Our History: 1996
From 'Preserving Working Ranches in the West,' published in 1997. Photo by Barbara Van Cleve © Sonoran Institute.In its second year, the Brainerd Foundation analyzed its fledgling programs and refined its focus. After the frenzied work of launching a new organization, executive director Deb Callahan was lured to Washington, D.C. to become the head of the League of Conservation Voters. The foundation recruited Ann Krumboltz from the Energy Foundation to serve as its new executive director. Bill Mitchell joined as a program officer for the Toxics and Communities program.
The foundation affirmed its commitment to practice respectful, responsive and transparent philanthropy, embracing the ideals articulated in Michael Shuman's "The Grantee Bill of Rights." In her first executive director's message, Ann defined the themes that guide the foundation's work: encouraging collaboration between like-minded groups, building citizen support of natural resource conservation, fostering entrepreneurial and strategic approaches to complex issues and strengthening the organizational infrastructure for grassroots involvement.
Grantmaking Highlights
In another year of start-ups, the foundation provided seed money to help launch the Western Mining Activist Network, a region-wide network that fosters collaboration among groups working to protect their communities from the environmental degradation brought by the mining industry. This network continues to thrive nearly a decade later, strengthening the bonds between activists and increasing the effectiveness of grassroots groups.
In British Columbia, a grant to Round River Conservation Studies was used to develop a conservation strategy for the temperate rainforests along B.C.'s coast. Working with the Heiltsuk First Nation, this effort became a model for the successful B.C. Coast campaign and pioneered the Conservation Areas Design (CAD) process.
Further up the coast, a grant to the Southeast Alaska Conservation Council enabled long-time activists in more than a dozen small towns and villages to successfully stave-off attempts to log in protected areas of the Tongass National Forest. Efforts to protect the Tongass have been hard fought on all sides and require continued perseverance more than a decade after the passage of a federal law protecting this irreplaceable resource. This reality underscores the foundation's commitment to help organizations improve their ability to communicate effectively in their communities.
Our first grant to the Sonoran Institute taught us that wildlife corridors cross valley bottoms as well as mountain ridges in the West, reminding us of the need to work with private landowners to shape the future of lowland shrub steppe and prairie landscapes in the Northwest.