Rose Foundation for Communities and the Environment

Results: The Rose Foundation has pursued its goals since our founding in 1992, awarding more than $50 million in community grants, fiscally sponsoring more than 40 projects, and training and empowering over 160 youth environmental leaders annually in our New Voices Are Rising program.

Geographic areas served: We support communities in California, Oregon, Washington, and across the country to build the grassroots movement for communities and the environment.

Programs: The Rose Foundation is a grantmaking public charity that specializes in administering mitigation payments and class-action settlement awards, and using these funds to support grassroots-based conservation, social justice, and consumer protection projects in close conformance with the nexus of the specific settlement.

Part of the Rose Foundation’s guiding philosophy is that the most effective and innovative projects are often initiated at the grassroots community level. Many of these projects are too small or too new to have yet secured IRS recognition of their charitable status. Through our fiscal sponsorship program, Rose Foundation helps these projects raise charitable donations and help with management and strategic planning assistance to build the organizational capacity of start-up or temporary projects.

The Rose Foundation also runs a youth, environmental justice leadership development program, New Voices Are Rising. New Voices seeks to increase civic participation within under-represented communities, increase young people’s commitment to environmental justice, and reduce air and water pollution that severely impact both human health and the health of the San Francisco Bay. The program helps young people gain the skills and experience in civic engagement that they need to begin to tackle the problems — including environmental health problems — that disproportionately impact their communities.