Celebrating Environmental Justice Creativity  

Esther Min has had a front row seat to how One Roof Foundation's creativity can help non-profit organizations working on environmental justice issues.

Over the last year, Min, associate director for the UW Center for Environmental Health Equity, brainstormed with ORF for ideas on how to push affiliated non-profits using their services to levels beyond where they were at. Min wanted to take the ideas groups were coming up with and transform them into “shovel-ready” project visions that could be run immediately on a practical level.

“I think One Roof really helped people get as far as they can go,” Min said. “Because there are limitations to governmental partnerships, which is kind of how I view state or federal grants and contracts. It is a contract with a governmental agency. They do come with a lot of restrictions, a lot of guidance, a lot of ‘You can and can’t do these things.’

“Which is kind of the opposite to how One Roof approached it, which was: ‘What do you need?’ and ‘What’s the gap that we could potentially fill?’ ”

Green Month in April saw ORF and Climate Pledge Arena honored for such creativity by the Pollstar global concert industry data company at its 36th annual awards show in Los Angeles. Pollstar this year established the inaugural Billie Eilish Award for Sustainability, naming Climate Pledge the first “Sustainable Venue” recipient, largely based on teaming with ORF to help provide potable drinking water to a local elementary school.

When it came to working creatively with Min’s environmental health equity center, ORF settled upon two main funding initiatives.

One saw ORF to provide grants of $30,000 apiece to three groups in Washington, Oregon, and Alaska serving as coalitions for “grassroots” efforts on environmental justice issues within communities from those states. The ORF funds didn’t come with as many strings attached as typical government grants, giving grassroots groups more flexibility in how the money could be used.

Representatives from all three groups were invited guests at the Kraken’s April 15 season finale home game against Los Angeles to help celebrate Green Month at Climate Pledge Arena.

Another measure undertaken was a $70,000 donation to Min’s center for hiring grant writers to help affiliated groups apply for government funding on various projects. Min’s center -- which has delivered more than 460 technical assistance requests the past two years to over 130 community organizations, Tribes, Tribal organizations, governmental agencies and more across Alaska, Washington, Oregon and Idaho – can give advice on how and where to apply for grants but isn’t allowed to write proposals.

The $70,000 from ORF led to the hiring of grant writer consultants who crafted 11 proposals for various groups and secured them $1,748,964 in governmental funds.

“And I feel like that could not have happened without One Roof,” Min said. “Because nobody else was able to go that far with it. It’s not like it’s a one-plus-one equals two. In this case, it was whatever we had the existing capacity for within the center plus One Roof, so it became almost like one-plus-one equals 20.”

Another part of Green Month saw ORF in late April conduct its annual South Park Clean-Up in partnership with the Duwamish River Community Coalition. Research shows residents of the neighborhood have an average life expectancy of 13 years shorter than adults in more affluent north-end neighborhoods, while children living there are three times more likely to suffer from asthma.

Kraken and ORF employees turned out alongside community volunteers to remove litter and cover up graffiti in the neighborhood.

Min said much of the creativity shown in how ORF tackles environmental justice issues stems from executive director Mari Horita. It was Horita who accepted last month’s Billie Eilish Award from Pollstar – named after the singer and environmental activist - on behalf of Climate Pledge.

The award was given largely because of how ORF creatively used money from Eilish foregoing her customary “artist’s gift” at the venue to help build three potable drinking stations at Lowell Elementary School on Capitol Hill. Lowell Elementary, a Title 1 school, had for years been plagued by a lack of potable drinking water for students.

And Min said that kind of creativity is more of what centers such as hers require from a partner.

“Mari has really thought very thoughtfully and creatively about how foundations can do work differently,” Min said of Horita and ORF. “And do better work around environmental justice and really show people how to support that work and the power that lies within a community.”