Women's Environmental Institute

The Women’s Environmental Institute is a nonprofit environmental justice organization that brings together food, racial and gender justice strategies in urban and rural places — one community at a time, one farm at a time, one person at a time and all of us together.

This year WEI has an exciting goal for Give to the Max and beyond: Through our "80x80" Fundraising campaign we are raising an $80,000 sustainability fund for WEI Activist Executive Director Karen Clark's 80th birthday! 

Your gift in any amount helps ensure that WEI's important work continues into the future. Thank you!

Women’s Environmental Institute has healed and inspired so many through good conversation, education, and training through community organizing, research, farming, bringing like-minded people together, and just plain fun! We want this to continue into the future. We want to celebrate all that Karen Clark has given to this organization to make it what it is today. In July 2025, Karen Clark turned 80 years old. During her 80th year, we are raising funds to sustain WEI into the future. Women’s Environmental Institution is transformative! We want to ensure that it continues to grow and touch evermore lives during these extremely challenging times and into the future. Together we can DO this!

Your gift during 2025 Give to the Max will support:

• Startup Costs for Land Trust. We are in the process of legally formalizing WEI's Amador Hill Farm campus as a land trust dedicated to sustaining WEI's Environmental Justice mission as a land-based nonprofit.
• General Fund for Operations and Programs, during a time when WEI, like so many other Environmental Justice and farming nonprofits, is challenged by federal funding cuts and the consequences of Presidential executive orders including worker layoffs and critical program elimination.
• Continue WEI dedication to education, training, and community policy advocacy. The Sustainability Fund will support instructor teaching fees and educational scholarships, farmer training programs, our annual Will Allen Farmer Training Weekend event, and fair pay for farmers.

Please learn more about our programs, membership, and volunteer opportunities at w-e-i.org.  

Founded in 2003, the Women’s Environmental Institute (WEI) is an early leader in the grassroots movement toward environmental justice. WEI implements strategies that include hands-on education in organic farming and sustainable living; advocacy work for racial, gender, economic, and environmental justice; and both urban and rural community-based access to equitable food production. Please see our most recent Annual Report for more information about our recent projects and accomplishments.

Nothing is more essential than clean food, air, and water. Yet many communities of color and low-income Minnesotans struggle with food insecurity and disproportionate levels of toxic environmental exposures. By supporting the Women's Environmental Institute (WEI) you are helping address these inequities and making a real difference for traditionally underserved communities.