Taproot Earth

Leadership and Organizational Structure

The organization’s leadership structure reflects its ideological orientation and connections to left-wing climate networks. Mana Tahaie is executive director, and Colette Pichon Battle, a former corporate lawyer and climate justice organizer, is president and partner of Vision and Initiatives. ² Battle previously founded and led the Gulf Coast Center for Law and Policy, which focused on post-Hurricane Katrina advocacy and racial equity issues. ³ Anthony Giancatarino holds the position of partner for strategy; Giancatarino’s background includes work at the Center for Social Inclusion, focusing on racial equity in energy policy, and leadership of the Justice-Centered Energy Transitions Project in Philadelphia. ⁴

The organization employs 27 staff members as of 2025, with additional senior leadership including Veronica Coptis, Emma Collin, and Ama Francis as senior advisors. The leadership team’s collective experience spans community organizing, legal advocacy, and policy work. ⁴

Programs and Policies

Taproot Earth’s #WeChooseNow initiative brought together over 150 leaders from four states to develop policy proposals focused on democracy, energy, labor, and public finance, with the aim of addressing state and local challenges related to the climate and economic transitions. ⁵

The Louisiana report examined how high rates of incarceration in the state impact the distribution of public resources, noting that funds are often allocated to correctional facilities rather than infrastructure such as levees and coastal restoration. ⁵ The project further described how incarcerated individuals claim to be exposed to climate risks and employed in disaster recovery or industrial work under challenging conditions. Taproot Earth’s Global Climate Reparations initiative represents a significant component of its work, calling for debt abolition for developing nations and direct payments rather than loan programs. The organization has focused particularly on engaging religious institutions, specifically the Catholic Church, to divest from fossil fuels and contribute resources to community-governed funds. ⁵

Opposition to Nuclear Energy

Taproot Earth was one of more than 650 signatories on an August 2022 letter organized by People vs Fossil Fuels and addressed to the “Democratic Leadership” in Congress. The letter was titled: “Opposition to Fossil Fuel Project Approvals and Permitting Reforms Conditioned on the Inflation Reduction Act.” ⁶

The letter portrayed as “false solutions” carbon sequestration, carbon-free nuclear energy and all sources of energy not approved as “renewable” by the signatories: “Relying only on large scale investments in renewable energy and environmental justice alone will not stave off climate disaster if Congress simultaneously puts its legislative foot on the gas to expand fossil fuel production and false solutions like carbon capture, hydrogen, biomass, biofuels, factory farm gas, and nuclear power.” ⁶

Nuclear power plants produce no carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gas emissions, and as of 2021 accounted for 20 percent of American electricity production—the largest source of zero carbon electricity in the United States. ⁷ An October 2018 proposal from The Nature Conservancy noted that zero-carbon nuclear plants produced 7.8 percent of total world energy output and recommended reducing carbon emissions by increasing nuclear capacity to 33 percent of total world energy output. ⁸

Financials

According to Internal Revenue Service filings, Taproot Earth reported total revenues of $32,761,810 in 2023, with contributions comprising 99.7 percent of total revenue at $32,663,013. This represents substantial growth from its 2022 revenue of $7,357,513. ⁹ Total assets reached $20,255,157 in 2023, while total expenses were $14,270,821. ¹⁰

The organization’s funding ecosystem reveals connections to established left-wing philanthropic networks. Taproot Earth has received grants from the Windward Fund, a fiscal sponsor for numerous left-leaning environmental initiatives. The New Venture Fund, a part of the Arabella Advisors network, also appears in funding documents related to Taproot Earth. ¹⁰ Additional confirmed funding sources include the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, which provided $350,000 across two grants in 2022 and 2023. One grant specifically supported “a campaign to end oil and gas leasing sales in the Gulf of Mexico,” demonstrating the organization’s direct involvement in anti-fossil fuel advocacy. ⁹

In December 2025, Taproot Earth was one of multiple organizations that received a grant from Yield Giving, the philanthropic initiative started by MacKenzie Scott, the ex-wife of Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos. In 2025 alone, Scott, through Yield Giving, donated over $7.16 billion to philanthropies and other charity organizations around the world. ¹¹

Taproot Earth was reported as being among the top 30 funders of members of Louisianans Against False Solutions (LAFS), a coalition of weather-dependent energy advocacy groups. The group gave $26,762,014 to LAFS groups between 2020 and 2025. ¹²