Dear HCN,
Mike Medberry’s report on
big foundations, national conservation coalitions and grassroots
conservation was thoughtful and respectful of the subject’s
complexities (HCN, 10/16/95). The Pew Charitable Trusts was
featured in Mike’s piece. Many conservationists are not wild about
Pew. I have experience of Pew as an employee of a grantee and as
steering committee chair of a grantee. I cannot sum it up fairly in
a few paragraphs, so I won’t try.
But here’s a
piece of it. In 1994, Pew gave the Save Our Wild Salmon Coalition
and 11 of its member groups a large grant for our Columbia Basin
Campaign. The campaign is an ambitious and necessarily long-term
effort to end the egregious salmon- and salmon-economy-killing
status quo of the multi-dam Federal Columbia River Power System
(and thereby unlock many other doors).
This is
David and Goliath work – and we aren’t Goliath. The heart of it is
Pew saw 12 disparate groups that wanted to work together on a major
initiative, had a reasonably clear notion of what their work would
be, and had some track record – and they gave us the resources to
really take off.
In the extremely adverse
political circumstances of 1995, we (thanks to expanded resources
and with a lot of help) stymied some very bad stuff and made real
progress in our cohesion and capabilities for the year ahead. These
good things, and what we achieve in the year to come, Pew helped
greatly to make possible.
Pat
Ford
Boise,
Idaho
Pat Ford works for the
Save Our Wild Salmon Coalition.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Foundation’s help was invaluable.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
