The Sierra Fund

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Full Name

The Sierra Fund

Bio

The Sierra Fund is founded on the idea that - with adequate public and private financial resources - rural Sierran communities can build organizations that effectively compete for and share power. Whether it’s one of the 18 land trusts in the region, or the dozens of collaborative watershed efforts, or the nearly one hundred environmental organizations that utilize education, regulation, legislation and litigation, the small communities of the region have found it difficult - in many cases impossible -- to sustain and grow well-funded professional organizations supported by small, local populations. It is this lack of financial resources that poses a daunting challenge to the Sierra’s future. Since 1968, for instance, the Sierra region has received less than eight-tenths of one percent of all federal Land and Water Conservation monies directed to California. The region attracts only a minute share of state general fund and bond conservation monies, when it attracts state dollars at all. The paucity of funding is similarly in evidence in private dollars; only one(!) foundation in the United States maintains a dedicated program that provide significant resources for grassroots organizations. The Sierra Fund believes it can help organizations and communities by focusing on developing new, permanent revenue sources for the region: by creating a pool of dedicated private, foundation, and corporate funding sources for conservation efforts in the region; by significantly expanding the state and federal financial commitment to the Sierra; and by helping organizations create the internal capacity to become permanent wealth producers in the Sierra Nevada.

History

Member for

14 weeks 1 day