What's New

In October 2009, the Surdna Foundation adopted a new mission focused on the creation of just and sustainable communities-communities guided by principles of social justice and distinguished by healthy environments, strong local economies, and thriving cultures.  In considering possible areas of focus that would bridge many of these issues, the Foundation decided to explore the potential of a strategy aimed revitalizing America's manufacturing sector.

To further its understanding of what a strategy to support manufacturing could include, Surdna convened a Manufacturing Roundtable in January 2010.  This roundtable was comprised of 17 national experts, including local practitioners, policymakers, academics, and individuals representing the unions and the manufacturing business community.  This white paper provides a summary of key takeaways from the roundtable, including potential actions for the manufacturing field as a whole and the philanthropic community in particular.  To view the paper, please click here.

A new report released by the Environmental Protection Agency details a "fundamental shift" in the development of cities and towns, as increasing amounts of development are focused in denser, more efficient patterns of land use.  Experts are attributing this trend to a realization that smart growth principles lead to more sustainable, livable, and prosperous environments--and thus to higher demand for real estate in those areas.  The Obama Administration's Sustainable Communities Partnership, as well as their nonprofit, philanthropic, and private partners, hope to extend the benefits of this exciting trend to more cities and towns across the country.

 

 

In October 2009, the Surdna Foundation began a new chapter, focusing on just and sustainable communities. Building out of many comprehensive discussions about crafting this new mission for the Foundation, we made the difficult decision to discontinue funding some areas, including our ocean biodiversity and fisheries portfolio.

The Foundation is proud of its investment in a broad range of extremely innovative and successful organizations and initiatives that have made significant accomplishments in this area. We are grateful to our grantees and our longtime funding and community partners for their devotion and hard work. The ocean conservation field has progressed by leaps and bounds due to invaluable efforts at all levels to push for strong, conservation-minded policies.

As we have conveyed to our colleagues in the field, our decision regarding our oceans portfolio does not mean that we feel there still isn’t significant work to be done. In looking back at the growth of the field, and looking forward to its future, we decided to conduct an in-depth assessment of our investment’s impact on the field. We are now releasing the results of that assessment in the enclosed report, Currents of Change: The Story of the Surdna Foundation’s Investment in Oceans.

We believe what we have learned much from funding ocean conservation and sustainable fisheries for 19 years and this learning will give us valuable insights into the work we will now focus on. We hope that these lessons can inform future efforts by our grantees, friends and colleagues. We have every expectation that the field will continue to make important strides as they fight for strong ocean policies and practices.

 

 

 

The Surdna Foundation helped to organize a day in the field for White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) Chair Nancy Sutley to see the models being developed at the city and state level in New York to accelerate energy efficiency, job creation, and household and business cost reduction through large-scale retrofitting.  Chair Sutley, accompanied by CEQ staff, visited New York City on January 15, 2010, to learn from the experiences and successes of practitioners on the ground.  Her day included:

• a tour of the Mason Tenders' Training Center, a green jobs training site in Long Island City that houses the Laborers' International Union of North America's (LIUNA) Weatherization Training Program - a skills-based program that prepares workers for retrofitting homes and helps connect them to jobs in the field;

• a stakeholder lunch conversation that brought together key groups and agencies - community organizations, labor, state energy administrators, financial institutions, city policy makers, and environmental justice organizations - to discuss the collaborations that are already working in New York State and New York City retrofit efforts and the next steps to scaling up retrofits and making them an instrument of economic change nationally;

• a tour of West 135th Street Apartments, a Section 8-assisted complex that recently received the first award announced under the Department of Housing and Urban Development's (HUD's) new Green Retrofit Program for Multifamily Housing, through American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds - a $3.6-million grant to Jonathan Rose Companies to increase the energy efficiency of the building's 198 units; and

• a conversation on the ways that philanthropy and the Administration can drive large-scale energy efficiency retrofits across the country.

CEQ is interested in this work as part of Chair Sutley's efforts to lead the Administration's work on Recovery through Retrofit, a program that has developed recommendations to expand the market of energy retrofits in American homes and businesses and grow green job opportunities.  With almost 130 million homes in the US, responsible for more than 20 percent of the nation's carbon dioxide emissions, the opportunity to make them up to 40 percent more efficient through retrofits will lower greenhouse gas emissions as well as save Americans money on their power bills.  CEQ brought back valuable models of success from its conversations in New York, which will inform its ongoing exploration of retrofits at a national scale.  During her visit, Chair Sutley discussed the fact that a robust home energy efficiency sector is an important part of realizing President Obama's vision of a clean energy economy.

Chair Sutley views hands-on teaching tools, including a multi-layered residential wall replica, at the Mason Tenders' Training Center in Long Island City.	After describing their training program and classes, two current students at the Training Center present Chair Sutley with an inscribed hard hat - and a second hat to be given to President Obama.
A range of stakeholders from community organizing, environmental justice, labor, finance, philanthropy, and city and state government discuss their lessons learned from experience on the ground with Nancy Sutley and the CEQ team.	CEQ staff views the new HUD-funded energy efficiency retrofit work that Jonathan Rose Companies is beginning at West 135th Street Apartments, a mixed-income housing site in Harlem.