As background for the November Funder Briefing on Freshwater, fifteen case studies were developed to explore recent collaborative initiatives related to freshwater issues. 

EGA publishes Tracking the Field Volume 5. This report builds on the Environmental Grantmakers Association’s (EGA) grant research from 2007 to 2013, deepening our understanding of trends and gaps in environmental philanthropy.Analyzing grant data from the supply side of funding within the environment movement, the Tracking the Field report provides an avenue for EGA members to see where their grantmaking fits into the larger environmental movement and how they can optimize their grant dollars to be more strategic and effective.Tracking the Field: Volume 5 analyzes 66,340 grants, totaling more than $6.8 billion between 2007 and 2013. With six grant years of data, we are able to see the impact of outside influences on environmental philanthropy in addition to shifts within the field.

The staff and Board of the Environmental Grantmakers Association (EGA) are delighted to present our strategic framework. This blueprint builds on EGA’s impressive history which began more than 25 years ago with a handful of environmental funders seeking greater collaboration and synergy, and today has expanded into the big tent under which hundreds of environmental foundations connect. As the world changes, we are mobilizing our efforts to address the stark challenges and fresh opportunities before us.The Board revised and refreshed the original plan in 2014 as we reached the halfway point toward our ten year outcomes. The previous framework encompassed over 18 months of research and discussion with EGA members. While members’ opinions and priorities vary widely, there are common themes. Please note the new outcome goal of catalyzing action which sprung from a robust conversation on the venue and/or voice role for EGA. The urgency of now is evident in the number of environmental stresses around the globe, and EGA continues to evolve to support our members in forging a path to a sustainable future. 

Environmental Success Through Democracy Reform: A Grantmakers' Win-Win Toolkit is released in partnership with the Funders' Committee for Civic Participation, the Environmental Grantmakers Association (EGA) and Health and Environmental Funders Network (HEFN). This resource provides environmental funders with research, ideas and practical tools on how to expand and strengthen their grant making by integrating a money in politics lens into the work.We are excited to provide this resource tool as another way to support environmental grantmakers who are leading the way by connecting the dots between policy change and the role of money in politics. Once you've taken a read, please let us know what you think. We look forward to working together and incorporating any suggestions you may have. 

This second volume of “Tracking the Field” represents a major step forward in our understanding of environmental philanthropy. Building on the findings of the first (2007) volume, this year’s report analyses the grants made by members of the Environmental Grantmakers Association (EGA) with a new level of detail and rigor. It also examines significantly more grants. In so doing, it provides new insights into our collective priorities.

We are pleased to present Tracking the Field: Volume 4, which analyzes the grants made by members of the Environmental Grantmakers Association and provides a picture of grantmaking beyond that of our members to encompass the entire field of environmental philanthropy.Environmental Grantmakers Association’s (EGA) strategic framework includes the objective of “establish[ing] a comprehensive, measurable, up-to date analysis and understanding of the current field of environmental philanthropy.” Tracking the Field: Volume 4 does just that. With four years of data, this report is the product of EGA’s continued investment in monitoring activity within our field. While pursuing improvements in the report each year, the basic methodology and taxonomy has remained consistent, allowing EGA to evaluate trends from 2007 to 2011 and analyze more than 42,000 grants.Please login to your EGA account to view full report. A public summary report will be made available later this year. 

When EGA issued a call for submissions to this special anniversary Journal, we expected a handful of remembrances. Instead we received a plethora of thoughtful, entertaining, and provocative pieces from current and former members, those new to philanthropy and “old timers.” In these rich essays, you will learn some EGA history, consider how times have changed, and be challenged to take risks in a range of ways as to thinking about your grantmaking to ensure future generations have a sustainable planet to enjoy. While they’ve been divided into two sections—Reflections and Calls to Action—clearly most of them do both. Reflecting on where we’ve been, successes and failures, allows us to plan best for the most critical future. The EGA Board remains committed to the values that drove our founding members—nurturing and expanding environmental funding, a relaxed atmosphere to develop relationships and push each other to work more effectively together, and honoring all aspects of our natural world both urban and rural. We are grateful for your commitment to this work, and for this unique opportunity to look both back and ahead to push on in our efforts to help humanity course-correct for the planet.

This summary of the Environmental Grantmakers Association’s Tracking the Field, vol. 3: Exploring EnvironmentalGrantmaking, provides the primary findings that will be analyzed in the full report which will be released on February 28th at the State of the States Briefing.The findings of this document and the full report are broken in to five main areas: total environmental giving for all U.S.-based environmental grantmakers and EGA members specifically, giving by issue from all U.S.-based environmental grantmakers and EGA members specifically, geographic distribution of all environmental grants globally and global and domestic distribution for EGA members’ grants, strategies funded by EGA members, and regranting within EGA (grants between EGA members).

This report, made possible with a small grant from the Ford Foundation, analyzes global grantmaking trends in 2009 by EGA members using data from EGA’s 2009 Tracking the Field database of member grants in support of the environment. It also considers them around the themes of Rio+20, which are, a green economy and the institutional context for sustainable development. Additionally, it provides a snapshot of grants by issues and strategies in South America for its regional relevance. It qualifies these broad trends with data from interviews with a subset of EGA members—small, medium and large, who are engaged in global grantmaking—which surface their expectations and engagement with Rio+20 and related multilateral processes. EGA convened three meetings on Rio+20 in 2011. Relevant information from those are also incorporated. It concludes with some thoughts about Rio+20 and other such summits in the current context of local and global social movements.

Environmental education (EE) aims to create an environmentally literate citizenry, poised and motivated to take action on pressing environmental issues—from climate change to habitat conservation and from endangered species to water scarcity. Environmental education is about engaging students, community members, policy makers, the young and the old. It is about empowerment, skills development, and providing opportunities for action.