News

Recognizing the challenges to many of the RBF's program priorities presented by the political climate, the board of trustees has approved an increase in the Fund’s grants budget by nearly 12 percent for 2017, Fund President Stephen Heintz announced today.

After airing on C-SPAN, the video of a short exchange on race between RBF board member Heather McGhee and a caller from North Carolina has been viewed online more than two million times and garnered widespread media attention.

The Pluribus Project announced a portfolio of Political Game Changers to tackle some of the biggest problems facing our democracy. A nonpartisan special initiative with the Aspen Institute, it works to develop new ways to move political campaigns beyond big money and extreme ideologies to become more responsive to broad public interests.

A new report from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis and the Kosovo Civil Society Consortium for Sustainable Development, finds that a constructing another coal-fired power plant in Kosovo would be the wrong direction for the country’s development.

The balance of political influence needs to be shifted from the few with money to the many, said Lucas Welch, executive director of the Pluribus Project, at the Aspen Ideas Festival. Introducing a panel discussion about money in politics, Welch pointed to public frustration with elected government and the influence of corporate spending. Panelists included leaders of The Pluribus Project, Take Back our Republic, Demos and change.org.

RBF President Stephen Heintz is among nearly 70 foundation leaders asking the Securities and Exchange Commission to require corporations to disclose their political spending. In an interview with NPR, he said that shareholders have a right to know how public companies are using unreported spending to influence elections.

In considering the specific challenges and opportunities facing today’s democracy and democratic engagement in the United States, the Fund has revised the program guidelines for its Democratic Practice–United States portfolio. The revised guidelines recognize that the goal of advancing a vital and inclusive U.S. democracy is both to improve democratic systems and to enable U.S. citizens and residents to leverage these systems to advance social, racial, and economic justice.

The Carbon Tracker Initiative won the award for Innovation in Communicating Sustainability at the Guardian Sustainable Business Awards on May 14, 2014. According to The Guardian, Carbon Tracker's April 2013 report, Unburnable Carbon: Wasted Capital and Stranded Assets, reframed the climate debate by translating climate risk into energy demand and prices.

The Center for Public Integrity (CPI) has been awarded a 2014 Pulitzer Prize in investigative reporting. CPI was recognized for reporter Chris Hamby's three-part series about how some doctors and lawyers worked against coal miners who were sick and dying of black lung disease. Mr. Hamby spent a year uncovering thousands of pages of previously hidden legal documents for the series, "Breathless and Burdened: Dying from Black Lung, Buried by Law and Medicine."

The National Priorities Project has been nominated for the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize. For 30 years, NPP has been committed to providing clear and transparent information about the United States' federal budget process, making it easier for citizens to oversee and influence how their tax dollars are spent. The unusual nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize recognizes NPP's important role in informing Americans about the nation's war spending.