THE GULF COAST FUND
Building Bridges
Who we are and what we did...
The Gulf Coast Fund for Community Renewal and Ecological Health was formed in 2005 as a special project of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors in the weeks after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The Gulf Coast Fund was a collaborative partnership between funders and grassroots leaders from across the region, and was created to resource, connect, and amplify the work of grassroots, community-based organizations in the most vulnerable communities and ecosystems. The Fund was led by an Advisory Group made up of community leaders engaged in work that addressed not only the effects of natural and human-made disasters in the region, but in social and environmental justice efforts that strengthened civil society in order to address the underlying inequality and ecological destruction that led to the severity of disasters in the Gulf Coast.
From the advisors...
“What was really different and unique about the Gulf Coast Fund, as I met my fellow advisors, is that it was people just like me. We were grassroots leaders who had been doing work in the community pre-Katrina as well as post-Katrina and even until today.” ~Teresa Fox-Bettis, Gulf Coast Fund Community Advisor
“It consisted of relationships with on-the-ground people...It was different because not only was it about raising and providing one-time funds, it built on current organizing.” ~Angela Sims-Winfrey, Gulf Coast Fund Community Advisor
“From the beginning, the initial funders at the table all had a shared set of values and approaches to our work that made it a lot easier to step into this with clarity and unity about putting the communities first...we wanted to create a different kind of funding model: one that would really put the folks on the ground in that region and the folks with the relationships and the history in the driver’s seat.” ~ Marni Rosen, Gulf Coast Fund Co-Founder and Advisor
“Communities know what’s going on in their communities the best, so they had to be part of the Gulf Coast Fund....It wasn’t someone from outside the area coming in and telling them what to do.” ~Wilma Subra, Gulf Coast Fund Community Advisor