For a short but spectacular overview of what was achieved during the 2017-18 pilot program, please view our celebration video, which features four of the twelve projects that received funding.

Video proudly produced by – The Pearl Film Company – thepearlfilmco.com/

For more information on Ripe for Change, please visit – sustainabletable.org.au/ripe-for-change/

Ripe for Change Pilot Program Celebration Video from SustainTable on Vimeo.

Dear AEGN members and friends,

What a year it has been. There has been much thoughtful, strategic and impactful funding by members, resulting in excellent outcomes that help to build the environmental future we all want to see. We are trying to track and report the results of the clearing house and member events where projects have been showcased but here is just a snapshot of a few great outcomes.

Many of you have participated in several inspiring funder collaborations this year. Twenty six funders joined Rob Purves in funding the Tree Clearing Alliance, which in May saw strong clearing controls reinstated in Queensland to protect precious habitat. A further nine AEGN members contributed critical funding to Hands Off Our Charities, an alliance of environment, social and faith-based organisations who have worked tirelessly to see change to a series of bills that would have significantly restricted the ability of charities to undertake advocacy. As you know, much improved legislation was passed only a few weeks ago. And AEGN board and staff were thrilled when seventeen of you provided over $1M in funding to the AEGN Sustaining Fund, unlocking a further $1M in matched funding. The Sustaining Fund provides important financial stability to the AEGN with 10% of the balance of the fund helping to cover our operating costs each year.

So thank you all for your fantastic funding. While you take a well-deserved rest over summer you might like to settle down and peruse some news and updates from members.

On Sunday 18 November a group of AEGN members and Reichstein Foundation donors gathered on board Greenpeace’s Rainbow Warrior to learn about the critical role of advocacy and direct action in changing our world for the better. John Spierings, Executive Officer of the Reichstein Foundation, made a stirring call to action for funders to step up and to be open, transparent and bold in their funding and in their actions. I recommend reading John’s powerful speech here.

Louise Arkles, Program Manager at the Ian Potter Foundation travelled to the US Environmental Grantmakers Association annual retreat in North Carolina as well as meeting with philanthropic foundations in both the US and Canada. She shares the key themes that resonated through the EGA retreat and meetings with philanthropists as well as what inspired and excited her here.

AEGN members – the Morris Family Foundation and the Garry White Foundation – piloted a small grants scheme to nurture and build awareness of sustainable food systems. You can learn about the pilot through a short video.

Eytan Lenko shares an update below on the Frack Free NT project which received funding from eight AEGN members who heard about this work on the Central Australia Field Trip.

In recent months AEGN members have hosted an inspiring range of organisations to share their work covering issues from marine permaculture, biodiversity and landscape protection through to fracking and climate issues in WA and the NT. In the new year Sue McKinnon will share her experiences at SOCAP18 – a gathering of over 3000 impact investors, entrepreneurs and social impact leaders in the US this October. If you have an organisation or project that you would like to showcase to the membership through an event and would like some advice on how best to do this, please contact Ione ione@aegn.org.au or Kris kristine@aegn.org.au .

And take a look at some great projects for funding, shared on the clearinghouse by AEGN members, read about our newest members, the Fremantle Foundation, browse through our new publications and services and of course, if you haven’t already, do please complete the AEGN members survey – doing this before Christmas puts you in the running for a $500 Paddy Pallin voucher.

Finally, letting you know that the AEGN office will be closed from Friday 21st December to Wednesday 2nd January. Wishing you all a fun, restful and safe festive season with friends and family and some time away in nature. And I hope to see you next year at our conference, themed Ramp It Up, in Melbourne 2nd April, or at one of our other 2019 events.

In a fortnight it will be 63 years since Rosa Parks in Montgomery, Alabama, defied bus driver James F. Blake’s order to relinquish her seat in the “colored section” to a white passenger, after the whites-only section was filled.

She wasn’t the first person to resist bus segregation, but she inspired the black community to boycott the Montgomery buses for over a year, the first major direct action campaign of the post-war civil rights movement.

Following Parks’ civil disobedience, subsequent strategic litigation in the Alabama courts resulted in an end to bus segregation in that state.

She was no innocent although she was no radical either. She was an activist. As she said, she acted as a private citizen “tired of giving in”.

The work of the civil rights movement – the demonstrations, the legal assistance, the training and communications, lobbying and organizing – was supported by many people including Harry Belafonte, Ella Fitzgerald and others but also four small US philanthropies, now known as the Freedom Funders.

The New World Foundation, The Field Foundation, The Stern Family Fund and the Taconic Foundation provided modest but crucial support to the movement including for training in non-violent protest, marches and demonstrations, bail applications, and legal work in the courts.

At that time, racial discrimination seemed hard wired into some US states and the broader national culture, economy and government. But some in philanthropy were brave and honest enough to see that this pattern could be broken and civil disobedience was a powerful way to do it.

The contrast I am trying to draw is that at this time, climate change and bio-diversity loss seem hard wired into our economy and way of life.

We seem to have a compulsive appetite to consume and waste material goods and natural resources. We seem to think that we can continue to depend on fossil fuels without further damaging the atmosphere or air.

The threats to our natural world are urgent and compelling.

We are now in a climate emergency.

But like Rosa Parks, we must not give in. We must draw inspiration from the way the civil rights movement used all means to wage their struggle, including non-violent protest where necessary.
And as funders we need to be open to what the change makers in the field tell us about how to shift issues and to move the dominant paradigm.
That’s the lesson of Greenpeace and the Rainbow Warrior. Be flexible, be open and transparent, be bold but not crazy brave, act with moral courage and change is possible.

Peter is a power engineer with a special interest in renewable energy and Ellie is a coordinator with Lock The Gate and on the board of Queensland Conservation Council, having spent the past 10 years as a campaigner and volunteer in the Queensland environment movement.

Peter and Ellie fund through both The SM Robinson PAF, set up by Peter’s great aunt, and also directly for really exciting projects that don’t have charity/DGR status. They are keen to focus their funding on the Queensland environment movement and have joined AEGN to learn more about giving and to increase their impact by sharing their knowledge.

Simon and Natalie have recently returned to Australia after a few years in London, making Brisbane their new home. They love the access to the bush and ocean that Brisbane provides, but are appalled at the lack of coverage of damage to the Great Barrier Reef and the massive land clearing rates in Queensland. While legislation was recently passed to address Queensland land clearing they note that this will need ongoing vigilance.

Simon will be well known to many members, having served on the AEGN board from 2008 to 2014. Simon and Natalie are funding the AEGN to help increase support to the environment. They also fund marine biodiversity and wildlife preserves with Australian Wildlife Conservancy and Bush Heritage.

Jim has a strong background in management, having built a number of successful regional businesses over 40 years, and is now converting those skills and capital to environmental philanthropy. He has recently created a PAF (Rendere – which means ‘to give’ in Italian) and is enjoying immersion and rapid learning in the world of philanthropy.

Sharpening sustainability rules in our building code presented by Donna Luckman, CEO of Renew.

Melbourne Tuesday 16th October 2018

Dr. Gary M. Tabor is an ecologist and wildlife veterinarian based in Bozeman, Montana.  In 2007, Gary founded the Center for Large Landscape Conservation to help people and institutions make better conservation decisions at the scale nature functions.

Gary has worked on behalf of large landscape conservation internationally for over 35 years with 12 years combined experience in Africa, South America and Australia and 12 years as a leader within the U.S. philanthropic community beginning with the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, the Henry P. Kendall Foundation, and finally the Yellowstone to Yukon Program Director for the Wilburforce Foundation. Gary is a co-conspirator in the founding of the Australia Environmental Grantmakers Network.

Gary’s conservation achievements include the establishment of Kibale National Park in Uganda; establishment of the World Bank’s Mugahinga/Bwindi/Impenetrable Forest Mountain Gorilla Conservation Trust; co-founding the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative; pioneering the field of Conservation Medicine; co-founding Patagonia Company’s Freedom to Roam wildlife corridor campaign; co-founding the Network for Landscape Conservation and the Roundtable of the Crown of the Continent – three-time winner of the climate adaptation award by the US National Fish, Wildlife and Plants Climate Adaptation Strategy.  Gary served eight years on the inaugural US Board of Australia Wildlife Conservancy and helped secure the resources to purchase Marion Downes next to Mornington Reserve in the Kimberley. Currently, Gary is interim chair of the US Board for Australia Bush Heritage. He is an Adjunct Associate Professor, Division of Biological Sciences at the University of Queensland. Gary is a recipient of the Australian American Fulbright Scholar award in Climate Change and is also the winner of the Henry Luce Scholar Award.  Gary serves as Chair of IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas’ Connectivity Conservation Specialist Group.

He is married to Australian Raina Plowright and his children Sam and Hannah benefit as dual citizens.