Andrea Levinson's blog

Building Power Tools: Data-Sharing for Environmental Health and Justice

What do people organizing for environmental justice, advocating for healthier housing and building materials, mapping hotspots of pollution and poverty, or monitoring impacts of oil and gas production have in common? They’re all creatively using data-sharing to engage lots of people in identifying, understanding and solving problems.

In this blog post, Kathy Sessions discusses how HEFN held a meeting and has published a paper to help our environmental health and justice funder community explore the opportunities of using data-sharing efforts to scale up the environmental health and justice movement.

A HEFN Farewell

In 1999, Michael Lerner at the Jenifer Altman Foundation and his colleagues were concerned that the health of people, wildlife, and ecosystems all were being harmed by toxic pollution, but they saw philanthropy divided by human health and environmental interests. They hired me as a part-time consultant to help them launch a new funder network, to build bridges across environmental and health philanthropy and to expand philanthropy's investment in environmental health. There's only one way for me to wrap up the experiences of the past two decades: with gratitude.

Grants On Tap: Funders Support Clean Drinking Water

With the widespread media coverage of Flint, Michigan’s water crisis, cities, advocacy groups, and philanthropy have adjusted their assumption that the country’s laws and infrastructure assure the public safe and healthy drinking water. In response, the Health and Environmental Funders Network (HEFN) surveyed foundations interested or engaged in grant making focused on healthy and affordable drinking water, aiming to better understand what foundations are doing and what more is needed to ensure our nation’s drinking water is healthy and affordable. In this blog post, HEFN Director Karla Fortunato discusses the survey results.

Stunning Gains for Divest Invest

Just over a year ago, the Divest Invest movement announced that entities managing assets of more than $52 billion had agreed to divest from fossil fuels. Fast forward one year and the movement has taken off. The assets under management (AUM) of individuals and institutions committed to divestment has soared to over $2.6 trillion--fifty times last year's total.

At HEFN’s Helm: Members Step in and out of Steering Committee Roles

As we reflect on 2014 and look forward to the year ahead, HEFN is truly grateful for its strong leaders. In this blog post, Andrea Levinson of HEFN discusses HEFN’s leadership transitions and thanks its Steering Committee for their stellar leadership in its mission to maximize philanthropy’s impact on environmental health and environmental justice.

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