Annual Fundraising Appeal
Dear Friends of ECOLOGIA,
ECOLOGIA has just concluded our twentieth year. Quite appropriately, it was a year during which grassroots participation and financial support played a huge role in our success. When we began our work reaching out, way out, from Northeastern Pennsylvania in 1989, individuals, churches, and local businesses provided the financial support, moral encouragement, and human resources we needed. Two decades later ECOLOGIA benefits from foundation grants, but we are still nurtured and sustained by the grassroots. During 2009, there were days, weeks and months when we and our partners in remote and desperate situations were waiting and waiting for the arrival of long overdue funds from promised grants. These dry spells are more than cash flow challenges for the non-profit world. They are droughts that can wither budding initiatives and weaken even well-established projects.
Miraculously, throughout 2009 small and medium sized private, local, and corporate donations arrived in just the critical amounts needed to keep our momentum going.....read more!
ECOLOGIA’s Work:
Bridging the Global-Local Gap
ECOLOGIA’s programs bring international perspectives and resources to local sustainable development projects, and bring locally based ‘on the ground’ experience back to the world of international decision making.
Our programs combine a practical focus on local projects with direct involvement in international policy-making arenas. We believe that local leaders create the best, most sustainable long-term solutions to problems, and that this local experience should shape the development of national and international decisions.
ECOLOGIA works by creating direct people-to-people connections. By linking individuals to one another, we foster the emergence of a global civil society — a worldwide network of individuals and organizations sharing common interests, information and resources.
With staff, colleagues, and partners around the globe, ECOLOGIA is building global connections to create civil society and support sustainable development initiatives.
"Building Global Connections
to Create Civil Society
and Support Environmental, Social and Economic Sustainability"
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ECOLOGIA works with innovative leaders in dynamic, fluid situations - often before trends are dominant or even clear to others.
Caravans of Hope: Camels, Tea and Entrepreneurs on the Silk Road in the 21st Century
November 2009 Photo Essay: Working toward a sustainable camel and cashmere fiber supply chain
ECOLOGIA's "Sustainable Fibers" Project
We are tackling the challenge of creating an environmentally sustainable, economically viable and fairly traded global supply chain for cashmere.
Herders shear fine quality cashmere from purebred Alashan goats in China's Inner Mongolia. This is the first step in the long journey of the global cashmere supply chain. In the past several decades, unsustainable expansion of herds has led to over-grazing,desertification and environmental degradation in the region.
ECOLOGIA is working in cooperation with goat and camel herders' cooperatives in Inner Mongolia, China to: - support herders' efforts to create environmentally and economically sustainable sources of income,
- promote restoration of desert and grasslands ecosystems damaged by decades of overgrazing, and
- create a global supply chain for sustainably raised and fairly traded cashmere.
Our work on this project is supported by the Ford Foundation.
ECOLOGIA's President Randy Kritkausky visits a cashmere processing factory. The "dehairing" process is the next step in the value-added chain that culminates in the production of fine quality cashmere sweaters.
Global Guidance for Social Responsibility - ISO 26000
Photo: Thomas Thomas, Labour Delegate from Singapore, and Carolyn Schmidt of ECOLOGIA, at the ISO Working Group meeting in Quebec. Our poster illustrates the importance of "fair treatment of costs and benefits of implementing social responsibility throughout the supply chain", one of the "key topics" resolved in Quebec.
May 2009: The global consensus-based ISO Working Group on Social Responsibility met in Quebec City, Canada for its 7th Plenary Session. We made progress on many issues, and also worked toward better understanding of areas of disagreement. For more information, see "ECOLOGIA Works on the ISO Global Social Responsibility Standard".
For an overview of ECOLOGIA's programs in China, click here
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