Giving Compass' Take:

• The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation is helping grow environmental conservation efforts by encouraging information-sharing between fisheries and scientists.  

• How can this type of collaboration help with long-term sustainability plans? 

• Read about how philanthropy can support other environmental issues. 


Let’s say you’re a fisherman in a small town, running a small business your family started several generations back. For years, your family raked in the fish, but over the last decade or so, your intake has declined. Environmentalists entered the scene a few years back, talking about the need to reform fishing practices and the consequences of overfishing, and next thing you know, you’re fishing within a fleet-wide quota for the year.

For many facing this situation, collaboration with fellow fishermen, much less environmentalists, isn’t the first instinct. Typically, scarcity breeds competition. Sharing what you have seems counterintuitive, especially if you feel holding onto that something means the difference in making a living to feed your family, or not.

A common challenge for ocean funders is finding creative ways to get people to work together and balance financial interests with conservation goals. The question is, when it comes to situations where livelihoods are on the line, what funding innovations work to invite collaboration instead of going at it alone?

At the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, whose mission is to foster path-breaking scientific discovery, environmental conservation, patient care improvements, and preservation of the Bay Area’s character, supporting ocean innovation that encourages collaboration rather than further entrenching folks in isolation represents core work. Whether it’s by bringing constituencies across place-based communities together for planning, or reforming fishery management systems so that both jobs and fisheries are sustainable, Moore’s approach helps community stakeholders refocus their sights on long-term gains versus short-term profits.

Read the full article about long term environmental conservation and innovation by Anna Pond at Grantcraft.