Building the Next Generation of Stewards
The Bay Area Environmental Education Funders Collaborative (EEFC) was founded in 2010 with the vision of creating a network of funders who would come together to leverage one another’s expertise, raise awareness of the field, and deepen their collective support for outdoor and environmental education. Participating funders seek to equip students with the outdoor experiences, scientific knowledge, and habits to become lifelong environmental advocates and engaged members of their communities. EEFC membership is open to any funder throughout the greater San Francisco Bay Area who desires to further these outcomes. Sand Hill Foundation is a founding member.
The COVID-19 pandemic illustrated and exacerbated inequities in the educational system. It also had a devastating impact on many Environmental and Outdoor Education organizations across the region. EEFC is committed to rebuilding the field in a new way that rectifies inequities while strengthening systems of support for the environmental and outdoor education field.
Since the creation of the Collaborative, members have leveraged over $2,000,000 in net new grantmaking to Bay Area environmental education nonprofits. The EEFC has catalyzed field-changing initiatives such as Silicon Valley’s Science by Nature Collaborative which has improved science test scores district-wide and inspired a new generation of online tools, adopted by the CA State CREEC Network.
Members also pooled resources through The Transportation Fund to address the need to underwrite transportation for school field trips to outdoor and environmental education providers, reducing the cost of a one-day field trip to less than $10 per student. A joint grant in 2021 enabled the participants of Justice Outside’s Rising Leaders Fellowship Program to create and execute a re-grantmaking program of their own design focused on youth environmentalists of color like themselves.
The Collaborative is fiscally sponsored by Northern California Grantmakers
Goals of the Initiative
- To grow interest in and awareness of the benefits of environmental education grant making.
- To share knowledge, building awareness of field research and best practices, effective local programs, and regional challenges and externalities in environmental education.
- To extend opportunities for collaborative giving to local initiatives, leveraging resources for greater impact in alignment with individual foundations’ priorities.
- To sponsor and host formal convenings that bring funders together with experts on topical issues facing the field, as well as with environmental education leaders.
- To tackle complex issues and collectively move the needle on an annual thematic focus.
2022 Collaborative Members
- California Coastal Conservancy
- Clarence E. Heller Charitable Foundation
- David and Lucile Packard Foundation
- Kimball Foundation
- Lampert-Byrd Foundation
- Maxwell Hanrahan Foundation
- Pisces Foundation
- Sand Hill Foundation
- Santa Clara Valley Open Space Authority
- Justice Outside
- 11th Hour Project / The Schmidt Family Foundation
