How do I maintain a balance between my individual and family needs and those of our organization and those we support?
What is my role and responsibility as a white woman of relative privilege?
How can we, as an organization, genuinely manifest our realization that much of our culture, even philanthropy itself, is based on colonization, violence, slavery and exploitation of the indigenous and non-white people who’ve come before, and support a just transition?
And ultimately how does one nurture the flame of joy in the onslaught of the pain and suffering of so much hate, fear and injustice?
I tackle these inner questions, as we also do as a staff, daily; it’s a demonstration of my privilege that I have the time to dwell on them at all.
I’m so thankful for the opportunity to expand my own understanding of what it means to lead an organization committed to local environmental and social justice action in a time of often crushing urgency. I’m eager to lean into the coming year alongside our partners and local leaders from across the spectrum of environmental sustainability and equity action and across the spectrum of voices and perspectives.
Our staff is honored to share a look back and forward.
2015: What we’re most proud of
o Distributed over $400,000 in grants to grassroots groups across New England – the average in the past few years has been $300,000!
o Debuted the Cheryl King Fischer Innovation Award, or the ‘KingFischer’ for short, a bonus grant given at the end of each year to a crosscutting, and inspiring project that embodies the Grassroots Fund’s founding director’s essential spirit and commitment to social justice, innovation and deep-rooted collaborations in communities.
o Successfully piloted, with our partners at the New Hampshire Local Energy Solutions Work Group, a new system of regional energy “hubs” to foster great coordination for local energy efficiency and renewable energy action in New Hampshire
o Delivered two RootSkills Training and Networking Retreats for grassroots leaders (in the past we’ve only hosted one a year!), in partnership with a number of other nonprofits, foundations and academic institutions
o Hosted over 20 training and networking webinars on topics from Permaculture to Solarize Campaigns and Forming a Cooperative to Community Resilience Organizations
o Deepened peer-to-peer sharing and learning through videos on the PEP Talk video storytelling board and one-pager energy project examples of successes
o Launched our RootShare e-bulletin series with weekly highlights on monthly themes from equity to local energy and climate action.
o Developed dozens of new “feature stories” highlighting examples of successful local action and delving into larger issue area complexities from reaching Regional Food Visions Goals to addressing equity in local environmental work.
2016: Why We’re Excited and yes, HOPEFUL!
o Setting a goal for almost $450,000 in grants and direct grassroots support
o Launching a pilot of a third, larger funding level, “Harvest” grants, to support past grantee groups with projects with large impact potential, growth and capacity building for established groups.
o Expanding the New Hampshire energy hub pilot across New England and across issue areas
o Deepening of our grantee learning community with “Catalyst Calls”, regular webinar -based, multi-participant calls of grantee groups that allow staff to better glean successes, challenges, and trends while providing a space for grantees to connect with and learn from each other.
o Piloting with IOBY.org to leverage a NEGEF grant as the challenge grant for a well established grantee group to conduct crowd-funding using IOBY’s excellent web platform. IOBY.org is an ideal partner as they also support participating groups with training and advice on running fundraising campaigns. This approach will help our grantee groups raise funding beyond our grants and raise broader awareness about both the grantee’s work and the resources of NEGEF.
In closing this final ED’s letter of 2015 I’d like to heartily thank our amazing staff, Board, grantmaking committee, consultants and advisors and most importantly, our community of grassroots leaders and innovators across New England. You all are MY renewable energy.
Please consider joining us in growing these essential components to supporting cross-cutting, impactful local efforts to build resilient, equitable, regenerative and environmentally sustainable communities. Your generous contribution, when pooled with other proactive folks from across New England, can truly help us shift to a new, brighter future.