The health of forests, farms, and people continued to be the main theme in the Conservation, Food, and Health Foundation’s grantmaking in 2012.

Foundation grantees regularly receive recognition for their work as social innovators.  Examples include:

International Rivers’ partner, Ikal Angelei won the 2012 Goldman Environmental Prize winner for Africa for her work with Friends of Lake Turkana.  The foundation is helping fund work to stop the Gibe III dam that flows into Lake Turkana – the world’s largest desert lake. The lake is home to the world’s largest population of Nile crocodiles, hippos, and hundreds of bird and fish species. Continue Reading »

The Conservation, Food, and Health Foundation awarded $472,007 in grants at its spring meeting.

Some of the grants that we will be following with interest relate to advancing new technologies. Venture Strategies for Health and Development, for example, will be testing of the use of text-messaging to reduce post-partum hemmorage in Zambia. In Israel, the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies will test a low-cost water desalinator that can irrigate crops in very dry areas. Continue Reading »

SUCCESS STORIES

Foundations are abuzz about monitoring, tracking, and evaluating outcomes. It is an essential discussion that shapes good grantmaking.

But as foundations zero in on narrow sets of indicators captured in relatively short time frames, we wonder if we sometimes lose track of the ripples in the pond – the unintended outcomes.

The Conservation, Food, and Health Foundation’s support of Hesperian Health Guide’s A Community Guide to Environmental Health reminds us of how many ripples its grants can have. Continue Reading »