The Brainerd Foundation is a Northwest-focused family foundation that provides funding and expertise so nonprofits, communities, and decision-makers can better protect our region's air, land, and water.
We fund organizations that protect the environment of the Northwest and build broad support for conservation.
Policy gains that ensure protection of our region's air, land, and water.
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Landscape and wildlife protection through community engagement and empowerment.
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Building upon past investments and growing the next generation of conservation.
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Canada's National Energy Board had approved expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline, claiming the acknowledged likely negative impact on critically endangered southern-resident killer whales was beyond it's scope. The national Court of Appeals disagrees, revoking approval of the project, a ruling hailed on both sides of the border by First Nations, U.S. tribes, environmental advocates.
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Community groups, represented by Earthjustice, won key protections that safeguard the public and first responders from chemical disasters. The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) delay of implementation of EPA’s Chemical Disaster Rule was unlawful. Industry will now need to implement the life-saving protections of that rule.
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The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s denial of endangered species protection for Montana Arctic grayling was unlawful and ordered the agency to reconsider protection for the rare fish. The Fish and Wildlife Service first determined the grayling warranted endangered status in 1994, but continuously delayed protections. In 2014 the agency denied protection outright.
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One year into the current — very strange — political reality, and inspired by David Domke, we asked the experts at Resource Media to share their advice for nonprofit communicators in this time of the “new normal.” Their recommendations were not silver bullets, but rather rock solid reminders of the lessons we must continue to reinforce.
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Learn more about how one of our grantees is channeling new interest in keeping public lands in public hands, experimenting with sharing power, and including more diverse communities in the process.
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One of our grantees has adopted a toolkit used by the for-profit product development world, and it seems to be working. In this interview with Hope Rippeon of the League of Conservation Voters, she explains how design thinking is pushing her organization to choose, prioritize, develop, and evaluate real solutions.
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