Funding Interests:Environment

We face an environmental crisis that threatens the natural systems on which all life depends. Prevailing practices relating to food production, distribution, and consumption carry an extremely high environmental cost and contribute significantly to this crisis.

Being located in California, the nation’s most productive agricultural state, and recognizing the seriousness of food-related environmental problems, Gaia Fund focuses its grantmaking on programs that:

  • Foster environmentally sustainable policies and practices relative to food production and distribution;

  • Increase consumer awareness of and demand for foods that have been produced and/or distributed with a consideration for the environment.
Within this area, strongest preference is given to programs operating in the Bay area and Northern California. Additional preference is given to projects that have the potential to be expanded to other locales. The Fund may, on occasion, award grants for national initiatives if they are judged to have a particular local relevance.

Programs that also provide social, economic, and/or public health benefits to the community—above and beyond support of the environment—are given special consideration by the Fund.

Gaia Fund does not consider requests for environmental education programs targeted to children.