When Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus delivered the talk that has everyone talking, they chose an influential audience: environmental grantmakers. Although the now (in)famous pair focused on mainstream advocacy organizations in their discussion of the death of environmentalism, others have contended that new thinking by the folks who write the checks is key to revitalizing the movement. We've invited four representatives from foundations around the U.S. to discuss the issue. Most recent post of the day.

From: Hooper Brooks
To: Stuart Clarke, Enrique Salmón, Rhea Suh
Subject: Not dead, just different
Monday, March 28, 2005, 9:30 a.m. PST

The "Death of Environmentalism" has started a welcome dialogue in the "environmental" community. The authors have put their fingers on an important concern -- that the environmental movement seems to be faltering and needing a new platform of values and a new profile. But for me, the piece is out-of-tune and overstated.

More and more, the environmentalism that we support at Surdna is not "dead"; rather, it's different and more expansive than that of Shellenberger and Nordhaus. Some of it lives in large and diverse coalitions, stakeholder groups, and community-based natural-resource management projects at the state and local levels around the country that are driving significant changes in the way development happens; transportation is planned and funded (e.g., $40 billion for transit approved in state ballot measures in the last election); fisheries and forests are managed; and greenhouse gases are controlled. Some of it is emerging within major institutions and special-interest groups -- business, religious communities, hunters and fishers, and so forth. It often doesn't go by the name environment -- rather, community vitality, economic development and competitiveness, equity and fairness.

Granted, we still do not always gain the ground we would like to, and we can unquestionably do a better job on the big issues like climate change. But we must acknowledge and embrace the multiple voices and interests and local innovations that are emerging around the country. They are a significant part of the base that we need to underpin success on the bigger issues -- and their reach is often bipartisan, their label broader than "progressive." While we surely need a reinvigorated and reframed progressive movement, let's not conclude that "environmentalism" can live only inside that box.

From: Rhea Suh
To: Hooper Brooks, Stuart Clarke, Enrique Salmón
Subject: Re: Not dead, just different
Monday, March 28, 2005 10:37 a.m. PST

I agree with Hooper's comments: Environmentalism must speak to a broader sector of our communities than just the progressive/liberal set. The portfolio of grants that I manage is located within the West (of the U.S. and Canada), and like Hooper, we do a great deal on the state and local levels. While the Democrats have seen gains in many of these states, it is clear that for broader progress to be made on our issues we must reach out to and connect with broader coalitions. We've invested in some remarkable work organizing ranchers, hunters and anglers, Native Americans, and business leaders to speak for things like responsible energy development, accountable land management, even wilderness. As such, I think we are beginning to see the politics of these issues shift. Ranchers supporting wilderness? I think it is pretty exciting stuff. And I think we would have been wholly unsuccessful if, once again, we had walked into their communities with an all-or-nothing political stance.

Many of these constituents are longtime environmentalists who either haven't had to or haven't been organized to speak about these values. And many of them characterize themselves as lifelong Republicans. Ultimately, I think we all strive for (re)establishing strong environmental/conservation values to the point where they are seen as the "political third rail." But until we have a stronger, committed, well-organized base that we truly represent, I think we'd be really remiss in passing on people just because they don't fall into a "progressive" box.

From: Enrique Salmón
To: Hooper Brooks, Stuart Clarke, Rhea Suh
Subject: Re: Not dead, just different
Monday, March 28, 2005 11:01 a.m. PST

Thanks, Hooper and Rhea, for getting the boat floating with this conversation. My feelings and thoughts surrounding the "Death of Environmentalism" debate reflect what has been stated already. I have always had difficulty referring to myself as an environmentalist. The Christensen Fund approaches environmental grantmaking through a bio-cultural lens. In a nutshell, we suggest with our grants that "what is good for traditionally sustainable land-based communities is good for the land." As a result, I am always considering the human element when it comes to environmental issues.

As a Native person, I reflect some of the tension that has existed and continues to exist between the "enviros" and "Indians." The enviros have traditionally been perceived as elitists who enter our communities telling us how we should go about protecting our lands, with little regard for the political, social, and economic complexities involved in land management on Indian and other non-Indian lands. For these reasons, I welcomed the Shellenberger and Nordhaus essay. Often it is good to shake things up a little and remind members of any movement to take a look at their complacency. The frame of environmentalism needs to become increasingly inclusive, and requires a strategy that compels the American populace to see how environmental values match their own.

From: Stuart Clarke
To: Hooper Brooks, Enrique Salmón, Rhea Suh
Subject: Re: Not dead, just different
Monday, March 28, 2005 1:28 p.m. PST

I am interested in the theme that I think I see in Hooper's and Rhea's responses -- the theme of an environmentalism that transcends ideological divisions. An environmentalism that "can speak to a broader sector of our communities than just the progressive/liberal set" and that can live outside of the "progressive box."

I confess that I am a little uneasy with an ideologically transcendent environmentalism. First of all, I think that it will become very difficult for the "frame" of environmentalism to become "increasingly inclusive" (a development that Enrique endorses and with which I agree) while also sitting out the broad ideological battles that frame distributive contests in this society. Second, explicitly demarcating an "environmentalism" that can live outside of a progressive box is demarcating an environmentalism that will no longer feel like home to some of our current family. Finally, I am just not so certain that there exists the broad values consensus (at anything other than a discursive or rhetorical level) upon which an ideologically transcendent environmentalism would feed.

I am not suggesting that the kinds of "unlikely alliances" that I hear so much about are unimportant. With respect to the contestation of this or that battle, I certainly agree that we should take our lead from the inclinations of the groups on the ground, as in the examples that each of you presents. What I am suggesting is that we are well positioned, I like to think, to also address ourselves to the relationship that environmentalism has with the broad ideological frameworks whose contestation will always provide the context for this or that political battle. Those ideological battles aren't going to go away, and I think that we need to find our place within them. To put maybe too fine a point on it, is ideological transcendence a strategy or a tactic?

From: Enrique Salmón
To: Hooper Brooks, Stuart Clarke, Rhea Suh
Subject: Re: Not dead, just different
Monday, March 28, 2005 5:28 p.m. PST

Stuart ended his dispatch with a question: whether or not environmental ideological transcendence should be a strategy or a tactic. I suggest that it should be a priority. I feel this way because when we, as funders, support projects that only reflect strategies and tactics, we are also supporting changes to the status quo for the community that will be affected by the project. A change in the status quo is what often scares people who may or may not identify themselves as environmentalists. In addition, environmental strategies and tactics are often perceived by people as only win-or-lose propositions. There is rarely any middle ground when it comes to a battle over new proposed logging, a dam, or a mine. It is at that middle ground where the environmental movement's potential allies lie.

Shellenberger and Nordhaus suggest in their essay that the environmental movement should return to the offensive partly by attacking industry when it opposes proposals that would create new jobs. In order to accomplish this, however, ideological transcendence will be a crucial element. It requires allies from all segments of society -- including advertising, labor, and health workers, to name only three -- as well as from the traditional environmental establishment.

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Hooper Brooks is the program director for the environment at the Surdna Foundation in New York City, a family foundation with assets over $700 million and an 80-year history. The foundation's environment program makes more than $7 million in grants annually to organizations working on transportation, energy, biological diversity, and urban/suburban land-use issues throughout the U.S.

Stuart Clarke is the executive director of the Town Creek Foundation in Easton, Md. For nearly 25 years, Town Creek has supported public education, citizen action, and advocacy to achieve a healthy environment, an informed society, and a peaceful world.

Enrique Salmón, Ph.D., is a program officer for The Christensen Fund, an independent private foundation that supports bio-cultural projects worldwide. His primary funding region is the greater Southwest of the United States and northwest Mexico. He is a Tarahumara Indian.

Rhea Suh is a program officer with the environment program at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, where she manages the Western grants portfolio. She currently serves on the Environmental Grantmakers Association board, and has been its chair and vice chair.

A Transcendental Meditation

From: Hooper Brooks
To: Stuart Clarke, Enrique Salmón, Rhea Suh
Subject: A new ideology
Tuesday, March 29, 2005 12:12 p.m. PST

Stuart makes a good point when he says that "ideological battles aren't going to go away" -- that it will be difficult to sit these battles out in order for the frame of environmentalism to become increasingly inclusive. Yet Enrique makes a good point when he suggests, if I understand it correctly, that we have to transcend ideology if we are going to find new allies in the "middle ground" and from "all segments of society." The challenge is how to bring the two together (especially in the face of daily ideological onslaughts that are clearly anti-environmental).

That will probably be a function of time. As broader, wider-ranging coalitions and collaborations engage, as environmental issues get reframed, there is sure to be a recognition of shared values (not all the values of a traditional environmentalist, perhaps, but I'm more optimistic than Stuart on this score). From that may flow a new ideology -- one that has more of a mainstream image. For example, as good jobs, economic vitality, or improved personal health begin to be more clearly synonymous with a good environment, it will be hard to peel people away from supporting better environmental stewardship.

From: Rhea Suh
To: Hooper Brooks, Stuart Clarke, Enrique Salmón
Subject: Shifting the conversation
Tuesday, March 29, 2005 2:39 p.m. PST

I share Stuart's uneasiness around the implications of ideologically transcendent environmentalism. I'm not sure any of us know with any certainty where these conversations and relationships may take us. However, I suppose I am open to exploring these new, unknown frontiers. If we are truly interested in breaking out of our safety zone and finding common cause with different allies, we must be open to what this can or should mean.

For example, there are enormous efforts being made to attract the attention of religious communities on a variety of environmental issues, including climate change and endangered species. But too often, we've approached this as "renting a congregation." Go out, get some religious people, sign them on to our letters! I fear it is just this type of superficial organizing that has led to the characterizations of our community as arrogant elitists. What does environmentalism mean for different faiths, and how can we best support them? As Paul Gorman, the head of the National Religious Partnership for the Environment, likes to say, "The question should go two ways; it isn't just what the environmental community can do for the religious communities, but what religious communities can do for the environmental community." If the point of building relationships with the religious community is a hope that we can influence them around our issues, can we not expect that they might influence us as well?

I'm not calling for a wholesale shift in values or in ideology. Rather, I think we need to be genuinely open to having conversations with different constituencies in an honest and equitable manner. While we may not need or want to be aligned with each other on many things, we shouldn't pass up the areas where there may be opportunities out of fear that we are losing touch with our ideological underpinnings. After all, should ideologies be static? Can't and don't they evolve and adapt to ever-changing circumstances?

I'm really interested in your comments on the above, but I'd also like to shift the conversation to foundations. I think there is a lot of interest in trying to get some insight into how foundations work and what we perceive our role to be in the movement. I think that the environmental funding community is an obviously important part of the movement. We not only support the field, but we also play a role in shaping the strategies and activities of environmental organizations. Just as there is a spectrum of approaches to environmental preservation and policy in the field, there is diversity among foundations. As my old boss Michael Fischer liked to say, "You've seen one foundation, you've seen one foundation."

I think that we can simultaneously be facilitators of change (e.g., providing general support grants to organizations) and engineers of change (e.g., developing a specific initiative around a particular policy goal). I have seen and done both, and believe that both strategies have their merits. However, I do recognize that the latter -- engineering a particular strategy or initiative with a particular goal in mind -- is much more controversial. The tension may really be about who the decision-maker is; is it the grantee or grantor? Are we facilitators of environmental change or engineers of it? Are we to blame for the failings of the field? How do we view our role and our responsibilities?

From: Stuart Clarke
To: Hooper Brooks, Enrique Salmón, Rhea Suh
Subject: Re: Shifting the conversation
Tuesday, March 29, 2005 3:40 p.m. PST

Rhea, I'd like to take one last (I promise!) swing at the ideology question before moving on to the important issues that you raise regarding the specific role of foundations in the environmental movement. Two quick points: first, the issue that I am concerned about has less to do with "losing touch with our ideological underpinnings" and more to do with the question of whether it is either necessary or desirable for environmentalism to even have clear ideological underpinnings. When I use the term "ideologically transcendent" environmentalism, I am referring to an environmentalism that does not see value in clear ideological underpinnings. Second, while developing divergent alliances with folks who do not share our ideological underpinnings can certainly be important, sometimes I wish we were more focused on and capable of developing convergent alliances with folks who do share our ideological underpinnings (!).

With respect to your comments about the roles and responsibilities of funders, my view is that if funders are clear about their intentions and clearly communicate those intentions, then they can contribute value in all sorts of different ways. I recognize that some folks get bent out of shape when they think that foundations are trying to "engineer" change, but I think foundations have just as much right to operate in that space as anyone else, so long as they aren't pretending to be doing something else. (I've just finished a nine-hour board meeting, so I am going to give myself permission to sign off on that considerably less-than-profound note and try to come back tomorrow with renewed vigor.)

From: Enrique Salmón
To: Hooper Brooks, Stuart Clarke, Rhea Suh
Subject: Re: Shifting the conversation
Tuesday, March 29, 2005 4:44 p.m. PST

Stuart, Rhea, and Hooper,

Today's conversation has been an interesting one. I feel aligned to what everyone is adding. I especially agree with Rhea's comment that suggests that ideologies should be allowed to be dynamic and "ever-changing" to adapt to circumstances. Environmentalism needs to be adaptive, or suffer the fate of past movements that fizzled out over time and became subjects in history books. And indeed, I think the environmental movement has adapted to changing political, social, and economic shifts. " The Death of Environmentalism" can be perceived as a bell-tone that more change is needed.

Speaking of which, foundations that support environmental projects have also been agents of, and affected by, change. We might not be having this conversation if a program officer at a foundation had not supported efforts by Shellenberger and Nordhaus to write and disseminate their essay. As funders, we reflect the various moods and facets of environmentalism -- even those like me, who have difficulty placing ourselves within the category of environmentalism. I feel it is our responsibility to continue to push the field's envelope, and even sometimes take chances with some grants in order to see what the possibilities are when it comes to positive change. At the same time, we can't neglect the core values and the purveyors of those values: the numerous hardworking NGOs that have brought the environmental movement to its current state. This raises an important question: should funders continue to support the NGOs that are so entrenched that change is virtually impossible, and how do we identify the current and new NGOs that could become tomorrow's environmental leaders?

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Hooper Brooks is the program director for the environment at the Surdna Foundation in New York City, a family foundation with assets over $700 million and an 80-year history. The foundation's environment program makes more than $7 million in grants annually to organizations working on transportation, energy, biological diversity, and urban/suburban land-use issues throughout the U.S.

Stuart Clarke is the executive director of the Town Creek Foundation in Easton, Md. For nearly 25 years, Town Creek has supported public education, citizen action, and advocacy to achieve a healthy environment, an informed society, and a peaceful world.

Enrique Salmón, Ph.D., is a program officer for The Christensen Fund, an independent private foundation that supports bio-cultural projects worldwide. His primary funding region is the greater Southwest of the United States and northwest Mexico. He is a Tarahumara Indian.

Rhea Suh is a program officer with the environment program at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, where she manages the Western grants portfolio. She currently serves on the Environmental Grantmakers Association board, and has been its chair and vice chair.

Risky Business

From: Rhea Suh
To: Hooper Brooks, Stuart Clarke, Enrique Salmón
Subject: In search of new strategies
Wednesday, March 30, 2005 10:32 a.m. PST

Stuart, thanks for the clarification! Sorry, got it now! Yes, I am in agreement. I wish we were better at building broader collaborations within the progressive movement, and while it drives me crazy that we can't seem to figure out better ways of doing that, I understand the challenges. How many true funder collaboratives have you seen? It's hard for us to do it, even within our own communities.

Enrique raises an important question that speaks to risk tolerance in our grantmaking. Before I expand, let me put a caveat in that I'm making generalizations about our sector from the perspective of one foundation. I'm eager to hear all of your perspectives on this.

How do we classify "risk," and how far are we willing to go to take it? I think there may be some tensions for foundations, all of which presumably look for solid investments from which they can expect some sort of social return. For this, we look at things like organizational health, capacity, capability, strength of leadership, strength of budget, and a track record. I'd say that most of the large environmental NGOs fall into this category. They, in some ways, are "safe" investments, but as Enrique points out, they can also be entrenched. The whole inside-the-Beltway game has its obvious drawbacks right now. However, to be fair, I think that even though things are bleak, we have to continue to put up a fight in D.C. There will be huge battles over the Clean Air Act, Endangered Species Act ... and as we saw from the Arctic debate, we need to make a strong showing, even if we ultimately fail. Nevertheless, I think we are beginning to understand that even when we may be winning some battles on the Hill, we are losing the war. How can you turn something like the politics of environmental protection in Alaska around? Ultimately, I don't think it is going to be by getting more people to walk the halls of Congress -- perhaps more people to walk the roads of Fairbanks?

So here is where I think the risk element comes in. We have to try new strategies and new organizations. And many of these groups may be smaller, newer, less experienced, thus perhaps more "risky" investments. And we may need to expand our time horizons for expecting the "return." It may not be a one-year, two-year, or even three-year horizon, but rather a 10-year frame. That being said, I think for foundations to be able to manage that risk, there still has to be some measure of progress in the intervening period. Indicators of progress might not be the passage of a new bill to protect the Tongass (to use the Alaska analogy again), but rather indicators of social and/or political change that are meaningful.

This brings me to another point that I wanted to raise: theory of change. It may seem like the latest buzzword or obstacle course that foundations force grantees to scramble their way through, but I think it gets to the core of what any organization is trying to achieve. What is the problem? What is the proposed solution, and why do you think your strategies will actually get you there? I sometimes see a disconnect between the stated goal/solution and the strategies, and I think it might get back to the point about entrenchment. For example, on many federal policies we have relied on the public-comment process to have our voices heard. Organizing people to sign letters or send faxes (through an increasingly automated system) worked pretty effectively for a while. Now, however, we are seeing that public comments don't really seem to hold the weight they once did. Thus, the question really is whether the strategy is actually going to move you toward the solution you seek.

I do think organizations are becoming a lot more clever about refining these strategies. Given the current politics, for example, 10,000 letters from New Yorkers or San Franciscans on a given issue might not hold as much weight as 100 letters from local businesses or 1,000 letters from hunters and anglers (as a former and current resident of the stated cities, my apologies!). What I still think we are struggling with as a movement is how to move beyond the one-touch signature process to organizing in a much more meaningful and longer-term manner. Back to our previous conversations, I think this has to be a truly transformative process for our movement.

Foundations need to work with grantees to figure out how to make the short-term and longer-term strategies more effective. This not only requires more creativity on the part of the grantees, but also flexibility on the part of foundations.

From: Hooper Brooks
To: Stuart Clarke, Enrique Salmón, Rhea Suh
Subject: Re: In search of new strategies
Wednesday, March 30, 2005 1:56 PST

I have had a day of back-to-back meetings, and in that time this discussion has covered quite well just about everything I would have to say about the role of funders. I would add only a few thoughts about how funders can help accelerate adaptive change (in strategies, organizations, coalitions, etc.). They include: investing more time to communicate (succinctly and accessibly) about what funders are supporting and what they are learning from it; developing an open and honest dialogue between funders and grantees about what is working and what isn't; maintaining (to support the first two ideas) a streamlined measurement process to help program officers, boards, and grantees keep track of what actually happens with a grant; and developing collaborations of funders, practitioners, community leaders, elected officials, etc., to clarify challenges and design strategies to address them (this has happened recently with great success in a couple of states that are grappling with the intertwined challenges of smart growth, regional equity, economic competitiveness, and public health).

From: Enrique Salmón
To: Hooper Brooks, Stuart Clarke, Rhea Suh
Subject: Re: In search of new strategies
Wednesday, March 30, 2005 6:13 p.m. PST

As I read Rhea's and Hooper's comments, I can't help but think about an article in The New York Times I read earlier today by former Democratic Sen. Bill Bradley (N.J.). In the article, Senator Bradley discusses how the Democratic Party needs to begin the long-term process of building a strong coalition of support that resembles a pyramid. The base is made of strong and consistent donors and foundations that support research centers and think tanks. The next levels are occupied by policy matters and politics, and then the media. At the top is the president. This pyramid is in opposition to what he suggests the current Democratic Party resembles, which is a pyramid resting on its point. At the point is usually a charismatic president whom everyone can rally around -- but once the president is out of office, the pyramid collapses.

I think the environmental movement is not that different from the Democratic Party's pyramid. We rally around the latest noun that requires saving or protecting. But once the thing has been declared safe, the pyramid of support falters. This reminds me of Rhea's and Hooper's comments, because both suggest that the environmental movement needs to begin to invest in a long-term approach toward changing how environmentalism and environmentalists are perceived by the general public. Rhea suggests developing a theory of change that requires funders and grantees to really assess what the problems are and what it is going to take to solve them, including a real look at funder collaborations. And then Hooper mentions that funders need to invest more time communicating their strategies and assessing the needs of grantees. Both suggestions reflect long-term goals, and perhaps the need for environmentalism to begin building a solid base of support for its own pyramid -- one that can be woven throughout the social fabric of modern industrialized people.

In this way, perhaps, support for environmentalism becomes transcendent across ideologies. This means, of course, that funders need to start to support seemingly non-environmental projects such as political think tanks, media collaborations, and social-justice issues. Some of this is happening already, but it needs to steadily grow.

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Hooper Brooks is the program director for the environment at the Surdna Foundation in New York City, a family foundation with assets over $700 million and an 80-year history. The foundation's environment program makes more than $7 million in grants annually to organizations working on transportation, energy, biological diversity, and urban/suburban land-use issues throughout the U.S.

Stuart Clarke is the executive director of the Town Creek Foundation in Easton, Md. For nearly 25 years, Town Creek has supported public education, citizen action, and advocacy to achieve a healthy environment, an informed society, and a peaceful world.

Enrique Salmón, Ph.D., is a program officer for The Christensen Fund, an independent private foundation that supports bio-cultural projects worldwide. His primary funding region is the greater Southwest of the United States and northwest Mexico. He is a Tarahumara Indian.

Rhea Suh is a program officer with the environment program at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, where she manages the Western grants portfolio. She currently serves on the Environmental Grantmakers Association board, and has been its chair and vice chair.

At Play in the Fields of the Board

From: Hooper Brooks
To: Stuart Clarke, Enrique Salmón, Rhea Suh
Subject: The next steps
Thursday, March 31, 2005 2:53 p.m. PST

Enrique's points are well taken, but I doubt that we will go successfully down that path unless we find an intentional way to do it. Beyond exchanges like this, do we need a "big," organized conversation, or series of conversations, between interested funders (and even skeptical funders) and leading organizations (large and small, national and local) to reexamine and think about how we might retune the whole field and avoid diffusion and fragmentation -- which political think tanks, media collaborations, and social-justice issues? Given the widely differing nature of private foundations (going back to Michael Fisher's observation quoted by Rhea early in this exchange), would that be an impossible task?

There may be some lessons to be harvested from emerging network theory, and some tools from our ever-improving communications technologies that would allow something productive to happen. Much of this exchange suggests a rich diversity of new approaches and foundation-NGO collaborations, but we haven't really had the space or time to go into detail. Can we deliberately harvest the lessons we are learning and make something that is better than the sum of its parts, or do we have to hope that something will emerge more organically? Thoughts?

From: Stuart Clarke
To: Hooper Brooks, Enrique Salmón, Rhea Suh
Subject: Responsibility for change
Thursday, March 31, 2005 3:24 p.m. PST

I think Rhea's comments analogizing social investing to financial investing are right on point. Sometimes I fear that too many funders do not think nearly often or carefully enough about risk, time horizon, or theories and models of social change. The only thing I would want to add to Rhea's comments is that I think there is a critical role for funders to play (perhaps through institutions like the Environmental Grantmakers Association and the Consultative Group on Biological Diversity, and also in cross-sectoral collaboration with the Neighborhood Funders Group and the Funders Committee for Civic Participation, etc.) in helping to develop, test, refine, and disseminate sociopolitical theories of environmental change. As she suggests, such theories should provide the context for informing strategy and for conceptualizing and measuring risk and progress. We certainly have a strong vested interest in clarity and credibility in these areas.

I have tried to avoid mentioning the "Death of Environmentalism" essay in these exchanges because I think the attention it is receiving is far out of proportion to the analytic contribution it makes. But I am going to break my little self-imposed rule to point out that, aside from the sensationalism of its "slaying the fathers" rhetoric, much of the essay's traction comes from the fact that it was dropped into a discursive vacuum. No one is performing, on a large enough scale and in a consistent enough way, the function of establishing, sustaining, and communicating persuasive analytical frameworks relative to which the health, vitality, and progress of the environmental movement can be charted. Were someone (like us!) to perform this function, it would be much more difficult for folks to construct "environmental movement" strawmen and to curry favor with the media by running around pointing out that those strawmen have no clothes.

So I fully agree with you, Rhea, that foundations "need to work with grantees to figure out how to make the short-term and longer-term strategies more effective." I'm inclined to emphasize the role that foundations, working together, might play in generating the knowledge that would inform more effective short- and long-term strategies. It is certainly appropriate for us to expect grantees to be deliberate and reflective in their work. But I also think foundations are better positioned to be in the knowledge-generation business than are most NGOs. We certainly have the resources to be about that work in a sustained, systematic, and collaborative way, if we felt (as I think we should) that it was essential to our effectiveness in helping to advance the movement. So in the funder-grantee partnership in this work, I'd probably allocate a much larger share of responsibility to the funders.

This comes back for me, in a way, to my preoccupation in this exchange with ideology (I suppose that it is characteristic of preoccupations, that all roads will eventually lead home). I understand the inclination to believe that environmentalism will get farther by blunting its ideological elbows than by sharpening them. It is just not clear to me that that is an effective strategy for social change of the magnitude that we think we need. Ideological contestation is a component of social change, and in the absence of clear, grounded frameworks for thinking through and apprehending the meaning and meaningfulness of change, it is too easy to substitute metaphors like "pendulum's swinging" and "seeking middle ground" for historically grounded analysis that encompasses the processes by which ideologies are produced and reproduced, as well as their relationships to the production and reproduction of social relationships. George Lakoff's work seems to me to be grounded in a particular interpretation of these processes, and focused on strengthening the progressive hand in ideological contests. I have some doubts about Lakoff's methods, but I believe that this basic strategy -- strengthening the progressive hand in ideological contests -- is a strategy that the environmental movement ought to explore in a serious way.

From: Rhea Suh
To: Hooper Brooks, Stuart Clarke, Enrique Salmón
Subject: Where do we go from here
Thursday, March 31, 2005 5:59 p.m. PST

I couldn't agree more with Stuart: the funding community needs to do more to build and disseminate the knowledge base around theories of change. Every day, program officers read proposals, reports, and evaluations. Every day, they engage in strategy discussions with grantees. What have we learned? What are the lessons, and are they broadly applicable? Have interesting patterns emerged? Where are the models? Think about the cumulative body of knowledge about social change that exists within each of our foundations. How can we distill that and, as Stuart points out, disseminate it?

I think the huge challenge here, however, is how we then evaluate these theories against each other. There is no commonly agreed-upon metric for how progress is measured, and there are real value differences around the definition of success. For example, what is more successful: a project that creates a collaborative, community-based coalition in a local watershed designed to help restore flows for native fish populations, or a lawsuit that forces the agencies to restore rivers for the same native fish? Is it possible or even desirable to have a standard? Nevertheless, there are clearly fundamentals that are translatable to a variety of issues and problems, and there is clearly a need and an ability to be smarter about how we craft our strategies.

I want to address some of the questions that Hooper raised in his email, regarding the need for "big" conversations. I think we do need to have these conversations, and I think they are actually already happening (or just about to happen). For example, with respect to foundations, the Environmental Grantmakers Association is planning a series of five regional gatherings for its members to brainstorm positive visions and concrete ideas for how our funding, and the field in general, could be more effective. The idea is that the regional "salons" will bring in speakers from the field to share their visions about how our movement can have greater impact in achieving change. This will be followed up by discussion around questions just like the ones posed by Hooper. How do we define success? How can we improve collaboration? How can we avoid diffusion or fragmentation? And to pick up on Stuart's contribution, how can we work together to build knowledge around social/environmental change?

I have to say I'm inspired by this dialogue over the last few days. And I'm inspired by the conversations I'm having with grantees these days as well. The movement is faced with overwhelming issues and challenges. But I believe we are responding, and we are responding with discipline, creativity, and excitement. Examples: in the face of "Healthy Forests," funders and NGOs met in Santa Fe to exchange new ideas about forest protection involving a decentralized, community-based, and tailored approach to restoration; in the wake of Kyoto implementation, funders and NGOs met with religious leaders in D.C. to discuss the amazing organizing efforts in congregations throughout the country on climate change; in the boomtowns of the West, environmentalists, ranchers, and hunters pile into public meetings to fight irresponsible energy development, talking about the value of "clean water, wildlife, and a Western way of life." We may not be winning legislative victories in Congress, but we are making progress on the ground in ways we would not have dreamed of five years ago.

As this is my last post, I wanted to thank Grist for hosting this forum and all of you -- Hooper, Stuart, and Enrique -- for a great conversation these past few days. While there are many things I feel fortunate about with respect to my job as an environmental grantmaker, having smart, caring, and dedicated colleagues at other foundations definitely is at the top of my list.

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Hooper Brooks is the program director for the environment at the Surdna Foundation in New York City, a family foundation with assets over $700 million and an 80-year history. The foundation's environment program makes more than $7 million in grants annually to organizations working on transportation, energy, biological diversity, and urban/suburban land-use issues throughout the U.S.

Stuart Clarke is the executive director of the Town Creek Foundation in Easton, Md. For nearly 25 years, Town Creek has supported public education, citizen action, and advocacy to achieve a healthy environment, an informed society, and a peaceful world.

Enrique Salmón, Ph.D., is a program officer for The Christensen Fund, an independent private foundation that supports bio-cultural projects worldwide. His primary funding region is the greater Southwest of the United States and northwest Mexico. He is a Tarahumara Indian.

Rhea Suh is a program officer with the environment program at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, where she manages the Western grants portfolio. She currently serves on the Environmental Grantmakers Association board, and has been its chair and vice chair.

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