We appreciate that 86 of you were able to take the time to provide your feedback about the grantmaking proposal which shared our Funding Priority.

As for results, 86% of you support the proposal, 13% were neutral, and 2% weren’t supportive. We’ve used this as a green light to move forward with the myriad of things necessary to open our application process - which happened on May 21.

Some common themes that came up in comments were excitement over the impact we could make by modeling this kind of grantmaking and that we could do even more to lead in the area of equity.

Most common questions were:

Q: Why did we specifically call on environmental organizations to apply?

A: Because that is the focus area in which we get the least number of applications. We believe it’s because environmental nonprofits may not know that we see the intersection of the work they are doing with equity work

Q: Does this mean we will exclude organizations that haven’t had the time or money to invest in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI)?

A: Grant Review Teams will weigh each nonprofit’s impacts in several areas including, but not limited to, DEI, so these organizations will not be excluded from consideration before they are evaluated

Q: Might we be overlooking people impacted by poverty with this proposal?

A: We see poverty as a form of inequity so it is not overlooked in our funding priority. Furthermore, people experiencing poverty are also often impacted by other forms of inequity.

If you are one of the few who requested a personal reply, you will be hearing from us soon if you haven’t already. Thanks again for taking the time and care to respond and share your thoughts.