Four Local Nonprofits Share $500,000 from Bank Initiative

By Mike Lee

UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

January 21, 2008

San Diego County is getting a bit more green – and it's not just from the recent rainstorms.

Efforts to promote a stronger environmental ethic countywide are slowly maturing. One piece of evidence: $500,000 in grants awarded Tuesday to four local nonprofit groups developing Earth-friendly practices and policies.

The money reflects widening interest in environmental initiatives by the general public and groups such as business leaders, politicians and philanthropists.

Some prominent endeavors to generate funds for fighting global warming, curbing pollution and conserving various areas haven't progressed quickly. These challenges highlight the difficulty of turning grass-roots interest in the environment into successful fundraising campaigns.

“The seeds have been planted and it seems that they are just now beginning to grow,” said Jason Anderson, vice president of business development for the San Diego Regional Economic Development Corp. “(The effort) is at a critical point right now.”

The half-million-dollar injection came from the Bank of America Charitable Foundation, which unveiled a $20 billion, 10-year environmental initiative last year. On Tuesday, bank officials announced their first donations in California stemming from that initiative.

They said San Diego groups were chosen for the California launch because of growing momentum in the community to make it “the greenest city in the world.”

“There is a critical mass,” said Colleen Haggerty, a spokeswoman for the bank in Los Angeles.

Nonprofit leaders in San Diego County said Bank of America's impact could be much larger than the dollar figures of its grants because the money highlights emerging environmental efforts and programs that otherwise might not have gained much attention. 

The grant winners were The San Diego Foundation, the San Diego Regional Economic Development Corp., La Maestra Community Health Center and the California Center for Sustainable Energy.

“We will provide citizens with the tools to improve their carbon footprint and actually understand what their carbon footprint is,” said Irene Stillings, executive director of the energy center.

Stillings' organization promotes solar power as a way to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, which fuel global warming.

The economic development corporation will use the grant to promote environmentally friendly businesses, Anderson said. A main goal is to stimulate growth of “clean-tech” companies that do things such as design eco-friendly systems for water and wastewater management.

“Once that gets rolling, we will market San Diego as a place for clean-tech business and also as a sustainable community,” Anderson said.

For La Maestra, $100,000 brings it a step closer to building a certified “green” community health clinic in City Heights. The organization expects to break ground on the $14.8 million building this spring.

“The green component of this is really attracting a whole new set of partnerships from the community,” said Carole Fish, capital campaign consultant for La Maestra.

Historically, conservation causes in San Diego County have been underfunded and low-profile. Reasons for the lack of support include the region's limited number of corporate headquarters and its large, mostly transient military population, environmental leaders said.

In the past few years, a gradually rising number of local nonprofit groups and philanthropists have tried to spotlight environmental causes as public concern has grown about global warming.

Conservationist Aaron Contorer and his colleagues have spent months building support for an environmental policy center slated to open in San Diego by summer. Contorer expects to have gathered more than $800,000 by then to fund the center.

Raising money for the cause has taken much longer than Contorer expected. In late 2006, he announced his goal of generating $1 million in little more than a month to help environmental projects.

The time lag hasn't dimmed Contorer's optimism for the center, which would try to create more alliances between business, nonprofit, government and academic leaders.

“I am thrilled to see the amount of interest that San Diegans have in our environment,” he said. “The different sides are coming together.”

Such partnership building already happens at The San Diego Foundation, which has teamed with several local groups to increase public awareness about climate change.

Foundation officials want to build an endowment to support environmental causes. In late 2006, they pegged the endowment goal at $25 million. Last week, they said the target remains in flux as they try to figure out what the community will support.

“When you look at environmental giving, it's not commensurate with the challenges that we face locally and nationally,” said Emily Young, director of the foundation's environment program.

Young stressed that the county has “a growing, strong network of environmental organizations working to preserve what is ultimately a public trust – our air, our water, our land and other natural resources.”

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Mike Lee: (619) 542-4570; mike.lee@uniontrib.com

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