Day 2:
Demographics

Reminder of our ground rules

As a quick reminder of our ground rules:

We’re all here because we are subject matter experts and understand the complexities of our particular work.
It is important to remember that skills and smarts is usually domain-specific. That is to say, knowledge in one field does not make you an expert in another. But because of the wonderfulness of human psychology, we tend not to remember that and end up with oversimplified understandings of other people’s jobs.
Because of that, we’re acknowledging each other’s expertise but avoid the word “just” while also being inquisitive and willing to ask the “this is probably obvious but…” questions.

With that, time to move on to…

Actually no. [blank screen]…taking moderator’s perogative

in some ways, the thought of bringing this up feels a bit like this.

Ahem

Interconnected!

The story so far…

Green America {builds|demands|nurtures|fosters} sustainability through economic action.

∴ Green America’s work must be inclusive & intersectional.

We started from looking at our mission, [fragment] we built out the idea that sustainability—especially that version of sustainability that Green America promotes—must be inclusive and intersectional.

We went through a huge chunk of the processes we use to create content for our programs, our editorial processes, donations, and how they’re all interrelated. To help us remember, we’ve mapped it all out on the wall.

And can we take a moment to look at how much work goes into these? And we have multiples of these going on at a time, right? That’s kind of amazing. And because we’re all the same people working on them, they’re interrelated, right? When one part gets held up, everything after it gets delayed, too. right?

We’re looking at Green America as a system. But our system doesn’t exist in a vacuum, so we’re looking outside Green America to understand the demographics of the environmental movement and our relationship to it, while keeping what we all did yesterday in mind.

Green America’s audience

>⅔ women
57% 55 or older
68.5% joined when GA was still Co-op America

The demographics of environmental advocacy

The good news

Women occupy more than half of executive-level positions in environmental orgs
Women comprise of 60% of new hires in environmental organizations, government agencies, and foundations

Where we, as a field, kinda suck

Men are more likely to be the president or board chair of an org
Leadership in large orgs are overwhelmingly men

Foundations

76.2% of presidents are men
55% of board chairs are men

Let’s talk race

A brief history of environmentalism’s racism

Now

Few of the organizations studied collaborate with ethnic minority or low-income institutions or groups.

Why this matters

Hispanic Catholics care ×2 more than white Catholics
Black Protestants care more than mainstream white Protestants and evangelicals.

We’re in this together.

Green America {builds|demands|nurtures|fosters} sustainability through economic action.

We’re in this together.

We all care about sustainability.

Green America {builds|demands|nurtures|fosters} sustainability through economic action.

Our Vision

We work for a world where all people have enough, where all communities are healthy and safe, and where the bounty of the Earth is preserved for all the generations to come.

We’re in this together.

We all care about sustainability.

But we and our peers are failing at making this a big tent.

Green America {builds|demands|nurtures|fosters} sustainability through economic action.

We work for a world where all people have enough, where all communities are healthy and safe, and where the bounty of the Earth is preserved for all the generations to come.

32.8% of US population is 55+ (57% of GA members are)
Of people between 15–3 44.2% are a minority race/ethnic minority.
5 and under are majority minority.

Day 2:Demographics

Interconnected!

Green America’s audience

The demographics of environmental advocacy

The good news

Where we, as a field, kinda suck

Foundations

Let’s talk race

A brief history of environmentalism’s racism

Now

Why this matters

Our Vision

Day 2:
Demographics