Grantees

In addition to continuing support for five long-time partners, we added a sixth grant to meet pressing challenges facing environmental efforts in the US — federal grants to community projects were defunded mid-stream this year, and we wanted to push back.

• Cacapon Institute — tree planting and youth engagement in the West Virginia & Virginia watershed$16,000
• Rainforest Trust — protecting tropical forests with local and Indigenous partners$16,000
• Cool Earth — supporting Indigenous communities in the Amazon, Congo Basin, and Papua New Guinea$16,000
• Eden: People + Planet — mangrove and rainforest restoration in Kenya and beyond$16,000
• Reserva: The Youth Land Trust — youth-led conservation in biodiversity hotspots$16,000
• Southern Environmental Law Center — defending the just implementation of climate commitments in the United States (matched by another SELC donor)$16,000

Five $16,000 grants supporting partners across continents — and the year we began studying regenerative agriculture as a future grant focus.

• Cacapon Institute — tree planting & youth engagement in the Cacapon watershed$16,000
• Cool Earth — Indigenous communities preserving rainforests in Peru and Papua New Guinea$16,000
• Rainforest Trust — protecting tropical ecosystems in South America and Asia$16,000
• Eden Projects — mangrove restoration in the Tana Delta, Lamu County, Kenya$16,000
• Reserva: The Youth Land Trust — protected areas in global biodiversity hotspots$16,000

$16,000 to each of five partners — passing the half-million-dollar milestone since Finley's first grants in 2014.

• Cacapon Institute — planting trees and growing native nurseries with Virginia and West Virginia students$16,000
• Rainforest Trust — protecting over 2 million acres of biodiverse, carbon-rich rainforest in Brazil$16,000
• Cool Earth — direct support for Indigenous communities in critical rainforest regions$16,000
• Eden Reforestation Projects — mangrove restoration at Tudor Creek, Kenya$16,000
• Reserva: The Youth Land Trust — Dracula Preserve in Ecuador's cloud forest, plus a new project in Colombia$16,000

Six $15,000 grants to long-time and returning partners.

• The Greenbelt Movement$15,000
• Cacapon Institute$15,000
• Cool Earth$15,000
• Rainforest Trust$15,000
• Eden Projects$15,000
• Reserva: The Youth Land Trust$15,000

Welcomed back The Greenbelt Movement, and made our first-ever grant to Reserva: The Youth Land Trust — matched by Rainforest Trust for double impact.

• Cacapon Institute, Rainforest Trust, Cool Earth, Eden Project, The Greenbelt Movement$15,000 each
• Reserva: The Youth Land Trust — first-time grant supporting a youth-funded preserve in Ecuador's Choco Cloud Forest (matched by Rainforest Trust)$10,000

Our 2021 grant to Rainforest Trust was used as matching funds to protect carbon-sequestering peat bog swamp in the Democratic Republic of Congo — home to the endangered bonobo and critically endangered pangolin.

Our grant to Rainforest Trust helped give urgent protection to a 260,000-acre tract of pristine Belize forest — 10% of the country's land area, containing one of the largest jaguar populations in Central America.

Grants directed toward the highest carbon-sequestering rainforest projects in Guatemala, the Philippines, and Australia.

Our Rainforest Trust grant helped protect the last great forests of Borneo in Sabah, Malaysia — combating uncontrolled forest burning, logging, and palm oil conversion, and protecting orangutan habitat.

Directed our grant toward the Rungan Peat Swamp Forest in Borneo — 385,000 acres at $2.03 per acre, sequestering 735 metric tons of CO₂ per acre, for a total of nearly 283 million metric tons of CO₂ protected.

For Finley's 18th birthday on March 12, 2014, friends and family set out to raise $18,000. Donations passed $74,000 by her birthday and $100,000 by Earth Day, with support from at least 37 states and every continent except Antarctica. On Earth Day, Finley personally chose her first two grantees:

• The Green Belt Movement — forest restoration and tree planting in Nairobi, Kenya
• Cacapon Institute — forest restoration in West Virginia

One local effort and one global effort — both chosen for their direct, positive impact on the daily lives of people in the surrounding community. The pattern Finley set on Earth Day 2014 has guided every grant since.