Our History: 2004
"No Dirty Gold" is the consumer campaign by Earthworks and Oxfam, intended to shake up the gold industry and change the way gold is mined, bought and sold.We began the year with optimism about the possibilities for strengthening environmental protections and supported efforts to educate and engage the public in civic activities. We saw our grantees, and thousands of organizations around the country, struggle mightily to inject an element of environmental awareness into the minds of the electorate. Overshadowed by the war, the economy and other issues, concerns about the environment failed to rise to the top tier of concerns among the voting public. Although the outlook for environmental policies at the federal level has never been so grim, our grantees made important advances on a mining initiative in Montana and in the legislatures of Montana and Washington State.
Our year ended on a reflective note. We hired an evaluation firm to assess our effectiveness as grantmakers and to help us measure the progress we had made on our last four year strategic plan. This evaluation, completed in early 2005, helped guide our future planning as we prepared for the next ten years.
Grantmaking Highlights
In 2001, we awarded the Mineral Policy Center with one of our Challenge Grants. At the end of the three-year grant, the organization had revamped its strategy and programs, changed its named to EARTHWORKS and was ready to launch a major new initiative - the "No Dirty Gold" campaign. In 2004, we gave EARTHWORKS a grant for this campaign, which is bringing pressure on the mining industry to adopt sustainable practices. Earthwork's ability to expand its reach beyond traditional allies was demonstrated by its partnership with jewelry luminary Tiffany & Company, which has become a partner in the campaign.
In 2002, the Tides Canada Foundation launched a project to increase Canadian conservation philanthropy and to bring additional support for conservation-oriented grantmaking in British Columbia and the Yukon Territory. In 2004, we awarded them a third year of support for this critically important endeavor.
The Rockwood Leadership Program has provided invaluable training and tools to many of our grantees, as well as our own program staff. In 2004, we provided them with funding to offer a leadership training exclusively for women in the conservation movement in the Pacific Northwest.