EGA President and CEO
This Earth Day finds us facing complex challenges and singular opportunities. Our responses will quite literally determine the future. We can either hold to our traditions and our agenda, and perish, or nimbly shift towards transformation for a chance at survival. As stewards of the EGA community, we are committed to the latter. In that spirit, I am thrilled to share our latest thinking on EGA’s opportunity to unleash a systemic response to the degradation of people and the planet. I invite you to investigate our refreshed Strategic Framework.
The strategic roadmap reflects what we do well together and what we might achieve together. It was developed by the EGA board, staff, and our valued members (you!), and draws out a path for environmental philanthropy that can realize and resource a healthy world with just communities, economies, and systems. During the redevelopment process, we, like you, faced compound crises—the COVID-19 pandemic, an increasingly warming world, and too cool politics. Our strategy reckons with the causal conditions of white supremacy and embedded racism that have led to this multipronged moment of urgency. In our reflection, we consider long-term ways philanthropy can engage to remedy past and present harms, build trust, and partner with impacted communities to change our shared trajectory.
Last Earth Day, EGA made a collective commitment as board and staff, members, and as an institution to address systemic racism in philanthropy and advance equity in our work. EGA gathered with members during the 2021 Fall Retreat to mobilize on this commitment and get to work on actions for operationalizing racial equity. At our 2022 Winter Briefing, we partnered with movement leaders, government officials, and experts in different sectors to mold a narrative about the environmental movement that is equitable, intersectional, and leaderful. What resulted was the beginning of a vision supported by collaborative efforts with communities, funders, and the government.
As a philanthropy-supporting organization, EGA is here to help you stretch, reframe and reimagine alongside our community of funders and partners, towards a philanthropic practice that is just, effective, and serves people and the planet.
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Action areas that shift your role towards a leaderful practice
EGA’s Strategic Framework is our action plan to utilize the tools we have in hand—the programming, data, communications, and relationships—to shift towards the future. It is based on your feedback to actively uplift Black Indigenous and People Of Color’s leadership in the global environmental movement. The framework complements our Racial Equity POV which is a guide for how to do this work equitably.
Together, the strategy roadmap and Racial Equity POV support the work of our member community of officers, executives, board members, and trustees, in building a peer network committed to advancing a bold vision for philanthropy in partnership with communities. It is worth noting that between 2015 and 2018, “Health & Justice,” funding by EGA members grew 43% from $108 million to $155 million. However, it remains the least funded issue area. The Strategic Framework will enable bold investments and facilitate systems change. EGA identified the following outcomes to achieve our ultimate goal of a just world with sustainable communities, economies, and systems:
- EGA member institutions have a network of peers dedicated to transformative learning, accountability, and courageous action.
- Staff and trustees of EGA member institutions work equitably with BIPOC leaders to inform their investments.
- EGA member institutions are bold and capable change agents, facilitating a transformation of their own organizations and the field of philanthropy.
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EGA member institutions strategically position those impacted to advance environmental solutions and innovations that respect the dignity and liberation of all people. They move systems and structures
towards justice, promote inclusive and regenerative economies, and advance healthy ecosystems. -
EGA member institutions move resources with strategies and processes shaped by the expertise and ideas of communities who bear the burden of extractive economies, structural racism, environmental degradation,
and climate change.
It’s all hands on deck now and in the future to do the necessary work for the world we want to live in. We look forward to continuing as your partner and supporter in the transformation of ourselves, our communities, and our world.
In Solidarity and Community,
Tamara Toles O'Laughlin
President & CEO
