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Gras s r oo t s so l u t i on s t o g l oba l c r i s e s RESOURCE R IGHTS FOR ALL
A N N U A L R E P O R T 2 0 0 8
OUR MISSIONGrassroots International works to create a just and sustain-able world by building alliances with progressive movements.We provide grants to our Global South partners and jointhem in advocating for social change. Our primary focus ison land, water and food as human rights and nourishingthe political struggle necessary to achieve these rights.
Since 1983 we have worked in the Middle East, Asia, Africa,and the Americas, concentrating our efforts in areas whereU.S. foreign policy has been an obstacle to positive changeand where creative movements build solutions to globalproblems from the grassroots up.
HOW WE WORKGrassroots International and its supporters pursue justiceby supporting rural and indigenous people around the worldin their struggle for resource rights—namely, a fair shareof the earth’s land, water and food and the sustainablestewardship of these precious, life-giving resources. To win,they must overcome determined and powerful interests.That is why political organizing and protection for humanrights cannot be separated from the act of sowing seedsin the ground.
Grassroots International FOR 25 YEARS, YOUR PROGRESSIVE ALTERNATIVE TO U.S. FOREIGN POLICY
Hundreds of friends,including Alberto Gomez Flores
and Dena Hoff of theVia Campesina, and author
Frances Moore Lappé celebratedGrassroots International’s
25th Anniversary.
Grassroots providedemergency grants to our
partners in Haiti following thedevastation wrought by four
successive hurricanes.
Deepening our relationshipwith the Via Campesina,
Grassroots International staffjoined the Vth InternationalConference in Maputo,
Mozambique and helped fundthe extraordinary gathering.
Grassroots continued tobring organizations of
peasants, indigenous peopleand women together across
borders to learn andstrategize together.
With support fromthe Starry Night Fund,
Grassroots helped our alliesin efforts to build a U.S.-basedfood sovereignty movement.
A growing list of more than15,000 activist individuals
and organizations now receivetimely e-updates, alerts,
and calls-to-action.
Snapshots of Grassroots International in 2008
One billion people on earth—more than one-seventh of humanity—face a daily foodcrisis caused not by a lack of food but by a lack of democratic access to resources. Inresponse, the global food establishment serves up more of the same treatment thatcreated the food crisis in the first place.
For 25 years, Grassroots International has offered the world another choice: changehow we live, change how we care for the earth, and change how we treat one another. In2008, Grassroots, together with the partners and grantees you support through us, wereworking hard to create those changes. Just a few examples:
� The Via Campesina brought farmers from 70 nations to Mozambique to createstrategies for achieving food sovereignty in the face of a renewed agribusiness“green revolution” at its Vth International Conference in October.
� The Mines, Minerals and Peoples-India network enabled over 100 grassroots groupsof indigenous peoples and peasants across 16 states to develop campaign strategieson the destructive impact of mining.
� The Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committees supported hard-pressed Palestinianfarmers by purchasing locally-grown food for hungry families, breaking the cycle ofdependence on foreign food aid.
� Grassroots International facilitated a working group on Agriculture & Climate Change at the“Confronting the Global Food Challenge: Finding New Approaches to Trade & Investmentthat Support the Right to Food” conference convened by our allies FIAN International, theInstitute for Agriculture & Trade Policy and the Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance.
Thanks to a generous gift from an anonymous donor of RSF Social Finance, we can now rampup our support for human rights work in the Global South. And, Grassroots International continuesto play a key role in bringing together movement activists to transform the landscape, especiallywomen and indigenous leaders.
I fundamentally believe, as the U.S. Social Forum slogan goes, that while, “Another World isPossible, Another U.S. is Necessary.” And so, as you can read on pages 6 and 7, we have been in thethick of the effort to help reclaim our international food, energy and trade policies from agribusiness.
Every crisis—including the current economic disaster—creates space for change. With solidarityand hard work, we can hope to emerge with a global system based on food and energy sovereignty,grounded in land and territorial rights, and shaped by water and climate justice. And together wecan place human rights and justice at the center of the solution to the challenges ahead.
For peace with justice,
Executive Director
Years of Crisis and Change
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What we do: GRANTMAKING Movement Building
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With assistance for attendance from Grassroots International, our partners spokefor small farmers and rural people at the World Social Forum in Brazil.
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WHAT WE DO: GRANTMAKINGThrough strategic grantmaking, GrassrootsInternational helps build a durable andgrowing global force for social change incontrol over the most fundamental ofhuman needs: land, water and food. Weshare resources as equal partners withsome of the most tenacious and hopefulactivists in the world. We organize ourgrantmaking under three broad categories,as well as responding to emergencies inways that help rather than harm.
ovement Building grants help build global alliances of themost vital and effective social movements in the Global South.
Grassroots helps nurture new leadership, with particular attention toyouth and women. We help indigenous groups organize constituentsand amplify their voices as advocates with their governments and theworld at large.
In October 2008, Grassroots International was one of a very fewnon-farmer organizations invited to the Vth International Conferenceof Via Campesina (Peasants’ Way) in Maputo, Mozambique. ViaCampesina, a global social movement of farmers and farmworkers,including several Grassroots partners, provides a united voice onglobal trade and agriculture issues for more than 150 million smallproducers from 70 nations on five continents represented bymember groups. Grassroots International supported our partnersfrom Brazil, Haiti, Central America and Mexico as well as a delega-tion from Indonesia to attend.
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Delegates from many new African organizations joining ViaCampesina attended the Maputo Conference. African farmersare being marginalized by the agribusiness push to grow forexport instead of local consumption.
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uman Rights Defense support from Grassroots Internationalhelps farmers, fishers and indigenous peoples assert their rights
to land and water under the law and defends those who suffer oppres-sion, arrest and abuse for the lawful pursuit of livelihoods and justice.
In some places, merely to speak for the right to grow food maybe a crime. Rural activists in Brazil have a powerful championin Grassroots’ partner, the Social Network for Justice and HumanRights (Rede Social). Rede Social defends activists imprisoned forexercising their rights and works for justice when landless workers,farmers, indigenous peoples and Afro-Brazilians are intimidated
or assassinated.Grassroots also supports the Platform of Haitian Human
Rights Organizations (POHDH) in their Civil and Political RightsMonitoring and Assistance Project.
In a society rife with violence, POHDH works tirelessly to trainand support grassroots human rights monitors. Empowered withnew skills, these monitors document specific human rightsviolations for POHDH to follow up. Ultimately, by building anational network of human rights monitors, POHDH aims toend the prevailing culture of violence with impunity.
H
The Landless Workers Movement in Pernambuco in Northeast Brazilhelps poor farmers put unused land back into production. They musthold their ground in the face of violence by landowners’ hired gunsand state-sponsored repression.
What we do: GRANTMAKING Human Rights
ustainable Livelihoods grants support food productionand income generation programs that create local self-reliance,provide an entry point for organizing, and overcome unjusteconomic arrangements.
Under Israeli occupation, Palestinian farmers have been dispossessedby confiscation of land and water resources. One of our newestpartners in Palestine is the Union of Agricultural Work Committees(UAWC), which organizes local agricultural committees in the WestBank and Gaza. Grassroots International supports UAWC’s work toreclaim land sealed off from its owners by The Wall to keep it frombeing confiscated. UAWC provides equitable access to waterthrough projects like digging and rehabilitating wells.
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S
Guatemala’s National Coordination of
Indigenous Peoples and Campesinos
(CONIC) builds grassroots power to
win rights to land, water and food for
the indigenous people of Guatemala,
including redistributing excessive land
holdings and returning communal
lands to their traditional owners.
What we do: GRANTMAKING Sustainable Livelihoods
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What we do: GRANTMAKING Rethinking Aid
This organic backyard vegetable project for Mixe womenin Oaxaca, Mexico, is the best form of food aid possible—reducing child malnutrition while building incomes andindependence for families in isolated rural communities.
“… We are exhaustedby having to count thenumber of dead, thehomeless, theorphans…”
–STATEMENT OFGRASSROOTS INTERNATIONAL PARTNERSAND ALLIES IN HAITI, SEPTEMBER, 2008
ethinking Aid partners apply the principles of self-relianceand local control of essential needs under the most difficult
circumstances of want created by war, famine or natural disaster.
More than 800 Haitians died in August and September, as fourhurricanes battered the nation. But many more Haitians have beenkilled by the long-term disaster of international debt service. Whenthe storms stuck, 2.3 million Haitians were already living on aknife’s edge of hunger.
Grassroots International partners in Haiti stepped up to copewith the disasters on the ground. At the same time, our partnersand their allies expressed frustration that the sudden downpour offood aid from abroad would do more to harm than help Haiti in thelonger term by undercutting local farmers. In September they issueda joint call upon their government to redirect debt payments to thereal and urgent needs of Haiti’s people, especially sustainableforestry, agriculture and energy programs.
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Debt has deprived Haiti of critically needed social investments inreforestation, food-self-sufficiency and alternative energies for decades.
nderstanding is the first step in the choice for justice.Grassroots International challenges North American consumers
to fix the broken global food system.The Food Sovereignty movement pursues a hopeful vision: a
world in which family farmers enjoy the right to feed their families,sell their produce at a fair price in local markets, and care for theirenvironment. For consumers, Food Sovereignty means a world inwhich every person can enjoy healthy, reasonably-priced, local foods.
Grassroots International created Food for Thought and Actionto make the connection between what we grow and eat and globaljustice. This four-part curriculum shows consumers, faith-based andanti-hunger activists, farmers and environmentalists how the FoodSovereignty movement leads to a radically transformed food system.
What we do: EDUCATION
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Download Food for Thoughtfor free at our web site
www.foodforthoughtandaction.org.
U
“Building from the experiences
of literally millions of grassroots
activists world-wide, Food for
Thought and Action challenges
us to fix our broken food system.”–MICHAEL POLLAN, AUTHOR OFTHE OMNIVORE’S DILEMMA AND
THE BOTANY OF DESIRE
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What we do: ADVOCACY
“Food Sovereignty really startswith where you buy your foodand how you take care of yourneighbor. It’s that simple.”
JOEL GREENO, NATIONAL FARM FAMILY COALITION
he goals of Food Sovereignty and global resource rights needpowerful advocates in North America to succeed. Creating
change for farmers and farmworkers in the Global South meansgovernments in the Global North must rewrite the rules that rein-force corporate control of the world’s food supply. And most ofthose rules originate right here in the United States.
Grassroots International amplifies the voice of our partners andallies at home and abroad through vigorous advocacy. Some high-lights from our work in 2008:
� We co-convened the U.S. Working Group on the Food Crisisin July 2008 and serve on its steering committee
� Through a generous gift from the Starry Night Fund, we havebeen able to support U.S. organizations advocating for foodsovereignty and fair agriculture and trade policies
� We joined with allies to call on President Obama to outline anew U.S. policy on Israel/Palestine based on respect for inter-national law and the rights of both Palestinians and Israelisto nationhood and livelihood with dignity.
� And we worked with allies to create a free popular educationtool to educate and mobilize a broad range of constituenciesto fix our broken food system: Food for Thought and Action:A Food Sovereignty Curriculum.
T
George Naylor, pastpresident of theNational FamilyFarm Coalitionand a member ofthe Via Campesinacontinues to speakfor shared concernsof farmers all overthe world.
A member of the Haitian Platform to Advocate forAlternative Development wears a t-shir t that saysin Haitian Creole "we defend human rights in ourcountry in all affairs related to food.”
elationships of equality and deep mutual respect with peopleat the global grassroots have been at the heart of Grassroots
International’s work since our founding. We transfer about $1.5million in vital resources to our partner organizations and grantees,but we gain as much as we contribute from the real benefits ofpartnership: education, understanding and mutual support.
What we do: PARTNERSHIPS
The Ahali Centerfor CommunityDevelopment hasdone vital work tosupport West Bankfarmers deprivedof access to theirfields by theSeparation Wall.
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In Maranhão innortheastern Brazil,Grassroots partnerASSEMA teacheswhole families howto grow more foodwithout pesticidesthrough their organicfarming project.
Via Campesina, which unites womenfrom around the world by bringing localand national farmers’ organizations intoa single Food Sovereignty movement,recently launched a global campaignto end violence against women.
The National FamilyFarm Coalition worksto empower familyfarmers by reducingthe corporatecontrol of agricultureand promoting amore socially justfarm and food policy.
GRASSROOTS INTERNATIONAL RELIES ON A VAST NETWORK OF SUPPORTERS, ALLIESAND PARTNERS to help build a global movement for resource rights for all. This work dependsentirely on generous donors who believe that supporting democratic social change movements andgrassroots organizations to advance human rights and equitable development plays a crucial role increating a fair world.
We need your help, and there are many ways you can dig deeper into the Grassroots network.
Donate:
www.GrassrootsOnline.org/donateThere are many reasons and many ways to give. Here are a few:� Join our sustainer program� Donate stock� Give a gift in someone’s honor or memory� Include Grassroots International in your will� Host a house party or other fund raiser
Donations are tax deductible and secure. Grassroots International earned CharityNavigator’s top rating, the Better Business Bureau’s coveted Seal of Approval, andthe seal of excellence from Independent Charities of America.
Take Action:
www.GrassrootsOnline.org/subscribeGrassroots International has a growing and vibrant on-lineactivist network. Sign up to receive updates and alerts,as well as e-newsletters.
Volunteer:
The small staff of Grassroots International takes on lots of bigtasks. Volunteers help keep things moving, from mailings totranslations to social networking. To find out more, [email protected], or call 617.524.1400.
What you can do…
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Grassroots Volunteers
Bailey Acevedo
Jessica Allen
Michael Ansaldi
Coree Brown
Ana da Silva
Stephanie K. Dalquist
Sara Dyer
Eve Espindola
Dana Geremonte
Nicole Gonzalez
Emma Hennessey
Tabitha Hubblit
Mercy O. Imahigerobo
Alexandra Jaffe
Mary Jepson
Christopher Jetter
Bijan Mazaheri
Diueine Monteiro
Mariana Mota
Sean MulDowney
Thiane Ndiaye
Kimberly Parent
Mary Poor
Banks Poor
Blair Rapalyea
Maria Resende
Samilys Rodriguez
Sascha Rubenstein
Kristen Rucki
Shannon Skoglund
Bryan Stephenson
Wasadrey Urban
Wendy Werneth
Sarah Whorton
Katherine Williams-DuHumel
Youth Opportunities Boston
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When you want to change the world,there’s a lot of work to do. Fortunately,Grassroots International has had lotsof help from many volunteers. To thoselisted below, we say: Gracias, Mèsi,Obrigado, Shukran, Thank you!
FINANCIAL REPORT 2008 NOVEMBER 2007 THROUGH OCTOBER 2008
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Balance SheetAs of October 31, 2008AssetsCash and Equivalents 665,967
Grants Receivable 100,000
Investments 1,563,265
Fixed Assets, Net 42,111
Other 34,817
Total Assets $2,406,160
Liabilities and Net AssetsLIABILITIES
Accounts Payable & Accrued Expenses 55,687
Total Liabilities $55,687
NET ASSETSUnrestricted
General (undesignated) 866,258
Board-designated 546,982
Temporarily Restricted
General 334,469
Donor-advised 602,764
Total Net Assets $2,350,473
Total Liabilities and Net Assets $2,406,160
Statement of Support, Revenues and ExpensesFor the year ended October 31, 2008
Unrestricted Temporarily Restricted FY 2008Undesignated Board-designated General Donor-advised Total
Support and Revenues
Institutional grants & contributions 469,273 293,350 981,213 – 1,743,836
Individual contributions 624,654 207,965 76,678 – 909,297
Investment and other income 35,504 – – (8,800) 26,704
Sub-Total 1,129,431 501,315 1,057,891 (8,800) 2,679,837
Net assets released from
program restrictions 1,598,441 45,667 (965,941) (678,167) –
Total Support and Revenues 2,727,872 546,982 91,950 (686,967) $2,679,837
ExpensesPROGRAMS
Cash Grants 1,555,807 1,555,807
Program Services 326,151 326,151
Education 246,062 246,062
Sub-Total 2,128,020 – – – 2,128,020
SUPPORT SERVICES
Management and General 222,655 222,655
Fundraising 377,197 377,197
Sub-Total 599,852 – – – 599,852
Total Expenses 2,727,872 $2,727,872
Net Income/(Loss) 0 546,982 91,950 (686,967) $(48,035)
Net Assets, Beginning of Year 866,258 – 242,519 1,289,731 $2,398,508
Net Assets, End of Year 866,258 546,982 334,469 602,764 $2,350,473
Grassroots International recorded another year of growth in programs.Here are highlights from the financial report for the 2008 fiscal year:
� For the fifth year in a row, Grassroots surpassed its previous highmark for cash grants to partners and other organizations workingfor justice—this time by more than 20%. For the first time,Grassroots made more than $1.5 M in cash grants for social change.
� Grassroots continued to maintain low operating overhead, devoting78% of spending to programs and education.
Grassroots International does not seek U.S. government funding, and
remains outspoken in support of global justice. As always, your active
support makes all of this possible.
MANAGEMENT& GENERAL
8%
INSTITUTIONS
65%
INDIVIDUALS
35%
PROGRAMS & EDUCATION
78%
FUNDRAISING
14%
PROGRAMS & EDUCATION
78%PROGRAMS & EDUCATION
78%PROGRAMS & EDUCATION
78%PROGRAMS & EDUCATION
78%PROGRAMS & EDUCATION
78%PROGRAMS & EDUCATION
78%
OTHER
1%
SUPPORT AND REVENUES EXPENSES
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PARTNERS AND SELECTED GRANTEES 2008Movement BuildingBrazilCaritas Brasileira – Indigenous Councilof Roraima’s Raposa Serra doSol mobilization $10,000
Landless Workers Movement(Maranhão) – State-levelleadership training $15,000
Landless Workers Movement –Learning exchange with Bolivia $2,500
Landless Workers Movement –National agro-ecologytraining program $25,000
Landless Workers Movement(Pernambuco) – InternationalWomen’s Day mobilizations $1,000
Landless Workers Movement(Pernambuco) – 20th Anniversaryorganizing $2,500
Pólo Sindical – Countering impactof large dam project $15,000
Social Network for Justice & HumanRights – Research and educationon agrofuels impact $30,000
Via Campesina (Brazil) – Mobilizationsin Sobradinho for food sovereignty $2,500
Via Campesina (Brazil) – Youthcollective national conference $2,000
Via Campesina (South America) – Travelto the Vth International Conferenceof Via Campesina in Mozambique $20,000
GuatemalaNational Coalition of CampesinoOrganizations – Strengtheningland rights $10,000
Committee for Peasant Unity –Organizational capacity building $10,000
National Indigenous and PeasantCoordination – Women’s conference $10,000
HaitiHaitian Platform to AdvocateAlternative Development – FoodSovereignty campaign $25,000
Peasant Movement of Papaye –35th anniversary congress $5,000
Peasant Movement of Papaye – Travelto the Vth International Conferenceof Via Campesina in Mozambique $6,000
HondurasVia Campesina – Central America/HonduranCoordinating Council of CampesinoOrganizations - Global AgrarianReform Campaign $30,000
Via Campesina – Central America/Councilfor the Integral Developmentof Peasant Women – Women’sregional commission $30,000
IndiaSAMATA – Mines, Minerals & People(India) organizationalcapacity building $12,500
IndonesiaVia Campesina–Asia/Federation ofIndonesian Peasant Associations –Travelto the Vth International Conferenceof Via Campesina in Mozambique $15,000
Via Campesina/Federation ofIndonesian Peasant Associations –Support for Via CampesinaInternational Secretariat $25,000
MexicoCenter for Economic Research and CommunityPolitical Action–Community educationand transnational alliances $15,000
Mixe Peoples Services –Land and water rights $30,000
National Union of Autonomous RegionalPeasant Organizations–Campaignto reform/renegotiate NAFTA $25,000
Union of Indigenous Communitiesof the Northern Zone of the Isthmus –Campaign for autonomy forindigenous territories $15,000
Union of Organizations of the SierraJuarez of Oaxaca – Zapotecautonomy and land rights $25,600
Via Campesina –Delegation to Chiapas $5,000
MozambiqueVia Campesina–Africa/National Farmers Union(UNAC) Mozambique–Vth InternationalConference of the Via Campesina $20,000
NicaraguaVia Campesina – Central America/Association of Rural Workers – Trainingand leadership development $17,500
Via Campesina – Central America – ThirdEncounter of the Mesoamerican Indigenousand Peasant Movement in Managua $2,500
PalestineRural Women’s Development Society –Women’s organizing $12,400
Stop the Wall Campaign – Organizingagainst the Separation Wall $20,000
ThailandVia Campesina – Asia/Global Campaignfor Agrarian Reform – Land andterritorial defense $15,000
United StatesAgricultural Missions, Inc. –Rebuilding Local Food Economies $2,500
Food First – Food crisis publication $15,000
Institute for Policy Studies –Education for solidarity $45,000
Missouri Rural Crisis Center –Reporting on the Vth InternationalVia Campesina conference $2,500
National Family Farm Coalition –Trilateral meeting on NAFTA and SPP $15,000
National Family Farm Coalition –Food Sovereignty and Tradeeducation and advocacy $15,000
On the Commons – Water Forumorganizing project $10,000
World Hunger Year – World FoodDay organizing in New York $5,000
Sustainable LivelihoodsBrazilAssociation in the Settlement Areas ofthe State of Maranhão – Economicdevelopment and Babaçu cultivation $20,000
Landless Workers Movement (Pernambuco) –Organic poultry farming $8,000
Popular Peasant Movement (Goiás) –Saving and propagating creoleseeds project $20,000
El SalvadorAssociation Mangle –Capacity building $25,000
HaitiNational Congress of the PapayePeasant Movement – Creole PigRepopulation Project $28,000
National Congress of the Papaye PeasantMovement – Capacity building $4,581
Peasant Movement of Papaye –Reforestation and agroecologicaltraining $35,000
IsraelAhali Center for Community Development –Batouf Valley communityempowerment $20,000
MexicoCenter to Support the Popular Movementin Oaxaca – Micro-regionaldevelopment planning $25,000
Center to Support the PopularMovement in Oaxaca –Organic vegetable gardens $12,500
Enlace Civil – Agroecology andfood production $20,000
K’inal Antzetik – Health promotion $5,000
Oaxaca State Coffee Producers Network –Organic vegetable gardens $20,000
PalestinePalestinian Agricultural Relief Committees –Urban agriculture in Gaza $25,000
Union of Agricultural Work Committees –Women’s empowerment andagricultural training project $27,000
Human Rights DefenseBrazilLandless Workers Movement (Pernambuco) –Human rights defense $15,000
Social Network for Justice & HumanRights – Human rights defense $30,000
HaitiPlatform of Haitian Human RightsOrganizations – Human rightseducation $15,000
MexicoProDESC (Organization in Defense ofEconomic Social and Cultural Rights) –Defending human rights ofmigrant workers in Sinaloa $25,000
Mixe Peoples’ Services - Landand water rights defense $30,000
PalestineGaza Community Mental Health Program–Campaign to end the siege $13,834
Gaza Community Mental HealthProgram – General support $5,600
Palestinian Center for HumanRights – Protection of land andproperty rights $20,000
Union of Agricultural Work Committees –Advancing farmers’ rights $27,000
United StatesChiapas Media Project – Migrantlabor project $25,000
Rebuilding Alliance – SavingAl Aqabah campaign $12,000
Rethinking AidHaitiHaitian Platform to Advocate AlternativeDevelopment – Post-hurricanerelief and reconstruction $19,579
Peasant Movement of Papaye – Post-hurricane relief and reconstruction $20,000
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The grant amounts shown may also include support from Grassroots International donor-advised funds.
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During her career, Louise Bowditch spent years helping todevelop sustainable agricultural technology in Mexico, CentralAmerica and Haiti. Now retired, Louise has continued tosupport small farmers in Brazil and Haiti as a generous andvalued long-time donor to Grassroots International.
“What’s important about the work Grassroots Internationaldoes are the partnerships it builds over many years withindigenous organizations,” says Louise. “Their work isstrengthened by their commitment to help partners formcountrywide and even international partnerships.”
The current economic downturn and reduction in portfoliovalues has forced many larger foundations to make cuts intheir grants for international development and human rights.The same market declines have led many philanthropists toreduce organizational support.
Louise Bowditch draws another conclusion.“It’s up to individuals of wealth and those with family
foundations to step up and give more because we do not havethose constraints,” says Louise. “It’s very important that thosewith the means to do more act now, even if it means they willhave less to give two or three years from now.”
Grassroots International is very grateful for the generousand thoughtful philanthropy of friends like Louise Bowditch.
A TIME TO GIVE MORE
“It’s very important thatthose with the meansto do more act now.”
LOUISE BOWDITCH,
GRASSROOTS INTERNATIONAL DONOR
Global Activist Fund
From time to time visionary philanthropists will come to
Grassroots International to create special funds to address
needs and issues for which they feel particular passion.
This year, through the generous support of an anonymous
donor of RSF Social Finance, Grassroots International set
up the Global Activist Fund to support a range of human
rights including resource rights work in the Global South.
One of the early grants made by the Global Activist Fund
supported the rights of migrant agricultural workers in
Mexico’s Sinaloa state through an investigation of human
rights abuses and a public education campaign. Another
helped create an indigenous knowledge exchange program
with the Otomi peoples of San Pedro Arriba, Mexico.
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American Jewish World Service
Angelica Foundation
Annenberg Foundation
Arntz Family Foundation
Baker Brook Foundation
Blossom Fund
Boston Foundation
California Community Foundation
Calvert Social Investment Foundation
CarEth Foundation, Inc
Christensen Fund
Church of the Brethren–Elizabethtown, PA
Clowes Fund
Common School
Communitas Charitable Trust
Community Foundation of Santa Cruz
Congregational Church of Needham
Conservation, Food, and HealthFoundation
Cynthia K. McLachlan Trust
Dominican Sisters of Springfield Illinois
Equal Exchange
Fair Share Fund
FICAH / Food for All
Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund
Firedoll Foundation
Frances Lear Foundation
Freidberg Family Foundation
GE Foundation Matching Gifts
General Board of Global Ministries -UMC Women’s Division
Gertrude B. Nielsen Charitable Trust
Grace Episcopal Church
Greater Houston CommunityFoundation
Heimbinder Family Foundation
Helen Brach Foundation
HKH Foundation
International Foundation
Jewish Voice for Peace - BostonChapter
JKW Foundation
Josephine C. Wilkinson CharitableLead Trust
JustGive
Kreilick Family Foundation
Lasky Charitable Lead Trust
Lawson Valentine Foundation
Lef Foundation
Lifshutz Foundation
MacDonald Family Conscience Fund
MacKenzie Cutler, Inc.
McMaster Carr Supply CompanyMatching Gifts
Mailman Foundation
Microsoft Matching Gifts Program
Nathan Cummings Foundation
New World Foundation
Normandie Foundation, Inc
Overbrook Foundation
Paichee Fund
Paulist Center Community
Peace Development Fund
PEPSICO FoundationMatching Gifts Program
Philanthropic Collaborative
Polk Brothers Foundation
Presbyterian Hunger Program
R.E.M./Athens, LLC
RMF Foundation
Robert E. Hansen Family Foundation
RSF Social Finance –anonymous donor
Saint John’s Abbey
Saint John’s University
Samuel Rubin Foundation
Seattle Foundation
Seattle/King CountyFood Policy Council
Second Church in Newton
Seymour and Sylvia Rothchild Family2004 Charitable Foundation
Share Our Strength
Sheehan Family Foundation
Sinsinawa Dominicans
Sisters I. H. M. Northwest
Sisters of Charity
Sisters of Saint Dominic
Sisters of St. Francis of Dubuque
Sisters of the Most Precious Blood
Sparkplug Foundation
Stansbury Family Foundation
State Street Matching Gift Program
Taub Family Foundation
Thanksgiving Fund
Tides Foundation
United Methodist Committee on Relief
United Way Capital Area
Vanguard Charitable EndowmentProgram
Walden Asset Management
Walter H. McClenon Fund
Winky Foundation
Alejandro AmezcuaMaxwell School, Syracuse University
Rob BarilSEIU Connecticut
Dan Connell (Emeritus)Simmons College
Meg GageProteus Fund
David HolmstromFinance/Tax Professional
Hayat ImamFundraising Consultant
Marie KennedyUniversity of California Los Angeles
Rev. Devin McLachlanEpiscopal Diocese of Massachusetts
Anil NaidooBlue Planet Project
Shalini Nataraj*Global Fund for Women
Luis Prado*Health & Human Services
Judith Radtke*Social Worker-Midwife
Tarso Luís RamosPolitical Research Associates
Clark TaylorU. Mass. BostonCollege of Public and Community Service (ret.)
Bob WarrenImmigration Attorney
Katherine YihPublic Health Worker
Nikhil Aziz (Ex-officio)Executive Director
*Completed Board service in fiscal year 2008
All regular members of the Board arevolunteers, and receive no financialor other material compensation.
The Executive Director is an ex-officio memberof the Board, without voting privileges.
Grassroots International Institutional Supporters NOVEMBER 2007 THROUGH OCTOBER 2008 Grassroots InternationalBoard of DirectorsGrassroots International appreciates the generosity and inspired support of the institutions and foundations listed below, as well as those
who remain anonymous. Together with our individual contributors, these organizations make it possible for Grassroots International tosupport the global movement for resource rights and human dignity.
179 BOYLSTON STREET � JAMAICA PLAIN, MA 02130 � 617.524.1400 � WWW.GRASSROOTSONLINE.ORG