In response to a clear need identified by the New England environmental community, the Fund is designed to validate and support grassroots activists working on hometown environmental issues. Financial support is readily available to established organizations, but not so for local, ad hoc committees or temporary coalitions. The Grantmaking Committee meets three times a year to review applications and award grants. It is made up of eleven members, one activist from each of the New England states and five individuals representing the foundation community.
Members serve for two years.
We were called to action. Huge questions confront us. Fundamentally, sustainability throws the greatest environmental and economic gauntlet yet at our feet - the challenge to recognize and act upon the knowledge that we, each Spaceship Earth individual, singly and collectively, are the problem. Not a moment too soon, we need to join in the broadest public exploration ever of what humans must do to bring the planet back into ecological balance. The New England Grassroots Environment Fund knows that this mammoth puzzle will be solved only one piece at a time.