Intro

How a small experiment in trusting local leadership became a 30-year movement for grassroots power and lasting change.

Thirty years ago, a handful of New England funders saw an environmental crisis. Mills were closing across the Northern Forest, the land changing hands, and the decisions on what would happen next were being made further and further from the people who would live with the consequences. The Grassroots Fund was born out of this moment.  

What follows is the story of how a small experiment in trusting local leadership grew into one of New England's most unique philanthropic institutions. It's a story of learning as much as it is of organizational growth. Three decades of the Grassroots Fund listening to grantees and participants, questioning its own assumptions and positionality, and reshaping itself again and again in response to the participation of grassroots leaders. 

That ongoing process, still very much alive in the Fund's evergreen Strategic Plan today, has turned the Grassroots Fund into something more than a grantmaker: an agent of self-determination for the communities most impacted by environmental and economic injustice, and a builder of the local leadership that makes lasting change possible.