Resources Legacy Fund (RLF) is a left-of-center grantmaking and environmental conservation group. RLF was originally founded to protect California coastlines but has expanded internationally. Most of its efforts are directed toward land conservation, but RLF also engages in political advocacy for environmentalist and left-progressive social-policy goals.

RLF was founded with funding from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. It has also received major donations from large left-of-center grantmaking groups including the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and Walton Family Foundation.

RLF claims to have generated $30 billion in government funding for public lands and to have protected over five million acres of land. ^[1]

History

In the 1990s, Jeanne Sedgwick, the conservation program director at the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, asked Michael Mantell, the undersecretary of the California Natural Resources Agency, to increase support for coastal Californian land protection. Mantell soon left the agency and began working with Sedgwick. In 1998, with financial support from David Packard, they launched the Conserving California Landscapes Initiative, a five-year program designed to protect 250,000 acres of coastline. ^[2]

In 2000, Sedgwick and Mantell consolidated their effort into two independent but linked organizations: the Resources Legacy Fund and the Resources Law Group. ^[3]

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

Resource Legacy Fund explicitly prioritizes diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) principles in its grantmaking process “by directing funds to those who have been marginalized” historically. ^[4] RLF’s website states that “Modern society is built, in part, on a foundation of elitism, racism, sexism, ageism, and other forms of oppression” and therefore, “Advancing DEI is a moral imperative and essential to our mission.” ^[5]

In 2019, RLF launched an initiative to increase its commitment to DEI. Since then, its staff and board have gone through “trainings covering topics such as implicit bias, anti-racism, cultural humility, and the history of the conservation movement, which has been marred by exclusion and racism” ^[6]

Partner Organizations

Resources Legacy Fund lists three partner organizations. The Resources Law Group is an environmentalist law group established as an offshoot of RLF. Fund for a Better Future is a left-of-center grantmaker that funds advocacy groups and lobbyists that promote environmentalism and oppose Republicans. The Shared Ascent Fund is a left-wing grantmaking group primarily focused on “advancing economic, racial, and gender equity.” ^[7] The Shared Ascent Fund, Fund for a Better Future, and RLF are all led by Avi Garbow. ^{[8] [9]}

Public Health Alliance Project

Resources Legacy Fund has financed a project by the Public Health Alliance of Southern California to develop a “Green Infrastructure, Climate Resilience, and Health Equity Policy Agenda” at the local, state, and federal levels. The agenda primarily consists of promoting environmentalist infrastructure projects (like rainwater collection) with an emphasis on supporting minority communities, particularly indigenous groups. ^{[10] [11]}

Funding

In 2020, the Resources Legacy Fund earned $37,185,698 in revenue, almost $32 million of which came from grants. ^[12]

RLF has received funding from many left-of-center grant makers, including the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, ^[13] Arnold Ventures, ^[14] the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, ^[15] the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, ^[16] and the Walton Family Foundation. ^[17]

Leadership

Avi Garbow is the president of the Resources Legacy Fund, as well as its partner groups, Fund for a Better Future and the Shared Ascent Fund. Garbow became president in 2021, succeeding Michael Mantell, the co-founder of RLF who had run the group since 2000. ^[18] Garbow has also worked as an environmental advocate for Patagonia, a for-profit clothing company known for supporting environmentalist causes. In the past, Garbow served as senior counselor to the administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under President Joe Biden, general counsel of the EPA under President Barack Obama, and as a federal environmental crimes prosecutor at the U.S. Department of Justice. ^[19]

Vice president Helena Choi leads the RLF’s diversity, equity, and inclusion committee. She previously worked as a program officer for the Global Development and Population Program of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and at the Open Society Foundations. ^[20]

Director of grants management Krista Batey previously worked as associate director, director, and senior director of grantmaking and compliance at Arabella Advisors. ^[21]

Criticism

In an op-ed at the left-wing Daily Kos, Dan Bacher criticized the Resources Legacy Fund for successfully backing the Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA), a bill in California which supposedly put a significant portion of the California coastline under environmental protection. According to Bacher, the protected areas only prohibit fishing, and do not prohibit “offshore oil and gas drilling, environmentally destructive energy projects, military testing, pollution by corporations and cities.” Bacher attributes the passage of the MLPA to Nancy Vogel, the communications director of the RLF, who has a long history with the California government, including serving as deputy secretary for communications at the California Natural Resources Agency from 2015 through 2017, and assistant director for communications at the Department of Water Resources from 2012 through 2015. ^[22]

The David and Lucile Packard Foundation gave more than $8 million to the RLF to support its efforts to push the passage of the MLPA. ^[23]