Environment Program Grants: New Guideline Grants 2002

New Guideline Grants 2002

GOAL: To facilitate environmental justice and environmentally sustainable communities by supporting the accountability of corporations, governments, and other institutions for their environmental practices.
OBJECTIVE I: CORPORATE AND GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY To facilitate the accountability of corporations, governments, and other institutions for their environmental practices.
Strategy 1: Public Policy To facilitate the development of public policies and other approaches by which corporations, governments and other institutions take responsibility for the real environmental costs and risks of their activities.
CERES, Inc. Sustainable Governance Project (Boston, MA)	To support their efforts to organize a new corporate board accountability system that would hold individual board members responsible for their companies' social, economic and environmental impact. In addition, the project seeks to persuade institutional investors that introducing sustainability concerns is the logical next step to their historical work to improve corporate governance.	$100,000 Total [$75,000 Environment, $25,000 Interprogram] 1 Year
Educational Broadcasting Corporation NOW with Bill Moyers (New York, NY)	The Educational Broadcasting Corporation is seeking funding for NOW with Bill Moyers to cover stories ignored by the mainstream media through a Washington bureau that would facilitate a steady flow of investigative reporting to "connect the dots" between corporate governance and our political institutions. NOW will cover these stories through investigative journalism addressing such issues as money in politics, environmental regulation, taxation, corporate power, cultural policies as well as health and economic policies. These stories will shed light on how organized special interests influence policy at the expense of the common good. As an important part of NOW, these issues will be explored along with other issues shaping our democracy, culture and world. The outcome it seeks is a more informed, tolerant and active citizenry, a more open and democratic government, and more responsible corporate governance. These issues will be explored along with other issues shaping our democracy, culture and world.	$250,000 Total [$95,300 Interprogram, $134,000 Environment, $20,700 Health]
Government Accountability Project Freedom to Warn (Washington, DC)	To support their efforts to shape national policies in support of government and corporate whistleblowers.	$60,000 Total [$30,000 Environment, $30,000 Interprogram] 1 Year
Farmers' Legal Action Group, Inc. (St. Paul, MN)	To support family farm organizations that are challenging the Pork Checkoff program and corporate concentration and vertical integration in agriculture that increases environmental pollution.	$250,000 Total [$150,000 Environment, $100,000 Interprogram]
Institute for Civil Society, Inc. Climate Change and Power Plant Litigation Project (Newton Centre, MA)	The goal of this grant is to the support the Climate Change and Power Plant Litigation Project, a collaboration of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and the Institute for Civil Society (CSI). The project will develop and apply a sophisticated, feasible, and efficient litigation strategy to require the largest emitters of greenhouse gas pollution to reduce their emissions and internalize more of the costs of their business activities. The project is now working closely with ten State Attorneys General to develop a litigation plan that will seek court orders limiting carbon dioxide emissions and/or obtain money damages from polluting industries such as power plants. NRDC will provide legal advice and strategy through its attorneys as well as scientific support through its scientific staff, and CSI is providing in-kind administrative and fund-raising support through its staff. NCF funding will allow CSI to engage outside attorneys to 1) manage and coordinate the lawsuits; 2) support the lawsuits with experts and other resources; and 3) act as a liaison with NRDC and other environmental groups, CSI, the philanthropic community, governments and the press.	$100,000
National Trust For Historic Preservation Good Corporate Neighborhood Initiative (Washington, DC)	This grant will support the Corporate Good Neighborhood Initiative, which addresses the negative environmental, social and economic impacts of sprawl. The Initiative seeks to 1)persuade corporate leaders to minimize sprawl-related environmental damage and to play a positive role by developing community-friendly, scaled-down facilities in existing downtowns and commercial districts; 2)provide communities with training and technical support so they can be pro-active in addressing issues of corporate impact; and 3)litigate and provide legal advocacy to defend and enforce state and local laws that protect communities from the devastating effects of sprawl commercial development. The National Trust will accomplish these goals by using its extensive communications, advocacy, and field networks to assess and identify good-neighbor business development and use them as models to develop a 3-year strategic plan and working relationship with "big-box" retailers. In addition, the National Trust will develop guidelines for new construction with experts in design standards for historic areas and persons familiar with functional needs of affected businesses and communities.	$35,000 Total [$30,000 Environment, $5,000 Interprogram]
Water Keeper Alliance, Inc. Campaign Against Industrialized Hog Farming (Tarrytown, NY)	The goal of the Campaign Against Industrialized Hog Farming is to stop illegal dumping of waste by industrial meat producers and to hold corporate hog producers accountable for the environmental and social costs of their business operations. The grant will support litigation against major pork producers to enforce the Clean Water Act, order factory farms to pay penalties as a deterrent against future violations, and clean up contamination and remediate the damage to the environment and rural communities. Forcing industrial meat producers to internalize the cost of legal waste disposal will reduce the market advantage that industrial hog factories hold over family farms. The Water Keeper Alliance will also host the 3rd Annual Sustainable Hog Farming Summit to bring together hundreds of environmental, agricultural, and animal welfare activists and grassroots organizations across the nation to mobilize a network of family farmers, rural residents, environmental and animal welfare activists into a disciplined and energetic advocacy force determined to reform the industry. The Alliance seeks to expand its capacity to provide legal and technical support to its network organizations in challenging individual industrial meat facilities and coordinating efforts to affect public policy in key meat producing states.	$75,000
Strategy 2: Building Connections To broaden public constituencies that will encourage corporations and other institutions to internalize the true environmental costs of their activities, by connecting environmentalists to public health, labor, religious, minority, economic development, science, business, youth, academic, social justice and other groups.
Alliance for Sustainable Jobs and the Environment Educational Project Models for Labor-Environmental Cooperation (Portland, OR)	The Alliance for Sustainable Jobs and the Environment (ASJE) is a labor-environmental network with the mission to build a world where "nature is protected, the worker is respected, and unrestrained corporate power is rejected" through grassroots education, organization, and action. By working together, the labor and environmental movements can more effectively pursue common demands for accountability from both corporations and government. This project will demonstrate three strategies for such cooperation: 1) development of a labor-environmental coalition to create new jobs in environmental restoration in California and the Pacific Northwest, and shift public investment toward that work; 2) building "blue-green" support for environmentally and socially responsible climate change and energy policies through education of community labor and environmental leaders nationwide, and; 3) bringing labor unions and environmentalists together to pursue mutual opportunities for campaigns to remedy corporate abuses.	$50,000 Total [$40,000 Environment, $10,000 Interprogram]
Center for New Community/ Towards Hospitality and Justice (Chicago, IL)	To support a regional working conference to bring together church, immigrant, labor, farm, civic, legal, academic and community leaders to learn about and address issues, concerns and impacts related to the corporate meatpacking and poultry processing industry in the Midwest and Plains states resulting in the development of a regional Leadership Network to assist churches and communities in a long-term process of developing community -based responses to this industry, and will approve and advance a document incorporating principles of operation for this industry in the region.	$95,000 Total [$65,000 Interprogram; $10,000 Environment, $10,000 Health, $10,000 Jewish Life] 1 Year
Environmental Law and Policy Center of the Midwest Fiscal Impacts Project (Chicago, IL)	The goal of the Fiscal Impacts Project is to design and advocate for a set of "green-scissors"-type budget cuts and tax reform measures in the Midwestern states to reduce public subsidies for environmentally harmful projects and to eliminate governmental programs that produce more environmental and public health harms than public good. ELPC will be working with public interest organizations in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin to identify and target environmentally harmful public funding, such as subsidies for landfill methane gas production, and sales tax exemptions for agricultural chemicals. A "white paper" will be published on targeted budget cuts and will be presented publicly and for media release, as well as provided to newly elected governors and state legislators during the transition process. ELPC and its broad, diverse coalition of environmental, community, agricultural, business, and labor groups will also research and identify pro-environmental fiscal reforms, and conduct a media campaign to present its findings. New partnerships will be formed with state and local labor unions that are concerned with job losses due to government budget cuts, such as AFSCME and SEIU and transportation workers' unions, and social service and health care providers facing sharp cutbacks due to state and local budget cuts.	$150,000
SEIU Education & Support Fund Public Pension Fund Trustee Corporate Accountability Project (Washington, DC)	To support efforts to identify qualified candidates for appointment to the boards of public pension funds. These candidates would be committed to investment policies, proxy voting guidelines and corporate governance standards that promote responsible corporate policies, including the areas of employment, the environment, healthcare and human rights.	$50,000 Total [$25,000 Interprogram, $20,000 Environment, $5,000 Health] 1 Year
Center for a Sustainable Economy Presidential Authority Grant (Washington, DC)	To support the Blue/Green Working Group press conference that brings together labor and environmental leaders on the controversial topic of global warming.	$15,000
The Labor Institute (New York, NY)	To support the development of an environmental education consortium with selected unions and environmental organizations to conduct union-wide education that promotes environmentalism among union members.	$300,000
Neighborhood Funders Group (Washington, DC)	To support the efforts of the Working Group on Labor and Community, a project of the Neighborhood Funders Group, to develop the emerging relationship between grantmakers and organized labor.	$15,000 Total [$5,000 Environment, $5,000 Health, $5,000 Interprogram]
The Organization for Competitive Markets (Strategies 1 & 2) (Porterville, MS)	To reduce the environmental and health risks in the agriculture business by reducing the market power of large agriculture and food corporations and increasing the viability of smaller (and therefore less harmful) farms.	$75,000 Total [$25,000 Environment, $25,000 Interprogram, $25,000 Health]
Vallecitos Mountain Refuge (Taos, NM)	To support a pilot program for leaders of social justice organizations in an effort to address the problem of fragmentation in the nonprofit sector.	$65,000 Total [$50,000 Jewish Life, $15,000 Environment]
OBJECTIVE II: PROMOTING ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE To facilitate environmental justice by ensuring that communities, especially those vulnerable due to low- to moderate- socioeconomic status, race, or ethnicity, are protected from environmental degradation.
Strategy 1: Accountability and Base Building To facilitate efforts which promote the environmental accountability of corporations, governments, and other institutions in communities, especially those vulnerable due to low- to moderate - socioeconomic status, race, or ethnicity.
Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy Good Jobs First (Washington, DC)	The goal of this grant is to build on the strength and the capacity of Good Jobs First, a project of the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, to unite traditionally unconnected constituencies to remedy problems with state and local development-subsidy programs that lack accountability safeguards. Such groups include environmental groups, tax and budget groups, state action coalitions, living wage campaigns, labor unions, smart growth advocates, and community organizing networks. Good Jobs First will also continue to conduct research and provide information and training to environmental, community, and union leaders, public policy makers and media sources about the harmful environmental consequences of sprawl development on communities and the local economy. Studies showing how smart growth can benefit the environment and unions and about corporate responsibility to provide living wages and health care to workers of subsidized businesses will continue to be released and used for training and workshops. The long-term strategy is to strengthen and grow the diverse base of organizations that are concerned with wasteful subsidies and sprawl development that lead to environment degradation and economic injustice, and to empower the organizations to take action for reform.	$100,000 Total [$85,000 Environment, $15,000 Interprogram]
Jewish Council for Public Affairs (New York, NY)	To support the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life (COEJL) in its first year of a four-year period of organizational expansion.	$150,000 Total [$112,500 Jewish Life, $25,000 Environment, $12,500 Interprogram]
Land Stewardship Project (Minneapolis, MN)	To support the Campaign for Family Farms and the Environment, to stop corporate agribusiness and government policies and practices that promote factory farms and corporate consolidation of agriculture that result in environmental pollution.	$250,000
Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law Environmental Justice Project ( Washington, DC)	The goal of the Environmental Justice Project is to work collaboratively with grassroots groups to address the disproportionate burden of environmental hazards on poor and minority communities in Gainesville, Georgia, where discriminatory practices have reinforced segregation and caused environmental harm to African-American communities. The Lawyers' Committee will assist Newtown Florist Club and Concerned Citizens of Black, Cooley, and Jordan Drives, as well as several local residents of Gainesville to file a class action in federal court to challenge housing segregation, discriminatory land-use policies, and zoning decisions of the city and housing and zoning commissions. The case offers the opportunity to develop new case law involving discriminatory decision making and environmental exposure in a governmentally-imposed segregated setting.	$50,000
Western Organization of Resource Councils Education Project (Billings, MT)	To support a regional project that campaigns against proposed new federal policies for more fossil fuel energy production, and gains protections for homeowners and rural residents against the adverse effects of expanded fossil fuel energy development.	$150,000 Total [$100,000 Environment, $50,000 Health]
Strategy 2: Public Access To increase public access to information and decision-making about environmental policies.
Communities for a Better Environment Building Community Power for Health and Justice (Huntington Park, CA)	The goal of this grant is to support the Building Community Power for Health and Justice project, an integrated environmental health and justice program that provides assistance to heavily polluted urban communities in greater Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area. Communities for a Better Environment (CBE) is also helping to create the California Alliance by improving the capacity of local environmental justice groups to participate in the development of a statewide agenda that is based on social, economic, and environmental justice. CBE also participates fully as a member of several key networks and local coalitions such as the Southwest Network for Environmental and Economic Justice and Californians for Pesticide Reforms. CBE strategies combine grassroots organizing and leadership development, local community education, public policy analysis, legal advocacy, research and technical assistance to build community power, create measurable improvements in local communities, and help shape environmental policy to support environmental health and justice. Core programs include Environmental Justice Leadership Training Programs, Pollution Prevention and Reduction Campaigns and Community Pollution Monitoring Programs which use litigation to hold the state accountable for achieving legally mandated clean air improvements.	$125,000
Environmental Health Coalition General Support (San Diego, CA)	The goal of this grant is to provide general support to the Environmental Health Coalition (EHC) and its statewide environmental justice campaigns in California as well as local projects in San Diego and around the Mexican border. EHC's core campaign's are: Toxic-Free Neighborhoods Campaign; Campaign to Eliminate Childhood Lead Poisoning; Clean Bay Campaign; Border Environmental Justice Campaign; and the Research and Community Assistance program. On a statewide level, EHC has joined with AGENDA to form the California Alliance, a coalition of progressive, economic, environmental and social justice organizations, which advocates for environmental justice, protective environmental regulations, worker protection, and strict enforcement of environmental permits, and empower community residents to participate in the decision making process. EHC will also continue to work with a network of Latino organizations in California to develop Latino leadership around energy issues and with another statewide network to promote the use of code enforcement to reduce the risk of childhood lead poisoning. Each campaign consists of community organizers and advocates who develop complementary tactics that are supported by high quality research, education, and media efforts to establish community control over community planning. EHC provides strong leadership and research assistance to statewide coalitions and communities throughout San Diego/Tijuana with the majority of its efforts directed at poor, communities of color in urbanized areas.	$125,000
Independent Media Institute (San Francisco, CA)	To support the SPIN project which will develop media training and develop comprehensive communications plans, and AlterNet.org, which will expand its environmental health site.	$200,000
Independent Press Association (San Francisco, CA)	To support programs to expand publication and distribution of the ethnic press and periodicals that focus on environmental and other social justice issues.	$250,000 Total [$100,000 Environment, $85,000 Interprogram, $25,000 Arts and Culture, $25,000 Health, $15,000 Jewish Life]
World Resources Institute The Access Initiative-United States (Washington, DC)	This grant will support The Access Initiative in the United States (TAI-USA), a global coalition of public interest groups, which will hold state and federal government accountable for ensuring access to environmental information, and public participation in environmental decision-making processes. By monitoring and assessing government performance, using a research framework that has been tested worldwide, TAI-USA will identify priorities for policy reform, engage government agencies and corporations in building stronger policies and practices to protect the public's right-to-know, and work with communities and media to build constituencies and expand public access to environmental information. The project will also train leaders and develop capacity for public interest groups in underrepresented communities to participate in environmental decision-making processes. TAI-USA is currently a collaboration of four partners: the World Resources Institute, the Citizens Policy Center in Ohio, the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition in California, and the Environmental Law Institute in Washington, DC. Together these groups bring strong links to local and state environmental, health, environmental justice, and labor groups that have expertise in such areas as toxics pollution and public health. New partners will be added to TAI-USA, expanding the network to the Northwest and Southwest region.	$110,000
MEMBERSHIPS AND DUES
Rockefeller Family Fund, Inc. (New York, NY)	For membership and general support of the Environmental Grantmakers Association, a voluntary association of foundations and giving programs concerned with the protection of the natural environment.	$5,000