Women’s Environmental Leadership Fund (WE LEAD)

Background

The Women’s Environmental Leadership Fund, formed in 2020, is one of seven Tides Foundation initiatives launched from 2019 through 2025. As of 2025, these include WE LEAD, the Healthy Democracy Fund, the Just Health Fund, the Advancing Girls Fund, the Frontline Justice Fund, the Stronger Together Fund, and the Immigrants Belong Fund. ^{1 2}

As of 2025, WE LEAD’s independent advisory committee (IAC) consisted of Farah Mahesri, Kimberly Middleton, Peter Martin, Shaune Zunzanyika, and Tuti Scott. During an April 2020 interview, several IAC members claimed that 90 percent of all environmentally focused nonprofits in the United States were run by white men. ^{1 3}

In 2023, the IAC’s members were listed as Kimberly Middleton, a program officer of the Tides Foundation; Peter Martin, the director of philanthropy at the Tides Foundation; Shaune Zunzanyika, the deputy director of philanthropy at the Tides Foundation; and Michelle Mitchell, the chief executive of Cancer Research UK. ^{1 4}

Grants

The Women’s Environmental Leadership Fund (WE LEAD) advocates the creation of environmental nonprofit organizations led by women and non-binary individuals. The fund claims that these groups are “most impacted” by environmental issues such as climate change and “have the best solutions” towards said issues. The fund has also prioritized supporting organizations led by “queer, trans” and “non-binary” individuals. ^{1 3}

WE LEAD provides grants which specifically target nonprofits working “at the intersection of racial, gender, and environmental justice.” ¹

In 2023, WE LEAD donated $1.54 million to organizations based in 33 states and the U.S. territory of Guam. Grantees included Inclusive Louisiana, the Smile Trust, the West Virginia Rivers Coalition, the Native Movement, Indigenous Climate Action, the Michigan Environmental Justice Coalition, Honor the Earth, and MOVE Texas. ¹

Between its founding in 2020 through 2024, WE LEAD claims to have spent over $8 million on grants. ⁵

Activities

In 2024, the Women’s Environmental Leadership Fund (WE LEAD) published a report titled “Understanding the Landscape for Black, Indigenous, Women of Color-Led Climate and Environmental Justice Organizations,” which claimed to provide a “landscape analysis” on racial-minority leadership in environmentalist philanthropy based on interviews with WE LEAD grant recipients. ⁵

According to the report, racial minority female leadership in environmental nonprofit groups was still underfunded due to being “on the receiving end of bias that keeps them from accessing larger, multiyear investments that would allow them to grow and sustain their work.” ⁵