In designing this program, Environment Program staff held hundreds of meetings; hosted retreats and workshops in Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, and California; did further site visits in British Columbia and Oregon; commissioned papers from a half dozen of the most capable thinkers on western environmental issues; and reviewed each of the current outstanding Hewlett Foundation environmental grants. We also spent many days with the other prominent foundations with historical or potential future grants in the field.

This process naturally led to a wide variety of suggestions about how we might direct Hewlett Foundation grants. To sort them out, we developed and applied the following criteria:

1. Our proposed overall goal is to ensure that conservation is the primary management aim on ecologically significant land in the West. Because public lands dominate the West, this goal naturally takes us to public lands management. Nevertheless, we recognize the significant role private lands play in ecosystem health and will support selected projects for the protection of private landscapes.

2. We will work where the threats are imminent and the potential harm irreversible.

3. Our grantmaking will be informed by and take advantage of large-scale trends already under way.

4. We will be selective in subject areas chosen, picking those where philanthropy is likely to have a significant impact.

5. Finally, we will have clear goals for the programs we support.

In addition to these criteria, we will pay close attention to the form of Hewlett Foundation grants in the environment. While the program’s goals have been refined, we will continue to pursue many of the same and most successful strategies of the past. For example:

1. We will continue to build institutional capacity in the field and to provide general support for core western organizations that have missions and means that correlate strongly with the priorities of the program.

2. We will continue to seek strategies that can bind people together and realign environmental and western politics. It is clear that solutions embraced by all parties in a dispute persist longer and engender stronger communities than those imposed by one side or another. The Foundation encourages and promotes collaborative and consensus-building strategies when they show real promise.

3. We will support efforts to assist the transition of rural communities away from unsustainable, resource extraction-based economies within the context of our priority areas.

4. We will expand our efforts in building new alliances and constituencies for environmental issues.

5. We will continue to emphasize and support efforts to bring sound analysis and scientific research into policy debates.

6. We will work to test new strategies and ideas to help environmental groups break out of traditional (and often unsuccessful) strategies of engagement. We will help them develop stronger strategic plans, build productive relationships with traditional adversaries, develop more appealing and salient messages, and better understand political trends and issues within their regions.

7. We will continue to support focused educational efforts for the public and decisionmakers.

Our Approach | Our Strategy | Grant Guidelines