HEFN 2023 Annual Meeting

The Health and Environmental Funders Network’s Annual Meeting is returning in-person for the first time since 2019!  We’re excited to gather, learn and grow together with HEFN members, new colleagues and field practitioners in the Big Easy! Check out our working agenda here. 

Join us in New Orleans on May 17-19, 2023 for the second part of a two-year focus on the U.S. South, building on our 2020 virtual programming. Many of the nation’s greatest racial justice organizers – and some of the first champions of environmental justice – continue to build thriving movements in the region, despite attacks from entrenched power, glaring environmental injustices and the lack of resources from the philanthropic sector. 

Our time in NOLA will ground us in the realities that communities face in the Gulf and across the South. In Louisiana and Texas, where 80% of the nation’s petrochemical supply is produced, communities continue to reckon with toxic health threats, acute climate vulnerability, and the consequences of a long history of racist policymaking. At the same time, the South offers deep, inspirational histories of racial and environmental justice organizing, which serve as powerful models for work in other parts of the country.  

In what some are calling the New Great Migration, the South is experiencing profound demographic, political, and cultural changes, with national implications for even greater social and environmental health and justice wins in the future. These shifts provide critical, high-impact opportunities for philanthropy to support frontline communities, grassroots groups and aligned partners working every day to dismantle systems of injustice. 

Steeped in the possibilities and perspectives that the South offers, HEFN’s annual meeting will radically re-envision philanthropic practice so that members can: 

• advance solutions to the most critical environmental health and justice issues facing frontline communities today, from fracking and climate pollution to toxic chemicals and beyond;
• shift more funding and power to environmental health and justice communities [especially BIPOC communities that face environmental injustices];
• support more collaborative and holistic strategies to weaken the fossil fuel industry, learn how to recognize false solutions, and support a Just Transition from an extractive economy to one that is regenerative; and
• foster healing justice and support greater connection and wellness across the field, especially among movement partners and philanthropic practitioners. 

We can’t wait to see you in NOLA!  We encourage you to invite your board members, colleagues and those new to HEFN to attend. 

Please reach out to our Director of Programs, Kalila Booker-Cassano ([email protected]) with any questions! 

COVID Policy:

 We look forward to seeing you all in-person and are committed to the health and safety of all. In the spirit of mutual care and collective safety, we request that attendees please adhere to the following COVID Safety protocols: 

• Annual Meeting attendees will be required to take an at-home test the mornings of 5/17, 5/18, and 5/19. We encourage you to bring your own antigen tests for the event, but HEFN will also have tests available for attendees who require them. 
• If you test positive for COVID-19, or display symptoms including fever or chills, cough, shortness of breath, or difficulty breathing, we ask that you please not attend the conference. If you’ve recently been sick or exposed we ask you not to come to the meeting unless it has been at least 10 days after a COVID infection or close contact.
• We ask that you are mindful and respectful of our colleagues and their loved ones who are more vulnerable to infection. Masks will not be required but participants are welcome to wear them.
• COVID safety protocols may change depending on CDC guidance at the time of the conference.

Lodging

Royal Sonesta Hotel, New Orleans
$199/night excluding taxes
Booking link: https://book.passkey.com/e/50390085
Cutoff Date:  April 15, 202

Annual Meeting Buddies

HEFN will be pairing Annual Meeting first-timers with past meeting attendees prior to coming together in New Orleans. This buddy system will be a way for folks new to HEFN and the in-person Annual Meeting to connect with other attendees and begin relationships that can be built upon when we convene in May! If this is your first time at an annual meeting, expect further communication from HEFN and your buddy by early May.

AMPC Members

We would like to thank our wonderful Annual Meeting Planning Committee for their partnership in deigning our meeting!  The committee is excited to be with all of you in the Big Easy:

Bill Walsh, Executive Director, Passport Foundation
Caroline Williams, Program Manager, Lead Free Mohawk Valley
Flozell Daniels, Jr., CEO, Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation
Gabriel Jones, Associate Director, Chicago Frontlines Funding Initiative
Kat Gilje, Executive Director, Ceres Trust, HEFN Steering Committee
Leslie Hatfield, Senior Partnership and Outreach Advisor, GRACE Communications Foundation, HEFN Steering Committee
Maya Winkelstein, Partner, The 2030 Fund
Phil Johnson, Senior Program Director, The Heinz Endowments
Roger Perez, Program Officer, GitLab Foundation, HEFN Steering Committee
Trevor Thompson, Program Officer, NorthLight Foundation, HEFN Steering Committee
Trina Jackson, Senior Solidary Program Officer, Grassroots International

Annual Meeting Planning Consultant: 

Anuja Mendiratta, Philanthropic + Nonprofit Consulting, HEFN Steering Committee