Environment Program
Through our environment program we support organizations that are working to establish healthy, sustainable relationships between humans and the ecological systems that support life on earth. We are especially interested in working with organizations that actively engage the American population in efforts to preserve biological diversity and to challenge and reverse the unsustainable ways that natural resources are currently managed and consumed.We believe that sustainable change usually occurs as a result of a myriad of factors that interact in sometimes coordinated but often surprising ways. Consequently, we support a range of strategies (e.g. market based, legislative, judicial, public relations, etc.) and activities (e.g. grassroots organizing, public policy advocacy, litigation, media outreach etc.) in support of our broad goals.
At the same time, we are very aware of the limits of our resources relative to the magnitude of the challenges that our people and our planet face. Consequently, we try to deploy our resources in thoughtful, creative, and focused ways that will have a meaningful impact on important work.
While we seek to remain flexible in our environmental grantmaking, we have established a number of areas of particular interest. Most of our grants support work that is focused within the state of Maryland, work that aspires to national impact, or work that is focused on the Southern Appalachian National Forests.
Our Maryland portfolio has two primary foci: statewide environmental advocacy and programs that promote ecologically sustainable policies and practices on the Eastern Shore. Within both areas we have a strong interest in helping to restore and protect the Chesapeake Bay.
Our National portfolio has had two primary foci in recent years: programs and organizations that strengthen the environmental movement generally, and programs and organizations that are working to reduce the pressure on forests from the paper products industry. While we do continue to support work that strengthens the environmental movement generally, this is no longer a primary focus area for us.
We also have a small set of longstanding grantees that work to protect national forests within the Southern Appalachian region. We have not, in recent years, been adding new grantees in this area. The bulk of our environmental grantmaking is devoted to organizations working in these places on these issues. There are exceptions to this, but they are limited and infrequent. We have occasionally made grants to organizations that are working in Chesapeake Bay Watershed states other than Maryland - usually Virginia or Washington D.C. With the exception of the Southern Appalachian National Forest work mentioned above, we are very unlikely to support work that is focused on states outside of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed.
Media Policy Program
Through our Media Policy Program we support work devoted to protecting the public's interest in the national media system. We believe that our environmental and peace and security goals are most likely to be achieved, and our democracy strengthened, if the national media system is structured and operated in such a manner that a broad and diverse range of information and opinion are consistently accessible to as broad a range of the American public as possible.Most of the grants that we make through our Media Policy program support organizing, public education, and administrative advocacy rather than media programming or content. There are a few exceptions to this, but we are not seeking to expand those exceptions further.
Promoting Peace Program
Through our Promoting Peace program we support organizations working within the United States to reduce the risks and costs of war. We recognize that all nations have a legitimate right to preserve their national security, and we also recognize that there are instances in which military conflict will be the 'least worst' available option. We also believe, however, that the manner in which a nation perceives and pursues its national security can increase or decrease the likelihood of legitimate military conflict, and that the presence and persistence of nuclear weapons will drastically increase the potential costs associated with military conflict. We also believe that the full environmental and public health costs associated with the maintenance of a vast nuclear weapons complex must be factored in to our conceptions of national security. We have therefore chosen to concentrate our Promoting Peace grantmaking in two areas:- promoting a richer and more well informed public debate about national security policy especially as it is reflected in federal budget priorities, and
- reducing the risks posed by nuclear and chemical weapons by promoting the elimination of nuclear weapons, the responsible management of existing nuclear facilities, the responsible disposal of existing nuclear and chemical weapons, and the strengthening of arms control programs and policies .