NorthLight Foundation

NorthLight Foundation envisions a world where the Earth’s environment is healthy, protected, and sustained for future generations. Our work focuses on building power across diverse communities to lead on environmental protection, with a particular focus on climate and land conservation. We fund through a lens of environmental justice.

The Foundation invests in five programmatic areas of focus, each centering on environmental movement building: leadership development, cross-movement collaboration, just transition, innovative strategies, and communications. A sixth area of focus is Alaska and the Arctic. NorthLight Foundation also supports scholarship and education through the John L. Tishman Fund. As a family foundation, the Trustees continue to support a range of additional causes and institutions of personal importance, including cutting edge brain science.

We envision a world in which:

• Frontline communities across the country lead the charge for environmental protection with an effective, robust movement infrastructure and leaders equipped with the tools to address new challenges.
• The environmental movement is growing, not shrinking, with new advocates, new tactics and new, effective messages.
• The core base of the movement is strengthened by empowering groups led by low income people and people of color, who are disproportionately affected by environmental assaults.
• The movement is broadened and deepened by new alliances with others also committed to the health and enjoyment of our environment – and the human communities it sustains.
• The significant gains that environmental advocates have won in recent years are protected.
• Critical new wins are not only achieved but lasting; in particular, sensitive and high value areas are free from encroachment by extractive industries and climate change solutions are widely supported and durable.