster our grantees’ability to interpret and use data. We leveragedHewlett’s convening power, giving granteesincreased opportunities to build deeper relation-ships with influential leaders, e.g., through meet-ings with the California Latino Legislative CaucusFoundation and the Black Chamber of CommerceFoundation. NCE grantees noted an increase inthe attention paid to air pollution issues fromminority leaders once they heard more directlyfrom the communities they served about the dis-

New Constituencies for the Environment: A Case Study by Danielle Deane, former program officer for the environment at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation56

Communities are ripe for engagement.Because environmental issues so deeplyaffect our daily lives, many people readilyengage in environmental activism whenissues are presented on their terms.Philanthropic activist Cathy Lerza describes acompelling example of this in her 2011report produced for the Funders Network on

Transforming the Global Economy, “A PerfectStorm: Lessons From The Defeat OfProposition 23.”55 There also is a valuableand poignant, nine-minute documentary onthe case, Where We Live: The Changing Faceof Climate Activism.

In 2006, the California State Legislaturepassed a groundbreaking law to restrict

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proportionate harms being suffered. In keepingwith Hewlett’s general grantmaking approach, westrove to provide as much multiyear and generaloperating support as possible.

This support, together of course with impor-tant contributions by other foundations andpartners, contributed to grantees’ advocacysuccesses. An example was California’s adop-tion of its landmark diesel truck rule a fewyears into the initiative: several members of theenvironmental community from differentcamps said it was the best collaboration theyhad seen across the different elements of theenvironmental community. More grassrootsgroups were strategically engaged and consult-ed, and this win was particularly impressive asit came during the economic downturn.California’s diesel truck standards are amongthe strongest in the nation. And at the nation’slargest gateway for receiving imports, the LosAngeles-Long Beach Port, air pollution fromtrucks is now 70 percent lower as the result ofa program the grantees helped to advocate for.In California’s most polluted region in theCentral Valley, better science and medicalexpertise must now be part of the clean airdecision, and many have commented that thepublic process has significantly more – andmore effective – participation than in the past.When some interest groups tried to weakenCalifornia’s landmark climate change efforts,the strengthened web of relationships to buildon to educate and organize played a valuablerole. Many foundations contributed to a wide

range of organizations on each of these issues,but independent feedback indicates that thefield has benefitted from Hewlett’s channelingmore funding into the NCE organizations.

Funding smaller organization is more time-intensive, particularly in the nascent stages, butthe effort to fund and grow the small and medi-um-sized organizations delivers. It is vital if wehope to make our air, water and land healthierfor everyone. Not every group we invested inworked out and some efforts died on the vine;some barriers of capacity, trust and leadershipcould not be overcome. This is not a story ofgiving to groups without high expectations, orgiving equally to all grantees out of a sense of“fairness.” But it is a narrative about patient,high-reward grantmaking where everyone,including the funder, learns. To keep us ontrack, we engaged savvy evaluators who werenot slaves to numbers but who make sure tohelp grantees quantify what is meaningful.Payoff is significant in some ways that are meas-urable and some that are not easy to quantify.58

Given the scale of our environmental prob-lems and the challenges of our political system,we need to scale up the resources for small andmedium-sized organizations that are doinggreat advocacy work. More systematic relation-ship building and information flows betweenlarge and small organizations is needed, and itmust be done with care, humility and high stan-dards. This is essential if we are to win the bat-tle to achieve growth that is healthy for busi-nesses, people and the environment.

greenhouse gas emissions in the state. Justfour years later, a group of Texas oil compa-nies used California’s ballot measureprocess to attempt to stop the implementa-tion of the law.

The oil companies backing the repealmeasure – called Proposition 23 – claimedthat clean energy programs would increaseunemployment and stifle the economy. Itwas a classic attempt to alienate lower-income communities and communities ofcolor from the environmental movement,suggesting that environmental regulationwas causing the high unemployment fromwhich its communities suffered, and thatmore regulations would make the problemworse. But environmental, economic andracial justice organizations in Californiajoined forces to create Communities UnitedAgainst the Dirty Energy Proposition to

organize in the lower-income communitiesof color most impacted by environmentalills and, thus, inform the debate and spreadopposition to the ballot measure.

Contrary to stereotypes of environmen-talism as a predominantly white, upperclass issue, lower-income communities andcommunities of color were activelyengaged in this fight. A broad set of multi-issue groups built a coalition of hundreds ofgrassroots organizations including business-es, unions, health care providers, publichealth organizations and faith basedgroups. For instance, the Asian PacificEnvironmental Network (APEN) built on its18-year history of organizing Asian commu-nities in California to mobilize votersagainst Proposition 23. Although earlypolling showed that only a quarter of Asian-Pacific American voters were likely to voteagainst the measure, APEN launched acomprehensive campaign to educate andinform its community using mail, media,and voter contact strategies. APEN haddirect conversations with more than 15,000voters of Chinese descent, the largest Asianethnic group in California and the U.S., pri-marily in their native languages ofMandarin or Cantonese and ultimatelyidentified more than 11,000 “no” votes onthe ballot measure. Not only did seven outof ten voters commit to voting “no” onProposition 23, the turnout of voters APENcontacted and identified was 8 percentmore than the statewide turnout rate of reg-istered voters. With minimal resources,APEN showed that Asian immigrant voterscare about environmental issues – and theyalso turn out to vote.

Overall, Communities United Against theDirty Energy Proposition, the anti-Proposition 23 coalition, had one-on-oneconversations with more than 250,000households across California, and organizedsix college events specifically designed tospeak to the community members theyneeded to reach. These events featuredprominent hip hop artists, and securedfavorable media coverage in ethnic newspa-pers and on ethnic radio stations. Grassroots

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Image courtesy of Asian Pacific Environmental Network (APEN).

groups talked about the measure not interms of air quality and carbon alone but inrelation to housing, jobs and quality of life –as multi-issue organizations, intuitivelyunderstanding the importance of framingenvironmental issues in ways that resonatewith communities on the ground. When thevotes were tallied, 73 percent of voters ofcolor opposed Proposition 23, while 57 per-cent of white voters voted against it. Notonly was organizing within communities ofcolor effective in and of itself, but it was thisorganizing that made the pivotal differencein winning the campaign and protectingclean energy standards statewide. AndCommunities United and on-the-groundgroups like APEN accomplished this withjust a small fraction of the overall resourcesof the entire No on 23 Campaign. Resourcesfor electoral campaigns, unfortunately, fol-low the same pattern as environmentalfunding when it comes to engaging lower-income communities and communities ofcolor. Yet, the work in California shows theeffectiveness of long-term investment inorganizing and electoral infrastructure incommunities of color.

Savvy community-based organizationsworking block-by-block in diverse neighbor-hoods were not only able to beat back mil-lions spent by big oil but perhaps, moreimportantly engage new, active constituen-cies supporting environmental change goingforward. As just one ongoing example,Communities for a Better Environment (CBE)mobilized to stop the city of Vernon in south-east Los Angeles County from building a 943-megawatt fossil fuel plant that would haveemitted 1.7 million tons of toxins annually, aswell as 2.5 million tons of greenhouse gases.The campaign against the plant was led pri-

marily by Latina immigrant women andLatino high school students, which could beindicative that organizing for environmentalrights in California’s communities of colorwill continue for generations. Moreover, thissuggests the power of underserved communi-ties to challenge power when the grassrootsare mobilized and well-resourced. APEN cre-ated the Asian Pacific American ClimateCoalition in 2010, trained more than 100diverse organizations on how climate changeimpacts health, housing, transit, jobs, andother community-level issues, and engagedthem in defeating Proposition 23.

APEN, CBE and other groups in Californiaare educating and activating people of colorin much larger numbers, not only winningkey campaigns in the present, but also mak-ing possible bigger, proactive wins in thefuture. The coalition opposed to Proposition23, for example, continues and has shifted itson-the-ground fight for clean energy and jobsat the local, regional and state levels.Additionally, both APEN and CBE – as part ofthe coalition California Environmental JusticeAlliance – were invited by Governor JerryBrown to participate in California’s renew-able energy task force, acknowledging theincreasing political power of the coalitionand its constituents.

The significance of this campaign victorycannot be overstated. Big energy and oilinterests pumped massive financial and polit-ical muscle into rolling back California’sclean energy standards, but were defeated bya band of scrappy but strategic grassrootsorganizations, mobilizing communities ofcolor and lower-income voters across thestate to defeat the well-healed special inter-ests. It is a resounding example of the powerof grassroots organizing.

Not only was organizing within communities of color effective in and of

itself, but it was this organizing that made the pivotal difference in winning the

campaign and protecting clean energy standards statewide [in California].

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Patagonia’s mission is to “build the best prod-uct, cause no unnecessary harm and use busi-ness to inspire and implement solutions to theenvironmental crisis.” An active, informed citi-zenry is our best chance for positive change.Therefore, we support grassroots environmen-tal groups – people working together to pro-tect land, air, water and wildlife.

Our environmental grants program fundsprimarily grassroots groups sometimes over-looked by other funders because of theirsmall size or edgy, activist approach. Wehave seen evidence that such groups areeffective and we recognize the power ofengaged citizens taking radical and strategicsteps to protect habitat, wilderness and biodi-versity. We’re talking about regular peoplewho just want the government to live up toits obligation to protect our air, water andother natural resources: mothers fighting toclean up toxic dumpsites, neighbors workingtogether to stem urban sprawl. These are thepeople on the front lines, trying to make gov-ernment either obey its own laws or recog-nize the need for a new law.

For example, in 2010, 70 Patagoniaemployees traveled to Louisiana to helpactivists uncover the social, economic andhealth impacts of the Gulf oil spill on affect-ed communities. Patagonia hadn’t budgetedfor the unforeseen disaster, but we found$300,000 in additional grant money to helpwith recovery. Two-thirds of it went to emer-gency funding divided among the LouisianaBucket Brigade, SkyTruth, Southwings, GulfRestoration Network and Gulf Coast Fund,among others. Approximately $30,000 wenttoward turning every $100 in employeedonations into $300. And the remaining$70,000 paid for seven groups of 10Patagonia employee volunteers to spend a

week in the Gulf working in seven differentcommunities. Because of our in-depth rela-tionship built over time with groups on theground, we were able to get involved beyondjust giving money – we were able to respondright away and deepen the experience.

The first group of employees arrived inLouisiana amid a July 2010 swelter to workwith the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, an envi-ronmental health and justice group based inNew Orleans. Our employees walked door-to-door in communities across southeasternLouisiana’s coastal parishes surveying resi-dents about the public health, cultural andfinancial impacts they’d felt from the spill. Inother words, we didn’t just offer money togroups to get other people involved – we gotinvolved ourselves.

“I’d never done anything like this before,”Naomi Helbling, an employee from ourSeattle store, wrote upon her return from fivedays in Empire, La. “The feeling was inde-scribable as I walked down a long, exposeddriveway to the door of a complete strangerto ask, ‘How has your family’s health andlivelihood been impacted by the world’slargest oil spill?’” We helped the BucketBrigade and helped explain communityorganizing throughout our own company.

The Bucket Brigade took the informationwe collected in our 954 surveys and com-bined it with eyewitness reports from Gulfresidents about odors, tar balls, mysteriouscoughs and other impacts. With it, the groupcreated a web-based Oil Spill Crisis Map(www.oilspill.labucketbrigade.org) that visu-alizes the effects of the spill. The map pro-vides important information for use byNGOs, government agencies, state and localwildlife agencies and the public, and shouldprove invaluable in documenting impacts.

A Case Study on Funding Grassroots Organizing by Lisa Pike Sheehy, Director of Environmental Initiatives, Patagonia, Inc.

We can win the future.In Kentucky, California and elsewhere, envi-ronmental degradation is increasing and thenumber of people who desire environmentalchange is on the rise. While funders continueto underinvest in organizing, the potential forsuch robust organizing grows.

The next generation of leaders, in particu-lar, acutely feels the sting of environmentaldegradation and is already engaging in thefight for change. At the 2011 gathering ofPowershift, a youth-led conference put on bythe youth-led organization, Energy ActionCoalition, there were more than 10,000 par-ticipants – making it one of the largestactivist gatherings of the year. In the 2008elections, young people made their presencefelt as a pivotal voting block in the presiden-tial election. In politics and activism in gen-eral, young people are “an increasingly pow-erful force that political elites are activelycourting,” noted a 2009 article in TheEcologist.59

The New Organizing Institute (NOI) notesthat younger people between the ages of 18and 29 comprise nearly one-third (29 per-cent) of the “Emerging Majority,” made up ofLatino, African American, Native Americanand other communities of color. In contrast,youth make up only 16 percent of the rest ofthe population. Nearly two-thirds (or 59 per-cent) of all U.S. citizens in this age group area part of this “emerging majority.”60

This also is a worldwide phenomenon. In2008, 12-year-old Alec Loorz founded KidsVersus Global Warming, which organizesyouth marches worldwide to support environ-mental change. Recently, Kids Versus GlobalWarming has held 170 events in more than40 countries – from Nigeria to Indonesia.One march was even organized by the son ofan oil executive in Kuwait.61 “Young peopleare some of the most creative and dedicatedactivists now,” says Loorz. “We have avoice.”62

One young leader at the Powershift con-ference remarked not only on the growth ofyouth activists but also on their strategies.Young people, said Courtney Hight, execu-

tive director of the Energy Action Coalition,are frustrated with the lack of progress onenvironment issues at the federal level, andbelieve that they must demonstrate a publiccommitment to real change on climate poli-cy, which is “why we’re so focused on move-ment building.”63

The Gulf Coast Fund provided funds torent buses and organize a delegation of morethan 200 students from Historically BlackColleges and Universities (HBCUs) in theGulf South to attend Powershift. Dr. BeverlyWright at the Deep South Center forEnvironmental Justice leveraged funders tosupport a delegation of students and facultyadvisors from HBCUs to the UN ClimateChange Conference in Durban, South Africa,as well as to the last Conference of theParties (COP) summit. Not only are these stu-dents from areas acutely vulnerable to cli-mate change and environmental degradation(as Hurricane Katrina, the BP oil spill andcountless other examples attest), more impor-tantly, they are hugely invested in creating aclean, sustainable future.

Our nation is becoming increasingly racial-ly and ethnically diverse. By 2042, Censusdata estimate that “minorities” will becomethe majority in the United States.64 New immi-grants may come from countries with robusthistories of social change movements that,combined with the increasing racial diversityof America’s communities, provide an oppor-tunity to diversify the ethnic composition ofthe environmental movement.

Unlike many of the professional advocatesin Washington, D.C., people of color, immi-grants, poor people and young people oftenare living face to face with the devastatingimpacts of environmental degradation. Pollssuggest that this rising community of voters –unmarried women, African Americans,Latinos and young people in particular – sup-port green jobs proposals and environmentaljustice laws at significantly higher rates thanother constituencies.65 These growing com-munities have the self-interest to do some-thing and, increasingly, the collective powerto potentially make real change but may lackthe support or resources to organize.

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C. NATURE FAVORS DIVERSE STRATEGIES

The human race is challenged more thanever before to demonstrate our mastery –not over nature but of ourselves.

—Rachel Carson, Silent Spring

“People need many things from the forest.”That is the mantra of Hari Prasad Neupane, agrassroots leader with a network of communi-ty forestry organizations that dot the land-

scape of Nepal. The Federation of CommunityForest Users of Nepal (FECOFUN) helps com-munities sustainably harvest trees and equi-tably distribute the proceeds from logging tobenefit Nepal’s most impoverished residents.

In 1992, the government passed a lawtransferring ownership of forests from the stateto the people of Nepal. The people then leasethe forests back to corporations or the govern-ment, and, through participatory processesdesigned by FECOFUN, hold the companiesand state accountable. Just as forests are inter-

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When Shagire, a traditional indigenouselder and an experienced farmer from theGamo region of Southern Ethiopia speaksabout climate change at international confer-ences and global meetings, everyone listens.A hush falls on scientists and advocacygroups alike as Shagire speaks the unadornedtruth, disarming in his honesty and humilityand steeped in a deep knowledge of a land-scape and a set of relationships that bindpeople and the land together. Shagire worriesabout the changing nature of the wind, thefickle and fluctuating rains, the variations intemperature. He says the crops are confusedand that it is his fault! At this point the audi-ence usually turns dead silent.

Shagire explains that he is no longer payingthe kind of close attention to his community, tothe signals of the plants and to the ceremoniesand celebrations that have marked the agricul-tural calendar with meaning and vitality. Thisreflects the larger breakdown in the relationshipbetween humans, and between humans andnonhumans, the land and natural processes.Shagire’s statements are more powerful becausethey possess an immediacy and a directnessthat is lost in abstruse scientific treatises, andthe haughty wordplay of global declarations.

Shagire’s sentiments are disturbing because theydo not attempt to simply pass the blame to oth-ers, and in this wise self-assessment, are evenmore effective in making others turn inwardand examine their motives, behavior, footprint.Shagire’s talks are so strong because they comefrom a real intimacy with the crop and plantvarieties, the birds and animals, the water andthe rituals in the place he comes from.

At The Christensen Fund, we believe thatvoices like Shagire’s and the millions of indige-nous peoples and local communities that stillpractice and transfer traditional knowledge andare dynamically adapting this knowledge on adaily basis are absolutely critical components ofan environmentally sensible future for the plan-et. We know that the distribution of biologicaldiversity closely matches the distribution of lan-guages and cultural diversity – and that com-plex biocultural landscapes that combinehumans and nonhuman systems maintain vitalecological processes. “Living in our territoriesand practicing traditional knowledge allows usto achieve what scientists call resilience to cli-mate change,” says Alejandro Argumedo, coor-dinator of the Indigenous Peoples’ BioculturalClimate Change Assessment (IPCCA), an inter-national initiative that works with indigenous

A Case Study: Listening and Learning with the People of the Land by Jeffrey Y. Campbell, Director of Grantmaking at the Christensen Fund

connected ecosystems of water, soil, plantsand animals, FECOFUN represents a socioe-conomic ecosystem. It keeps the profit-mak-ing needs of business in balance with thewell-being of local communities and thelong-term health of the forests. FECOFUN hasgrown into a formidable social movementrepresenting almost one-third of Nepal’s com-munities. Jeff Campbell, Director ofGrantmaking at the Christensen Fund in SanFrancisco and one of FECOFUN’s first leadingfunders, says the organization echoes other

integrated models in which environmentalactivism is inseparable from economic devel-opment and democratic participation. Just asthe whole community is involved in theprocess of change, the whole community ischanged in the process. And as the FECOFUNleader Neupane contends, they could notchange the fate of Nepal’s forests withoutchanging the fate of Nepal’s communities.

Scientists call this inextricable link amongpeople, culture and nature “biocultural diver-sity.”66 Nature isn’t separate from human

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communities to amass the native knowledge onconditions and trends in the critical ecosystemsin which they live. Alejandro was at symposiumat the Smithsonian’s National Museum of theAmerican Indian in Washington, D.C. as part ofan exhibition of participatory video and photog-raphy there on Indigenous Voices, put on byChristensen grantees – Conversations With theEarth. The Christensen Fund, in collaborationwith The Ford Foundation and the UNDP SmallGrants Program of the Global EnvironmentalFund are supporting Alejandro to coordinate anetwork of indigenous people assessments.Through separate funding to the United NationsUniversity – Traditional Knowledge Institute, weare able to ensure that traditional knowledge isfed into the Intergovernmental Panel on ClimateChange, whose lead authors are very keen tocombine such grounded assessment with theirmore scientific research-based data.

So, our grantmaking works to ensure thatthe international discourse on climate changemitigation and adaptation includes the needs,wishes, knowledge and advice of Indigenous

peoples and local communities. Through ourGlobal Program, we are supporting thedevelopment of practical tools rooted inIndigenous knowledge and wisdom to assessthe impacts of climate change on local com-munities and landscapes; and we supportIndigenous participation and representationin climate change fora in our regions andaround the world. This helps ensure that thevoices of people like Shagire and of indige-nous peoples and local communities who arenormally marginalized and undervalued arerecognized as being a key part of the solu-tion. Sarah James, an elder of the Gwich’inpeople in Alaska, offered an optimistic visionof the future in a quote included in theexhibit at the Smithsonian. “There is a solu-tion,” she says. “It’s not the end of the worldyet. One thing we have to do is gain backrespect of the animals, for all nature. We prayand give thanks for everything we use. But ifit’s going to work, it has to be both Westernand traditional. We have to meet halfway –and we need to find balance.”

Through our Global Program, we are supporting the development of practical tools

rooted in Indigenous knowledge and wisdom to assess the impacts of climate change

on local communities and landscapes; and we support Indigenous participation and

representation in climate change fora in our regions and around the world.

—Jeffrey Y. Campbell, Director of Grantmaking at the Christensen Fund

experience and culture – and human beingsare a part of nature. Many international con-ventions, agreements and reports, such as theMillennium Ecosystem Assessment or theUnited Nations Forum on Forests, have madeexplicit reference to “cultural drivers whendealing with biological diversity and viceversa.”67 Those charged with safeguardingboth people and nature fully recognize theimpossibility of protecting just one or theother. According to the United NationsEducational, Scientific and CulturalOrganization (UNESCO), the “sustainabilityand resilience” of human and environmentalconservation depends on the maintenance oftheir interconnectedness.”68

Strategic environmental funding translatesthe principle of biocultural diversity to advo-cacy, recognizing the inherent benefits ofdiverse and interconnected approaches towinning change – specifically, grassrootsorganizing alongside top-down advocacy, liti-gation alongside public education andengagement. Social change relies on theinterconnectedness of multiple levels ofinstitutions and leaders, including a robustgrassroots infrastructure. To have an impact,environmental philanthropy must be just asinterconnected.

Global Greengrants Fund supports work atthe nexus of environmental change andhuman rights, recognizing that peoplearound the globe see their land, water andlivelihoods as connected to one another.Greengrants directs small grants support tolocally led groups in developing countries,primarily in Africa, Asia, Latin America andEastern Europe. Their grantees are tacklingcomplex issues related to climate change,

biodiversity, energy, extractive industries,food and agriculture, water supplies and therights of women and indigenous peoples –approaching multifaceted problems withmulti-issue organizing.

Since 1993, Global Greengrants Fund hasawarded more than 6,600 grants in 141countries, totaling more than $33 million.The majority of these grants were between$500 and $5,000, demonstrating that even asmall infusion of support goes a long way tofight environmental degradation and socialinjustice. Imagine the impact of even largergrants over the long term.

Consider Cabo Pulmo, Mexico, a smallcoastal area on the Gulf of California. In the1990s, its waters had been overfished andreefs destroyed by commercial fishing opera-tions. The future of the marine ecosystem andthe local economy was left in the hands ofthe community. With their sustenance, liveli-hoods and environment at stake, local lead-ers decided to protect the area from destruc-tive fishing practices to restore it to a func-tional and productive ecosystem. Grassrootsgroups supported by Greengrants and otherfunders campaigned to turn Cabo Pulmo intoa “no-take zone,” which would limit humandisturbance to the reefs. Through organizing,the community won a 71 square kilometerprotected national park declaration fromMexico’s federal government.

Today, the park is teeming with life; the total number of fish in the area hasincreased by more than 460 percent – alevel similar to remote pristine coral reefsthat have never been fished. The reservealso provides economic benefits throughsuccessful ecotourism ventures, a valuablesource of income for local communities. Allof this success has occurred because of thedetermination of a community of coastal vil-lagers – truly grassroots environmental pro-tection at its greatest.

Interestingly, international funders likeGreengrants often intuitively appreciate thevalue of addressing human and social needsin tandem with environmental goals.Around the globe there are cultures and lan-guages that do not have the words to sepa-

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We need to apply the global

principal of interconnected

biodiversity to our environmental

change strategies everywhere.

rate “environment” from “people.” At arecent funder gathering, one philanthropistobserved, “When we work internationally, itseems somehow more natural to us to bethinking hard about how local peoples needto be carefully engaged.” These fundersreadily admit the cultures in which they areworking are foreign to them and quickly seethe need for indigenous, grassroots leader-ship. And yet, the funder noted, “We don’tnecessarily apply that same lesson whenwe’re working in our own backyards.”69 Weneed to apply the global principle of inter-connected biodiversity to our environmentalchange strategies everywhere.

Diverse strategies demand diverse leadership.Diversity is our destiny, ecologically as well asculturally. By 2042, a majority of Americanswill be people of color.70 In fact, nearly half ofall children in the United States today areblack, Latino or Asian American.71 The com-ing demographic shift in America shouldencourage us to look more quickly at diversify-ing our strategies, leaders and audience. Onefacet of this demographic change includesimmigrants from all over the world who comefrom cultures where people are conceptuallyinseparable from the environment. The demo-graphic shift includes the rising influence ofyoung people, many of whom have grown upsurrounded by environmental consciousness.These are the voters of our future. This is a cul-tural shift. Environmental advocates and fun-ders need to understand and organize thesecommunities or risk being left behind.

This is a clear matter of strategy. As refer-enced above in the Proposition 23 example,poll after poll indicates that African

Americans, Latinos and Asian Americans arestrongly in favor of robust government actionto protect the environment and communityhealth.72 Communities of color often are situ-ated in those areas of the country whereenvironmental problems are worst. They areoverwhelmingly working class, and moreinclined to understand the link between theenvironment and jobs. And communities ofcolor are concentrated in key political geog-raphies, specifically the South and Southwestas well as the destitute Rust Belt. In additionto all of this, communities of color arebecoming even more important as theybecome a demographic majority in America.In this context, arguably, any push for envi-ronmental change that fails to prioritizecommunities of color is a losing strategy.

Despite future population projections andthe fact that, as shown above, environmentalactivism touches all communities includingcommunities of color, national environmentalgroups are mostly led by white, affluent indi-viduals. Jerome Ringo, former head of theenvironmental Apollo Alliance, reveals he is“often the only environmentalist in the roomwho is not white.”73 As Angela Park stressedin the Environmental Support Center’s 2009report, Everybody s Movement: “Like otherpockets of environmental and conservationmovements, climate change still suffers fromthe perception, and arguably the reality, thatit is a movement led by and designed for theinterests of the white, upper-middle class.”74

This observation does not negate theextraordinary and invaluable work of whiteenvironmental leaders past and present. Butit does demonstrate that we need to lift upand value diverse leadership and the diversityof ideas and strategies that are brought to the

“Like other pockets of environmental and conservation movements, climate change

still suffers from the perception, and arguably the reality, that it is a movement led by

and designed for the interests of the white, upper-middle class.”

—Angela Park, Everybody’s Movement

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table. There is a moral argument for diversity,but also a strategic one – based on the obser-vation that, especially going forward, envi-ronmental advocacy cannot succeed if itsleadership does not reflect the communities itseeks to mobilize and benefit:• In a study of 158 environmental institu-

tions, the Minority EnvironmentalLeadership Development Initiative foundthat 33 percent of mainstream environ-mental organizations and 22 percent ofgovernment agencies had no people ofcolor on staff.

• Another study found that people of colormake up only 11 percent of the staff and 9percent of the boards of organizations thatare members of the Natural ResourcesCouncil of America.75

A winning strategy for change must prioritizefunding for groups led by and representative ofcommunities of color. Yet, these groups alsomust connect with and rally other sectors ofsociety – including white communities, espe-cially the white working class. In movementsthroughout history, the core of leadershipcame from a nucleus of directly affected oroppressed communities while also engaging amuch broader range of justice-seeking sup-porters. To build mass pressure for change, theenvironmental movement must not seek toimpose its agenda on communities from thetop down but, rather, its agenda and powermust emanate from communities themselves,communities providing both the inspirationand the energy in the push for change.

Pursuing diversity entails more than racialdiversification; it includes exposing narrowerswaths of the environmental movement to abroader agenda shaped by gender, class andother ways that individuals identify them-selves. Julian Agyeman, chairman of theDepartment of Urban and EnvironmentalPolicy and Planning at Tufts University, saysthat in the absence of diverse leadership,social concerns are not “on the radar” ofmany large environmental organizations.76

Until the broader concerns – and leadership– of all communities are on the radar of envi-ronmentalists, it will be hard for environmen-

talists to be on the radar of all communities.Unfortunately, even while our country as a

whole is becoming more diverse, most of ourbackyards are increasingly segregated andisolated, both in the racial and economicmakeup of our neighbors and the variety ofplants and grasses that grows in our yards. Asthe principle of biological diversity illumi-nates, environmental funders must subvertcreeping monoculture strategies and supporta diversity of voices and approaches toachieve environmental change. The environ-mental movement is based on science andthe study of complex systems. It is time forour funding to reflect this as well.

As the example of FECOFUN shows, ourstrategies must include grassroots organizingin a wide range of communities, especiallythose most affected by environmental ills.Organizing is a direct route to authentic,expansive community engagement. Andespecially when considering the hard num-bers of shifting demographics and the factthat we need an activist plurality to win, it ishard to make a logical case for not pursuingdiversity in our strategies and leadership.

Targeted funding, universal impactThe impulse to pursue universal policies andsolutions is almost automatic in a democraticsociety. Presented with a problem such asenvironmental degradation that so clearlyhurts us all, it is logical to pursue a solutionwith the same far-reaching profile. Yet, asfunders, we have limited resources.Evidence-backed theories suggest that thebest way to reach universal goals may bethrough strategically focused means. As KoluZigbi, program officer for sustainable agricul-ture and food systems at the Jessie SmithNoyes Foundation argues, empowering thosewho remain at the margins results in broadbenefits for all in the long term.

According to Professor john a. powell, aninternationally-recognized authority onissues of civil rights, liberties, race anddemocracy, the notion of “targeted universal-ism” supports “the needs of the particularwhile reminding us we are all part of thesame social fabric.”77 Targeted universalism

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recognizes that while broken economic,social and political systems harm everyone,racial disparities are particularly magnifiedwithin such broken systems. All people suf-fer from under-regulation that permits corpo-rate pollution, but because poor communi-ties of color are disproportionately likely tolive near industrial sites, they disproportion-ately suffer. According to powell, not onlyare communities of color and poor whitepeople the metaphorical canaries in thecoalmine, their suffering a warning sign foreveryone else, but by trying to resolve thespecific manifestations of injustice in thesecommunities (i.e. “targeting”) also improvesthe system for everyone (“universalism”).

An example from Los Angeles illustratesthe efficacy of targeted universalism in grant-making. Los Angeles, Calif., has a tremendousproblem with smog and pollution and thecity’s communities of color suffer the most.According to studies, African Americans andLatinos in Los Angeles are three times morelikely than whites to live close to hazardousfacilities.78 The community-based Liberty HillFoundation granted funds to the Los AngelesAlliance for a New Economy (LAANE) toorganize community residents, churches andunionized workers around the Port of LosAngeles to create a Clean Trucks Program. Theunprecedented effort to retrofit diesel truckswith clean-burning engines not only providedgreater economic security for more than10,000 truck drivers and reduced emissions inthe poor neighborhoods immediately sur-rounding the ports, but the new standardsreduced pollution for the city as a whole.According to the Port of Los Angeles, carcino-genic diesel emissions have been reduced bya whopping 70 percent from 2007 levels.79

The Los Angeles Clean Trucks Program is serv-ing as a model for other Port cities around thecountry, even while it contends with a legalchallenge from the powerful trucking industry.In this way, targeting a particularly impactedsub-community had the systemic and strategiceffect of improving outcomes for the entireregion. Not only are communities of color theemerging leaders of the future, but they arethe ones suffering most today.

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Given the immense challenges facing ourenvironment and the many obstacles toachieving positive change, the imperativequestion is: How can we afford not to trysomething different? Clearly, grassrootsorganizing has been essential to winning pol-icy changes past and present. It’s time weinvest in this winning strategy – and build awinning, inclusive movement for change.

We invite you and your philanthropy toplay a bold leadership role commensurate withthe scale of the environmental problems weface. If you do not fund grassroots organizing,now is the time to start. If you already fundgrassroots, fund it even more. In addition to theideas in this report, the staff of the NationalCommittee for Responsive Philanthropy(NCRP), the advisory committee members ofthis report, as well as many resources dis-cussed below are available to help you. Beloware four concrete recommendations interwov-

en with examples of environmental fundersthat have successfully backed socially inclusivegrassroots organizing efforts.

1) PROVIDE AT LEAST 20 PERCENT OFGRANT DOLLARS TO BENEFIT EXPLICITLYCOMMUNITIES OF THE FUTUREAs recommended in NCRP’s Criteria forPhilanthropy at Its Best, consider identifyingexplicitly the intended beneficiaries of yourphilanthropy. For those of you who work atfoundations where reaching the 50 percentlevel of giving to underserved communitiesmight be difficult, we suggest an alternatelevel of at least 20 percent of grant dollarsbeing allocated in this way. Our philanthrop-ic resources are limited relative to the prob-lems we seek to ameliorate. Prioritizing fund-ing for lower-income communities and com-munities of color is not only strategic given

III. Funding the Grassroots to Win

When lower-income communities and com-munities of color are disproportionatelyimpacted by pollution and environmentaldamage, intentionally directing funds to thesecommunities and tracking such grantmakingover time ensures that the gains that intendedto benefit everyone actually reach everyone.

NCRP’s Criteria for Philanthropy at Its Bestrecommends that foundations provide at least50 percent of their grant dollars to benefit peo-ple from marginalized communities. For foun-dations whose specific missions make this goaldifficult, NCRP suggests an alternate benchmark– that 20 percent of grant dollars be directed tobenefit marginalized communities.

Of the 701 foundations in our recentsample, only 82 grantmakers (12 percent)directed at least 20 percent of their environ-mental funding to benefit marginalized com-munities.

Environmental Funders Giving to MarginalizedCommunities

Source: National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, analysis of custom Foundation Center datasets, 2011.

Environmental FundersGiving 20 Percent or More to MarginalizedCommunities

12%

that these communities are becoming themajority and support environmental change,but also because change that targets the mostimpacted populations has a positive multipli-er effect for society as a whole.

Funding that purports to be “universal” toooften fails to acknowledge that different peo-ple and communities are differently situatedin relationship to environmental injustice.“For racially marginalized populations, partic-ularly those who live in concentrated-povertyneighborhoods” writes Professor john a. pow-ell, “there are multiple reinforcing con-straints.”80 These constraints include environ-mental and climate harms, not just race, gen-der, class or other ways that people identifythemselves. Put differently, acknowledgingthat, location, marital status and other factorswork together to keep certain communitiesfrom equality of opportunity places an obliga-tion on grantmakers to use more intentionalityin ensuring that these groups benefit fromyour philanthropy, particularly when thesecommunities are impacted disproportionatelyby environment and climate injustice.

In this context, scholars like john a. powelland Theda Skocpol propose “targeted univer-salism” – recognizing that if we can addressinjustices in the most marginalized communi-ties, those solutions will apply to and benefitall communities. According to powell,“Targeted universalism recognizes that life islived in a web of opportunity” and looks forhigh-impact levers to reimagine and reshapethe entire web. The concept, backed by pow-ell and Skocpol’s research, is that the benefitsof interventions do not always trickle down toeveryone, but if grantmaking can improve thesituations of marginalized communities mostaffected by environmental harms, the benefitswill ripple to all communities.

2) INVEST AT LEAST 25 PERCENT OFGRANT DOLLARS IN GRASSROOTSADVOCACY, ORGANIZING AND CIVICENGAGEMENT Make a large investment in organizing –whatever large means for your philanthropy,in whatever issue area or region you work.

We recommend that you allocate at least 25percent of your grant dollars for social justicepurposes, specifically with a focus on grass-roots advocacy, organizing and civic engage-ment led by the communities most affectedby environmental ills and climate change.We need to win a majority of public opinionand mobilize mass numbers of Americans.We need to value and lift up leadership fromevery corner of our broad-based movement.

There is no single metric or amount ofgrant dollars that is appropriate for everygrantmaker. The point of using the figuresattached to these two benchmarks is to pro-vide a consistent, intentional framework toadd to your grantmaking strategy and toinject additional rigor to the discussions youhave at your institution. Some of you mayalready provide the levels of support for thiswork, in which case we challenge you toconsider doing more. Each foundation willneed to identify the appropriate levels of sup-port based on mission and vision. We offer

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Source: National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy,analysis of custom FoundationCenter datasets, 2011.

Environmental Funders Givingto Social Justice

NCRP recommends that funders provide at least 25percent of grant dollars for advocacy, communityorganizing and civic engagement to promote equity,opportunity and justice in our society.81 Our samplerevealed that only 28 funders (4 percent) of environ-mental funders gave 25 percent or more of theirenvironmental grant dollars to social justice.

Environmental FundersGiving 25 Percent or More to Social Justice

4%

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these metrics as guides to improve currentgrantmaking practice, and to address the cur-rent and long-standing imbalance that existsin prioritizing national agencies over localcommunity organizations.

The way to build a broad movementaround environment and climate solutions isto mobilize diverse communities of peoplearound issues that are much closer to theirself-interest (such as stopping toxic pollution,creating viable new jobs and reducing energybills) and then work intentionally to connectthose individuals and campaigns to a largerunderstanding of communal and global inter-ests. Grassroots groups need resources to beable to engage effectively at all levels (local,state, national and international). It is not thecase that we need to invest in grassrootsorganizing with one pot of money and inunrelated top-down advocacy campaigns withanother. We have to provide specificresources to grassroots groups so that theycan link together and collaborate with region-al and national groups, and bring their vision,voices, policy ideas, strategy and power to thenational political arena.82 This means buildingknowledge at multiple levels simultaneouslyand also understanding issues of scale at eachlevel to inform possible policy solutionsinformed by the values of the communitiesyour philanthropy seeks to benefit.

Learning from ExperienceConsider learning from the strategies of veter-an funders in this arena. For instance, theSolidago Foundation was founded in 1955 toinvest in long-term, systemic social change.Solidago developed a “theory of change” thatarticulates their approach to funding organiz-ing. Among its many insights, Solidago’smodel points to key questions to ask whenchoosing a grassroots organization to fund,including:• Does the organization frame its work

around movement building and achievinga long-term vision beyond current politi-cal constraints?

• Does the organization have an apprecia-tion of local, state, national and evenglobal political arenas and how they

impact each other?• Does the organization have an analysis of

how its work targets the root causes of theenvironmental crisis, inequality and injus-tice?

• Does the organization connect with otherorganizations to build a larger force forchange?

• Does the organization build the leadershipof local community members?

• Does the organization design and run leg-islative or electoral campaigns that suc-ceed?83

Of course, Solidago developed insights likethese after decades of funding communityorganizing. It is helpful both for evaluatingestablished community organizing groups orsetting goals for emerging start-ups.

3) BUILD SUPPORTIVE INFRASTRUCTURE Grassroots groups need resources to developand make more use of their innate assetssuch as roots in and knowledge of local com-munities, representation of and influencewithin demographic communities that arebecoming the majority and desire to staywith issues from legislation to implementa-tion and enforcement. Grassroots groupsneed support to work with other groups thatprovide additional technical expertise like theAlliance for Justice, or groups that provideresearch and science like the Institute forEnergy and Environment Research, GlobalAlliance for Incinerator Alternatives, andGlobal Community Monitor. Grassrootsgroups need support for more community-based participatory research projects bringingacademics into helping communities getinformation they need for policy work, andfor other capacity-building like leadershipdevelopment, technology assistance or com-munications strategy (such as the Institute forConservation Leadership, SmartMeme andthe Progressive Technology Project).84

There are several networks of community-based environmental organizations, as wellas organizations that join environmentalistsin partnership with allied groups from other

fields like labor or faith-based organizations.These types of member groups may be goodfits for your funding – networks likePartnership for Working Families, theNational Religious Partnership for theEnvironment, the Rural Voices forConservation Coalition, the Blue GreenAlliance, Grassroots Global Justice or theIndigenous Environmental Network.

Being a funder can be a lonely, isolatingexperience, and funder networks, such asthe Environmental Grantmakers Association(EGA), can provide both the inspiration andlearning environment with peers that bringsyour philanthropic practice to a deeper level- both for the communities and organiza-tions funded and for the grantmaker herself.At the same time, engaging in a fundercommunity will allow you to contribute to amore accountable and transformative sector.Additional vibrant examples include:

• The Health and Environment FundersNetwork (HEFN) – Committed to grant-making at the nexus of environment andhealth, HEFN supports an increasinglypowerful movement towards healthierpeople, ecosystems and communities. Itprovides information and updates for itsmembers, organizes funder events,engages in outreach to philanthropy andenables funders to collaborate aroundshared ideas and projects. HEFN has aworking group on “environmental healthand environmental justice” as well as aworking group on “women’s environmen-tal health.”

• The Funders Network on Transforming theGlobal Economy (FNTG) – An alliance ofgrantmakers, FNTG is committed to build-ing just and sustainable communitiesaround the world. It provides a space forcollaboration across issues and fundingstrategies among domestic and internation-al grantmakers who recognize the globaland systemic nature of our current socialand environmental challenges. FNTG is fordomestic and international funders whounderstand their work within a global con-text and recognize the impacts internation-

al policies and processes can have ongrantmaking at all levels.

• The Funders’ Collaborative on YouthOrganizing (FCYO) – FCYO supports thefield of youth organizing by increasing thephilanthropic investment in and strength-ening of the organizing capacities of youthorganizing groups across the U.S. It runs agrantmaking initiative that supports grass-roots and youth-led efforts to championenvironmental justice.

• The Working Group on Philanthropy forSocial Justice and Peace – Founded toincrease the effectiveness of grantmakingfor social justice and peace, it developsbest practices, shifts the narrative in phi-lanthropy to one that places social justiceand peace at its core, and creates andsupports a community of practice.

In addition, throughout the United Statesthere are several community-based publicfoundations that are led by grassrootsorganizers in partnership with grantmakersand private activist donors. In this model,the community groups work with funders toallocate resources, ensuring that grantmak-ing is seen as strategic to all partiesinvolved. Moreover, community-based pub-lic foundations such as the Liberty HillFoundation (Los Angeles, Calif.), North StarFund (New York, N.Y.), the NorthernCalifornia Environmental Grassroots Fund(Oakland, Calif.), the New EnglandGrassroots Environmental Fund andHeadwaters Foundation for Justice(Minneapolis, Minn.) are excellent traininggrounds for those new to funding grassrootsorganizing in a given community. Often,community-based public foundations canhost site visits to introduce funders to thedepth and breadth of organizing work in acity or region. These intermediaries alsocan be invaluable regranting partners forlarge foundations or donors that want tosupport small organizations but cannotmake dozens or hundreds of small grantson their own because of programmatic con-straints or lack of in-house expertise arounda particular issue or region.

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A valuable example of this type of invest-ment is the Gulf Coast Fund for CommunityRenewal and Ecological Health, a specialproject of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors.In 2005, motivated by the environmentaldestruction and multiple injustices laid bareby Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, members ofthe Health and Environmental FundersNetwork (HEFN) and EGA started the GulfCoast Fund. The goal was to create a partner-ship between national philanthropic institu-tions and local grassroots leadership to pro-vide grantmakers with a vehicle to invest in ameaningful way in rebuilding the region in amanner that focused on empowering com-munities, just and sustainable rebuilding, andaddressing the underlying causes that led tothe severity of the disasters.

Working in Louisiana, Mississippi,Alabama, Texas and Florida, the Gulf CoastFund has granted in excess of $4 million tomore than 250 grassroots organizationsworking on a broad spectrum of environ-mental and social justice issues. The GulfCoast Fund, by providing an effective vehiclefor investment, has successfully leveragednew resources for grassroots organizing inthe region. Much of the fund’s support hascome from national environmental funderswho, without the Gulf Coast Fund, mighthave made less strategic investments in theregion or simply not made grants there at all.

The Gulf Coast Fund utilizes the expert-ise of grassroots leaders, supports small,local organizations, empowers local com-munities, and, in addition to making grants,invests in relationships, networks and move-ment building. Because of this, the GulfCoast Fund has been able to make a signifi-cantly positive impact with relatively fewresources, and has been pointed to by manyas one of the most effective philanthropicefforts in a region that is chronically under-supported by philanthropy. The Gulf CoastFund is just one of the many public socialjustice foundations across the country, alongwith the other effective institutions men-tioned above, all of which are a part of alarger web of organizations that support andsustain community organizing.

In other words, even if you cannot orwill not fund grassroots organizing groupsdirectly, you can fund within a wide rangeof institutions and groups that supportgrassroots organizing. There are ways tointegrate the suggested recommendationsin this report into your existing fundingstrategy without sidelining your currentfocus, as demonstrated by the examplesprovided above.

4) TAKE THE LONG VIEW, PREPARE FOR TIPPING POINTS Undertaking systemic change requirespatience and stepping into a somewhatuntraditional space for some foundations.Although the concept of changing structuresand institutions seems academic andunwieldy, we have the tools to implementthese changes concretely. Put differently, sys-tems change is an iterative process but fund-ing social justice and investing in grassrootsorganizing and advocacy are linear and tan-gible ways to make them happen.

Supporting grassroots organizing mayrequire a paradigm shift in a foundation’sgrantmaking strategy. Depending on howyour philanthropy currently supports grass-roots organizations or does not, this canmean shedding expectations of microscop-ic, quick deliverables and embracing theslow, patient process of movement build-ing. Legal work to overturn Jim Crow lawsbegan in the early 1930s with ThurgoodMarshall representing the NAACP lawsuitsin Maryland. Imagine if early funders ofthe Civil Rights Movement had tried to“evaluate the impact” of their grants in theensuing 20 years – before the popularmovement took hold. Movement buildingtakes time.

In his important monograph “JustAnother Emperor: The Myths and Realitiesof Philanthrocapitalism,” former FordFoundation director Michael Edwards cau-tions that one of the downsides of increas-ingly infusing the nonprofit world withbusiness ideals is that social change organ-izations are expected to churn out good,

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quarterly metrics.85 Extreme advocates ofthese ideas expect social change organiza-tions to report mounds of data and com-pete with one another for funding based on“numbers” and “deliverables.” But onFebruary 1, 1960, sitting at a “WhitesOnly” lunch counter at a Woolworth’s inGreensboro, N.C., there were only fourAfrican American students from a local col-lege. Although those may not appear to beimpressive metrics, consider the scale andscope of the movement they helpedlaunch. Edwards writes:

“When investors evaluate a business,they ultimately need to answer onlyone question – how much money willit make? The equivalent for civil societyis the social impact that organizationsmight achieve, alone and together, butthat is much more difficult to evaluate,especially at the deeper levels of socialtransformation.”86

In other words, if we want large-scalechange, we need to take a longer and moreholistic view of evaluation, rather thanresort to pushing grantees to performquickly for the sake of their funders. It is abalance: of course we want to know whatour grantees are doing and how they’replanning to scale their impact for thefuture, but when critical opportunitiescome to mobilize a critical mass of thepopulation to seek bigger change, grass-roots organizations should have their eyeon the opportunities – responding to press-ing needs rather than nervously lookingover their shoulders while writing reportsfor funders. Funders can pursue monitor-ing and evaluation methods that allowgrantees to take risks and patiently buildpower over the long term, with feedbackloops that support mutual learning andaccountability rather than antagonisticallyforcing grantees’ feet to the fire.

The path to movement building and mas-sive change is never straightforward andclear. Our grantmaking and evaluation mustrecognize this.


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While pro-environment legislation stalled atthe federal level, New Mexico enacted per-haps the most forward-thinking environmen-tal standards in the nation. At the end of2010, the state adopted strict greenhouse gasstandards and banned incineration as amethod of solid waste disposal. In addition,the Navajo nation in New Mexico – home toone of the largest uranium deposits in NorthAmerica – banned uranium mining within itsterritory, a significant blow to those trying tospin nuclear power as the “clean energy”solution of the future.

Although the supportive research andadvocacy work of national environmentalgroups undoubtedly laid the groundwork for these victories, New Mexico’s noticeableshift in policy did not result from top-downpressure but the bottom-up organizing ofgrassroots groups. Organizations like theSouthwest Organizing Project, the MulticulturalAlliance for a Safe Environment, the BlackMesa Water Coalition and the New MexicoEnvironmental Law Center achieved in a con-servative-leaning state what national groupshad failed to accomplish nationwide, evenwith a pro-environment president andCongress. It should come as no surprise thatall the national studies and reports tend topale in comparison to angry, organized com-munity members – in this case, Mexican and

Chicano families in southern New Mexicowho were outraged at a medical waste incin-erator a stone’s throw from their children’sschool. Patiently organizing in communitiesof color, increasing the turnout of historicallydisenfranchised voters and giving them avoice in the political system, grassrootsorganizations in New Mexico shifted thestate’s policies and balance of power. In fact,several members of local indigenous andLatino communities have since run for elect-ed office in the state – paving the way forlong-term change.

The point of this report is not to diminishor deny the importance of national environ-mental advocacy organizations. Their dailycontributions to advancing change are unde-niable and irreplaceable. But suggesting thattop-down advocacy can and should be ouronly strategy to achieve victory is dangerous-ly short-sighted and, as we have seen inexamples throughout this report, arguably toblame for our movement’s lack of broad andlasting success. We know that communityorganizing that engages the most marginal-ized communities has been essential in dra-matically improving our future, from abolish-ing slavery to ensuring clean air. If we contin-ue to underinvest in organizing, we undercutour chance at lasting success.

When Rachel Carson wrote Silent Spring,

IV. Conclusion

The key to healing our planet and our communities is healing our

democracy - a process that begins not in Washington, D.C. confer-

ence rooms but in the living rooms of Mexican-American mothers

and in community centers filled with African American kids.

the choice of the word “silent” was not anaccident. Throughout the environmentalmovement, we have relied on strategic sen-tinels calling attention to those harms that,for whatever reason, have either escaped col-lective notice or been intentionally ignored.These are the innovators, the path setters,often the troublemakers – shedding light onthat which is invisible, hidden, obscured.And they have had the bravery to refuse toaccept the status quo as it is but instead seethe world as it could be and demand that welive up to our potential for justice, equalityand sustainability.

We have seen the policies and practicesthat result when our political system is com-mandeered by the allies of big oil and toxic

chemicals. Imagine the result from a truly dem-ocratic and inclusive political system with thevigorous participation of grassroots communi-ties, especially the economically and raciallymarginalized communities that supposedlyshare in our nation’s dream but so often bearthe brunt of its nightmares. The key to healingour planet and our communities is healing ourdemocracy – a process that begins not inWashington, D.C. conference rooms but in theliving rooms of Mexican-American mothersand in community centers filled with AfricanAmerican kids. It is time to uproot ineffectivestrategies for achieving environmental changeand plant new seeds in communities across thecountry and the world that will grow intosweeping, transformative change.

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Image courtesy of the SouthWest Organizing Project (SWOP).

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References

1. Matt Taibbi, “The Great American Bubble Machine: From Tech Stocks to High Gas Prices, GoldmanSachs Has Engineered Every Major Market Manipulation since the Great Depression – and They’reAbout to Do it Again,” Rolling Stone Magazine, April 5, 2010,http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-great-american-bubble-machine-20100405.

2. Ibid. 3. Andrew Revkin, “Beyond the Climate Blame Game,” The New York Times, April 25, 2011,

http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/25/beyond-the-climate-blame-game. 4. The Munden Project, REDD and Forest Carbon: Market-Based Critique and Recommendations

(2011), http://www.mundenproject.com/forestcarbonreport2.pdf. 5. An NCRP analysis of Foundation Center data from 2007-2009 prepared for this report revealed that

the average top 50 recipients of environment-focused foundation grants, primarily larger nationallyfocused organizations, received nearly half (46 percent) of grant dollars. The top 10 recipients alonereceived 3 out of every 10 grant dollars.

6. The Foundation Center, “Distribution of Foundation Grants by Subject Categories, circa 2009” (NewYork: The Foundation Center, 2011),http://foundationcenter.org/findfunders/statistics/pdf/04_fund_sub/2009/10_09.pdf. Based on all grantsof $10,000 or more awarded by a national sample of 1,384 larger U.S. foundations (including 800 ofthe 1,000 largest ranked by total giving). For community foundations, only discretionary grants areincluded. Grants to individuals are not included in the file.

7. The Foundation Center, “Distribution of Foundation Grants by Subject Categories, circa 2009” (NewYork: The Foundation Center, 2011),http://foundationcenter.org/findfunders/statistics/pdf/04_fund_sub/2009/10_09.pdf.

8. These figures were compiled using The Foundation Center’s “Distribution of Grants by SubjectCategories” tables for the years 1998-2009. See:http://foundationcenter.org/findfunders/statistics/gs_subject.html.

9. The Urban Institute, National Center for Charitable Statistics (NCCS) Core File (Public Charities, circa1989-2009), 2011, http://nccsdataweb.urban.org. The National Center for Charitable Statistics (NCCS)Core File includes information on public charities with gross receipts of at least $25,000 and fileForm 990 or 990-EZ. For more information, see http://nccs.urban.org/database/overview.cfm.

10. IRS Business Master Files (Exempt Organizations) [Sept 2011] (2011), http://nccsdataweb.urban.org.Environmental nonprofits are category C “Environment” in the National Taxonomy of Exempt Entities(NTEE), a “system is used by the IRS and NCCS to classify nonprofit organizations. It also is used bythe Foundation Center to classify both grants and grant recipients (typically nonprofits or govern-ments).” For more information, visit http://nccs.urban.org/classification/NTEE.cfm. Category D“Animals” was excluded from this analysis.

11. The Urban Institute, National Center for Charitable Statistics (NCCS) Core File (Public Charities, circa2009), 2011, http://nccsdataweb.urban.org.

12. Ibid.13. Revkin, op cit.14. The National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy’s Grantmaking for Community Impact Project

studied the return on investment for foundation-funded advocacy and community organizing in sevensites across the country. Several of the reports found instances of underserved communities being dis-proportionately affected by environmental and climate harms. Moreover, the reports documentedoften unquantifiable but tangible positive benefits resulting from funding grassroots environment-focused groups that conduct advocacy and organizing by or on behalf of underserved communities.See www.ncrp.org/gcip.

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15. NCRP’s Criteria for Philanthropy at Its Best analyzed grants intended to benefit one or more of 11“marginalized” communities tracked by the Foundation Center. Those 11 groups were: economicallydisadvantaged persons; racial or ethnic minorities; women and girls; people with AIDS; people withdisabilities; aging, elderly and senior citizens; immigrants and refugees; crime and abuse victims;offenders and ex-offenders; single parents; and LGBTQ citizens. See Niki Jagpal, Criteria forPhilanthropy at Its Best: Benchmarks to Assess and Enhance Grantmaker Impact (Washington, D.C.:National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, 2009), http://www.ncrp.org/paib.

16. The Foundation Center, Environmental Grantmakers Association, Tracking the Field, Volume 2: ACloser Look at Environmental Grantmaking (New York: Environmental Grantmakers Association,2009).

17. The Foundation Center, Key Facts on Social Justice Grantmaking (New York: Foundation Center,2011), http://foundationcenter.org/gainknowledge/research/pdf/keyfacts_social_2011.pdf, and Tanya E.Coke, Scott Nielsen, Henry A.J. Ramos, Sherry Seward and Bradford K. Smith, Social JusticeGrantmaking II: An Update on U.S. Foundation Trends, ed. Steven Lawrence (New York: FoundationCenter, 2009).

18. Niki Jagpal, Criteria for Philanthropy at Its Best: Benchmarks to Assess and Enhance GrantmakerImpact, National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, March 2009.

19. Jennifer Bradley and Bruce Katz, “A Small-town or Metro Nation?” October 8, 2008,http://www.brookings.edu/articles/2008/1008_smalltowns_katz.aspx.

20. Stephen Sterling, Whole Systems Thinking as a Basis for Paradigm Change in Education: Explorationsin the Context of Sustainability, Doctoral Thesis, (University of Bath, 2003), p. 403,http://www.bath.ac.uk/cree/sterling/index.htm.

21. Some contend that the environmental movement of today is a part of the sociocultural discontentcreated by the zeitgeist of the anti-war movement of the 1960s, and that it was, in fact, an “easy”way out of the difficult discussions and decision making around the anti-war movement.

22. Elaine Woo, “Dagmar Wilson dies at 94; organizer of women’s disarmament protesters,” The LosAngeles Times, January 30, 2011, http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-dagmar-wilson-20110130,0,5499397.story.

23. Lawrence S. Wittner, Confronting the Bomb: A Short History of the World Nuclear DisarmamentMovement (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2009).

24. J. Samuel Walker, Three Mile Island: A Nuclear Crisis in Historical Perspective (Berkeley: University ofCalifornia Press, 2004) pp. 10-11.

25. Executive Order No. 12,898, Federal Register Vol. 59, No. 32 (February 16, 1994),http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/executive-orders/pdf/12898.pdf.

26. Federal Interagency Working Group on Environmental Justice, Environmental Protection Agency,Memorandum of Understanding on Environmental Justice and Executive Order 12898 (August 4,2011), http://www.epa.gov/environmentaljustice/resources/publications/interagency/ej-mou-2011-08.pdf, and OMB Watch, “Obama Administration Issues Environmental Justice MOU” (August 16,2011), http://www.ombwatch.org/node/11826.

27. Kari Lydersen, “Days May Be Numbered for Chicago Coal Plants,” Midwest Energy News, (April 19,2011) http://www.midwestenergynews.com/2011/04/19/days-may-be-numbered-for-chicago-coal-plants.

28. John M. Broder, “Climate Change Doubt Is Tea Party Article of Faith,” New York Times (October 20,2010), http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/21/us/politics/21climate.html.

29. Lee Fang, “Lobbyist Dick Armey’s Pollution Gospel: ‘As An Article Of Faith,’ It Is ‘Pretentious’ ToBelieve In Global Warming,” Think Progress (July 31, 2009), http://thinkprogress.org/poli-tics/2009/07/31/53658/armey-pollution-gospel.

30. Rush Limbaugh, “Liberty, Incandescent Lightbulbs and the Global Warming Hoax,” The RushLimbaugh Show (January 3, 2008), http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_010308/con-tent/01125117.guest.html.

31. Joe Romm, “Ohio Tea Party survey to candidates: ‘The regulation of Carbon Dioxide in our atmos-phere should be left to God and not government and I oppose all measures of Cap and Trade as wellas the teaching of global warming theory in our schools,’” Think Progress (September 1, 2010),http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2010/09/01/206659/tea-party-candidate-survey-global-warming-denial.


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32. Vanessa Williamson, Theda Skocpol, and John Coggin, “The Tea Party and the Remaking ofRepublican Conservatism,” Perspectives on Politics, Vol. 9, No. 1 (2011),http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/sccraig/readings/williamson.perspectives.2011.pdf.

33. Frank Newport, “Americans’ Global Warming Concerns Continue to Drop,” Gallup, March 11, 2010,http://www.gallup.com/poll/126560/americans-global-warming-concerns-continue-drop.aspx.

34. Lydia Saad, “Americans Firm in Prioritizing Economy Over Environment,” Gallup, March 18, 2010,http://www.gallup.com/poll/126788/americans-firm-prioritizing-economy-environment.aspx.

35. Liz Goodwin, “Poll: Most Republicans don’t believe in climate change,” Yahoo! News, November 17,2010, http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/poll-most-republicans-don-t-believe-climate-change.html.

36. Ryan Lizza, “As the World Burns,” The New Yorker, October 11, 2010,http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/10/11/101011fa_fact_lizza.

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43. Joshua Kahn Russell, “Open Letter to 1Sky from the Grassroots,” Grist, October 23, 2010,http://www.grist.org/article/2010-10-23-open-letter-to-1-sky-from-the-grassroots.

44. Mark Randazzo, “A Funders’ Collaborative for the 21st Century In Support of Grassroots Organizingand Movement-building,” Funders Network on Transforming the Global Economy, October 2011.

45. Doug McAdam, Political process and the development of the black insurgency, 1930 (Chicago:University of Chicago Press, 1982).

46. New World Foundation, Funding Social Movements: The New World Foundation Perspective (NewYork: New World Foundation, 2003), http://newwf.org/sites/default/files/Social_Movements_en.pdf.

47. “High Levels of Potentially Toxic Flame Retardants in California Pregnant Women,” ScienceDaily,August 10, 2011, http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110810093826.htm.

48. Mireya Navarro, “Parents Seek More Action on PCBs in Schools,” New York Times, February 3, 2011,http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/04/nyregion/04pcb.html.

49. Food and Water Watch, “Testing Finds Arsenic in Apple Juice,” July 21, 2011, http://foodandwater-watch.org/pressreleases/testing-finds-arsenic-in-apple-juice.

50. “US Cancer Death Rates in Decline: Annual Report Focuses on Brain Tumors,” ScienceDaily, March31, 2011, http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/03/110331163512.htm. According to thereport, “among children, cancer death rates continued a decline that began in the 1970s; however,the incidence of childhood cancer increased by about 0.6 percent a year from 1992-2007.”

51. National Diabetes Information Clearinghouse, National Institutes of Health, “National DiabetesStatistics, 2011” (2011), http://diabetes.niddk.nih.gov/dm/pubs/statistics.

52. Lara J. Akinbami, Jeanne E. Moorman and Xiang Liu, “Asthma Prevalence, Health Care Use, andMortality: United States, 2005-2009,” National Health Statistics Reports, No. 32 (National Center forHealth Statistics, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, January 12, 2011),http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhsr/nhsr032.pdf.

53. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Climate Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation, andVulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the Fourth Assessment Report of theIntergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Martin L. Parry, Osvaldo F. Canziani, Jean P. Palutikof,Paul J. van der Linden, and Clair E. Hanson, eds. (Cambridge, United Kingdom, CambridgeUniversity Press, 2007), http://www.ipcc-wg2.org/index.html. See also Environmental ProtectionAgency, “Extreme Events,” November 29, 2011, http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/effects/extreme.html.

54. John Mitterholzer, personal correspondence, September 1, 2011.

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55. Cathy Lerza, A Perfect Storm: Lessons from the Defeat of Proposition 23, Funders Network onTransforming the Global Economy (FNTG), April 2011, http://www.fntg.org/documents/Prop23CaseStudy_000.pdf

56. Danielle Deane served the maximum eight-year program officer term at the Hewlett Foundation from2003-2011. She built and managed the Environment Program’s New Constituencies for TheEnvironment initiative. The case study represents her views and not necessarily those of the HewlettFoundation.

57. NCE is now called Broad Based Support.58. Paul Brest and Hal Harvey, Money Well Spent: A Strategic Plan for Smart Philanthropy (New York:

Bloomberg, 2008).59. Joss Garman, “Youth Driving the Environmental Movement.” Ecologist, 25, March, 2009,

http://www.theecologist.org/blogs_and_comments/commentators/Joss_Garman/269622/youth_driv-ing_the_environmental_movement.html.

60. Joy Cushman, Benjamin Farley, Pilar Weiss, and Heather Booth, Engaging the Emerging Majority: TheCase for Voter Registration in 2012 and Beyond (Washington, DC: New Organizing InstituteEducation Fund, 2011), http://neworganizingeducation.com/media/attachments/Emerging_Majority_Report_1.pdf.

61. “Kids vs. Global Warming: Suing the Government for the Environment,” Public Radio International,June 22, 2011, http://www.pri.org/stories/business/social-entrepreneurs/kids-vs-global-warming-suing-the-government-for-the-environment4539.html,.

62. Gail Sheehy. “A moment of ‘truth’ set one teen on a path of activism,” USA Today, April 19, 2011,http://yourlife.usatoday.com/parenting-family/caregiving/story/2011/04/A-moment-of-Truth-set-one-teen-on-a-path-of-activism/46252308/1.

63. Lucia Graves, “Youth Environmental Movement Frustrated with Obama: ‘I Want the President ICampaigned For to Show Up’,” The Huffington Post, April 15, 2011,http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/15/youth-environmental-movement-frustrated-with-obama_n_849659.html.

64. Thomas Penny, “U.S. White Population Will Be Minority by 2042, Government Says,” Bloomberg,August 14, 2008, http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=afLRFXgzpFoY.

65. Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research, “Agenda and Advocacy Survey: Keeping Obama Surge VotersEngaged,” February 11, 2011,http://www.gqrr.com/articles/2316/5129_wvwv%20_Rising%20American%20Electorate%20agen-da%20Survey_%20m1.%20doc.pdf.

66. Terra Lingua, “Biocultural Diversity – The True Web of Life,” 2012,http://www.terralingua.org/overview-bcd.

67. “A Proposed Joint Programme of Work on Biological and Cultural Diversity Lead by the Secretariat ofthe Convention on Biodiversity and UNESCO,” International Conference on Biological and CulturalDiversity: Diversity for Development – Development for Diversity, June 8-10, 2010,http://www.unesco.org/mab/doc/iyb/icbcd_working_doc.pdf.

68. ibid.69. Personal correspondence, July 2011.70. Angela Glover Blackwell, America’s Tomorrow: Equity is the Answer, PolicyLink, retrieved June 26,

2011 at http://www.policylink.org/site/c.lkIXLbMNJrE/b.7494011/k.7368/Equity_is_the_Answer.htm. 71. Ibid.72. Jorge Madrid and Alejandro Garcia, “Committing to Environmental Justice,” Think Progress, April 23,

2011, http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/04/23/207951/celebrating-earth-day-with-a-commitment-to-environmental-justice.

73. Mireya Navarro, “In Environmental Push, Looking to Add Diversity,” New York Times, March 9, 2009.74. Angela Park, Everybody s Movement: Environmental Justice and Climate Change (Washington, DC:

Environmental Support Center, December 2009), pp. 3-4.75. Marcelo Bonta and Charles Jordan, Diversifying the Conservation Movement,” in Emily Enderle, ed.,

Diversity and the Future of the US Environmental Movement (New Haven, CT: Yale School of Forestry& Environmental Studies, 2007), http://www.environmentaldiversity.org/documents/diversifying_con-servation.pdf.


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76. Navarro, op cit.77. john a. powell, “Race-sensitive Policies through Targeted Universalism,” America’s Future Now!

Conference, Washington, DC, June 3, 2009. 78. Manuel Pastor, Rachel Morello-Frosch, and James L. Sadd, “The Air is Always Cleaner on the Other

Side: Race, Space, and Air Toxics Exposures in California,” Journal of Urban Affairs, Vol. 27, No. 2(2005), 127-148.

79. Port of Los Angeles, “2010 Was Another Year of Significant Decreases in Air Pollution at Port of LosAngeles,” August 18, 2011,http://www.portoflosangeles.org/newsroom/2011_releases/news_081811_air_quality_report.asp.

80. john a. powell, “Race, Place, and Opportunity,” The American Prospect, September 21, 2008,http://prospect.org/cs/articles?article=race_place_and_opportunity.

81. Jagpal, op cit.82. Lisa Abbott, personal correspondence, September 27, 2011. 83. See also Solidago Foundation, “Funding Strategy,” 2012, http://www.solidago.org/funding-strategy. 84. Kathy Sessions, E-mail communication, October 14, 2011.85. Michael Edwards, Just Another Emperor? The Myths and Realities of Philanthrocapitalism (New York:

Demos, The Young Foundation, 2008),http://www.nonprofitquarterly.org/images/fbfiles/files/Just_Another_Emperor.pdf.

86. Ibid.

NCRP STAFF

Meredith Brodbeck COMMUNICATIONS ASSOCIATE

Samantha Davis FIELD ASSISTANT

Sean Dobson FIELD DIRECTOR

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Kevin Laskowski RESEARCH & POLICY ASSOCIATE

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Lisa Ranghelli DIRECTOR, GRANTMAKING FOR COMMUNITY IMPACT PROJECT

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BOARD OF DIRECTORS

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEEDiane Feeney (CHAIR) FRENCH AMERICAN CHARITABLE TRUST

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Sherece Y. West (AT-LARGE) WINTHROP ROCKEFELLER FOUNDATION

DIRECTORSPablo Eisenberg PUBLIC POLICY INSTITUTE, GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY

Marjorie Fine THE LINCHPIN CAMPAIGN

Ana Garcia-Ashley GAMALIEL FOUNDATION

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Trista Harris HEADWATERS FOUNDATION FOR JUSTICE

Priscilla Hung COMMUNITY PARTNERS

Gara LaMarche ROBERT F. WAGNER SCHOOL OF PUBLIC SERVICE,NEW YORK UNIVERSITY

Joy Persall BUSH FOUNDATION LEADERSHIP FELLOW

Ai-jen Poo NATIONAL DOMESTIC WORKERS ALLIANCE

Cynthia Renfro MARGUERITE CASEY FOUNDATION

Russell Roybal NATIONAL GAY AND LESBIAN TASK FORCE

Gary Snyder NONPROFIT IMPERATIVE

PAST BOARD CHAIRSPaul Castro JEWISH FAMILY SERVICE OF LOS ANGELES

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Organization affiliation for identification purposes only.

“From toxic chemicals to dirty energy, contemporary environmental challenges arebroadly distributed and deeply embedded in our society. An effective defensemust be equally distributed and embedded. This NCRP report underscores howfar communities living amidst environmental health hazards have stretched mod-est investments to protect their families and the places where they live, work andplay. It provides pragmatic guidance for philanthropy to better equip affectedcommunities to raise awareness, strengthen policy initiatives and mobilize majori-ty support for stronger environmental protection.”

—Kathy Sessions, Director, Health and Environmental Funders Network (HEFN)

“We're not going to make big changes in climate as long as climate is seen solely as an environmental issue”

—-Ed Miller, Environment Program Manager, The Joyce Foundation

A Philanthropy at Its Best® Report

CULTIVATING THE GRASSROOTSA Winning Approach for Environment and Climate Funders© February 2012, National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy

The pace of social change is increasing rapidly in the United States and around the globe but unfortunately theenvironment and climate movement has failed thus far to keep up with movements for justice and equality.Existing environmental regulations have been diminished and new initiatives have been attacked and stymied.From 2000-2009, grantmakers provided $10 billion for environment and climate work, funding primarily top-down strategies; yet, we have not seen a significant policy win since the 1980s. Our funding strategy ismisaligned with the great perils our planet and environment face.

This report contends that environment and climate funders can be more effective and secure moreenvironmental wins by investing heavily in grassroots communities that are disproportionately impacted byenvironment and climate harms. By engaging meaningfully at the grassroots level, grantmakers have theopportunity not just to support efforts that are especially strong but to use their work at the local level to buildpolitical pressure and mobilize for national change. Grassroots organizing is especially powerful whereeconomic, social, political and environmental harms overlap to keep certain communities at the margins. Byacknowledging the coming demographic shift in the United States and investing in lower-income and otherunderserved communities, environment and climate funders can increase their impact and build a movementthat is more aligned with the future of our country. The report includes case studies that illustrate the impact offunding grassroots groups that are organizing for environmental change, and provides concrete suggestions forhow environment and climate funders can engage with this vast potential constituency.

This is the fourth in a series of reports from the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP) thatinvites grantmakers focused on specific issues to reconsider their funding strategies to generate the greatestimpact. A report for education grantmakers was published in October 2010, one for health funders waspublished in April 2011, and one for arts and culture funders was published in October 2011.

For information or copies of this report, or to join NCRP, please contact us at:1331 H Street NW, Suite 200 • Washington D.C. 20005

Phone 202.387.9177 • Fax 202.332.5084 • E-mail: [email protected] • Web: www.ncrp.org

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