Alliance for Sustainability

Please help us celebrate our Fortieth Anniversary Year and Make a Difference!

Despite the many challenges our country and world are facing, we're energized and excited to work together to achieve our vision of a healthy, just, equitable, thriving, kind and peaceful world that works for everyone, fulfills our fundamental needs and realizes our greatest dreams of sustainability.

We hope you’ll join with us in making this a reality with your donation, which will be matched up to $1,000 by donors who want to expand our impact. We've earned a GuideStar Gold Seal of Transparency.

We're called to be our highest, most evolved selves and to join together to bring about fundamental change. Our children and those who are struggling to survive are counting on us. We and our diverse, committed college students from across the country feel Dr. Martin Luther King’s fierce urgency of now and are dedicated to fulfilling his dream.

Some may say it’s an impossible dream. That’s what many said forty years ago when visionary leaders from around the world founded the Alliance with a mission to bring about sustainability on a personal, organizational and planetary level.

But over four decades we’ve proven that together we can make a huge difference. Many of our greatest dreams have been fulfilled, starting with the adoption of our definition of sustainability – one of the first: ecologically sound, economically viable, socially just and humane, embodying our highest values in terms of how we treat people, animals and the planet.

Since then, we’ve successfully developed and implemented a range of impactful programs and policies:

• Landmark public policy, including the nation’s toughest organic standards, comprehensive ground water protection and bans on toxic pesticides
• Effective campaigns with key partners, such as the Dirty Dozen Campaign and the CERES Principles, the first-ever principles for corporate environmental responsibility
• The historic adoption of sustainable agriculture as a goal by all 179 countries at the UN Earth Summit in Rio
• Inspiring sustainability presentations and trainings for thousands of schools, congregations, businesses and government agencies
• Cutting-edge publications and social media, from our weekly e-Newsletter and books like Breaking the Pesticide Habit to four social media platforms addressing everything from climate and forever chemicals to gun violence and reproductive, voting and LGBTQ+ rights

In response to the ongoing, horrific murders of George Floyd and other people of color, the climate crisis, the global pandemic and the anti-democracy movement, the Alliance re-evaluated our work in 2020. We developed our innovative Campaign for Sustainability, Health, Equity and Kindness (S.H.E. Kindness). Its purpose is to bring about fundamental systems change through personal and organizational transformation and impactful public policies.

Our strategy is to support and amplify the work of aligned groups in order to build a diverse, inclusive alliance of more than one million people and organizations working together to shift systems in three critical institutions: education, business and government. We developed three programs building upon our past work: 

1. Akepa Youth & School Program - This innovative, scalable and cost-effective youth leadership development, education, action and creativity program seeks to inform, inspire and engage diverse middle and high school students in schools across the country, half of which are in under-served communities. It empowers students to overcome hopelessness and eco-anxiety by taking action through a positive Akepa presentation, eBook, website, S.H.E. Kindness Creativity Prize, Students for Sustainability and Sustainability Teams.
2. Business Program - We are working with a wide range of businesses to share a powerful S.H.E. Kindness Business presentation, offer training and consulting services, develop and implement a sustainability vision, assessment and action plan. We are also engaging employees in taking action at work, home and within their community, as well as encouraging their participation in volunteer programs, mentorships, service learning and policy advocacy.
3. Policy Program - We are collaborating with key national and state partners to support, successfully pass and implement impactful public policies. We are participating in state and national advocacy days and promoting weekly Take Actions on a wide variety of policy issues related to sustainability, health, equity and kindness.

We’re prepared to dramatically increase and scale our impact for our next forty. We are inspired by our energetic, diverse college students as they help lead all aspects of our work. They give us hope that together we can bring fundamental change.

We welcome your support for the Alliance and our Campaign. You’ll receive our informative and inspiring weekly E-newsletter and be able to Take Action on key issues, while also getting college student perspectives on a range of topics in their articles.