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Charity Navigator is America's premier independent charity evaluator. Click on the logo to review our four star rating.
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We make grants (typically $500 to $5,000) to grassroots groups in some of the world’s most despoiled and impoverished places where other sources of support often are not available. Since our first grant in 1993, Greengrants has made more than 2000 grants to groups in 113 countries. To find grantees Global Greengrants Fund relies on nearly 100 volunteer advisors around the world. Linked in a network of regional and global advisory boards, these volunteers allow us to capitalize on the expertise of people who know first hand where the most urgent and promising work is happening. Their generosity and dedication are key to our efficient and low-cost grantmaking model. Overcoming the obstacles In a way, we are in the business of hope. Global Greengrants Fund is one of only a few sources of support to grassroots groups around the world. Less than 2 percent of U.S. giving goes to international causes and only a fraction of that goes to support grassroots environmental groups. The reasons for this are obvious: It is hard for grant makers to identify grassroots groups in remote areas; it is hard to transfer funds; and it is hard to monitor grantee progress. Combined, these obstacles can make grassroots grantmaking a challenging enterprise. Global Greengrants Fund has created a highly efficient and reliable system for finding and funding local grassroots environmental groups. By forming an international network of advisory boards for specific regions and environmental issues, we streamline our grantmaking and help link our advisors and grantees in a community that can share knowledge, viewpoints and strategies. Beyond consultation: Putting decisions in the right hands Grantmaking is a form of stewardship, and Global Greengrants Fund identifies the most qualified stewards, invites them to join our advisory boards and then steps back to let this system work. Our search for qualified stewards has led us to local scientists and activists, leaders of small networks or coalitions, teachers, journalists, engineers, physicians and international environmental leaders. By placing grant decisions in their hands, we leverage local expertise and create a system that puts its confidence in the wisdom of the people closest to the action. Global Greengrants Fund is dedicated to the proposition that we, as donors, need to let go of more than just our money. The best philanthropy embodies a deeper spirit of generosity. We need to honor and trust the people we identify as worthy recipients of our largess. We need to let go of our preconceptions and our agendas long enough to begin an honest dialogue. And then we need to listen. Weaving a self-sustaining network Our advisors help us make philanthropic judgments and create simple grantmaking procedures to eliminate red tape and streamline grant delivery. This system has the added benefit of building a peer community that can provide moral support, mentoring and monitoring. Grantees and advisors gain ongoing opportunities to share knowledge, viewpoints, strategies and successes. This network is essential for maintaining the quality of our grants and helping us scale up our grantmaking in the coming years. But it is much more than this. Our advisor network already is beginning to take on a life of its own, driven by collaborative energy, great ideas and a shared vision of a healthy planet. Our advisors now actively seek each other out to confer on issues that may cross continents or oceans. Our grantees, too, are learning where to go for help from groups dealing with similar challenges. Nurturing the growth of a global grassroots community As we find new ways to broaden our network and facilitate this collaboration across language and cultural barriers, we can bridge the gulf that often needlessly separates people working toward shared goals. In our work, we have seen the power that this collaboration can have on every participant in our networks. To tap this power, we hope to encourage the rapid growth of our advisor network and work to encourage the participation of our grantees and an entire global grassroots community. Communication technologies can now make this dream practical and relatively inexpensive. Better use of these technologies is our next frontier. We need to know each other, learn from each other and work together. This is globalization with a heart. And, in fact, this work offers an antidote to the excesses of corporate globalization. The better we can link this community, the better we can reckon with the environmental and social challenges of the twenty-first century. Printable Version | Site Map
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