Together, we're compounding insight and action to protect our families and our futures.
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Our Story
Earth Gives Day was developed to serve as a “one-stop” platform to catalyze greater impact by and through 501(c)3 environmental, climate, and climate justice organizations that do vital work in our small towns, our urban core, our lakes and oceans, among the rolling grasslands, and in your favorite national park. These organizations are working on the most consequential issues facing humanity, and yet many do so with little attention and funding.
Only 2% of all giving goes to environmental organizations. Only 0.5% to climate justice nonprofits.
It's just not enough and LATER IS TOO LATE. We invite you to join the "Earth Giver" community. That means shifting some of your generosity and engagement toward environmental action. Earth Gives, a 501c3 organization, is tapping into the successes of giving days - time constrained campaigns which invite people to one platform to give, sign up to volunteer and build connections to nonprofits. We also want to put this platform to use year-round for giving, offering "ecosources" links that connect you with actionable insights, and to help others - companies, families or individuals - host a giving initiative that might focus on a specific focus area, take place during a special environmental day, or for some life event you want to celebrate through a climate of generosity.
Earth Gives Day is the first single issue nationwide giving day.
The campaign kicks off in early to mid-September and runs through early October. And we also participate in GivingTuesday after being welcomed by the organization in 2024.
Earth Gives founder, Rhonda Bannard, was inspired by a youth climate activist to dig into climate change issues further. She had helped start a statewide giving effort in Arizona, and it occurred to her to consider one for climate solutions. Learning that environmental initiatives received such little funding when the issue impacts everyone on the planet, she put her skills to work to fill a gap.
So far, we are scrappy volunteer-run, built from the ground up, community-building-focused organization. We do our work from one of the hottest, most challenged cities in the country - Phoenix. It's part of our "why" we're doing this. Successful giving days also rely on partners and sponsors to spread the word. We welcome you to join us in ways big and small. Together, we can be "roll up our sleeves" change-makers, boundary breakers, adventurers, science lovers and fans of facts. Reach out to connect@earthgives.org today!
Who We Are
- We are nonprofit founders and executives. We care about ESGs and SDGs and even pushing beyond currently established frames.
- We have run marketing and PR campaigns, and we have raised money and secured investments.
- We've pushed corporate entities to lead on sustainability with proven results and we've launched giving day campaigns.
- We love statistics and know the value of dollars driven into local organizations with hiking boots on the ground.
- We've scaled high peaks, and snorkeled oceans blue.
- We've tilled the soil, studied ecosystem collapse, and cleaned plastic and trash out of waterways.
- We've gone to court because the bad guy was trying to take our land or pollute our streams.
- We've protested to keep pipelines from crossing our sacred ground, and marched to bring attention to the policies that are harming our kids and compromising our futures.
- We are moms, dads, sisters and brothers, daughters and sons, and citizens of this one special place we called earth.
- We are you and me, he and she, they, them and us.
- We are human residents of our earth, and we seek to co-exist with the living ecosystems we need to save.
All are welcome here.
George Basch Earth Champion Award
George Basch became Earth Gives' founding board member. He was key to rallying a number of nonprofits and partnerships that helped kick off the first year of Earth Gives Day. His critical role in our founding led us to create the George Basch Earth Champion Award and gave him the inaugural recognition in 2021.
George was tragically killed in a car accident in 2023 at the age of 85. We choose to celebrate his life. He began traveling internationally in 1962. His adventures took him to all seven continents multiple times and to more than 60 countries and territories. In those years, he witnessed the destruction of natural habitat because of population pressures. He also experienced the impact that these changes had on the other species inhabiting our planet, and on the world’s weather and climate.
Fondly known as “Explorer George” for his curious adventuring soul, he was never one to sit still. George's work in founding the Himalayan Stove Project to help the Nepalese cook without harming their health is what brought Rhonda and George together. Yet when the pandemic hit, the organization’s work stopped. George pivoted to assist with the formation of Earth Gives and became one of our inaugural board members.
With gusto, George reached out to the many organizations he had connections with, including The Explorer’s Club and the Rotarians just starting to advance their work on the environment.
George’s lifetime of commitment to the environment and early devotion to shaping Earth Gives not only landed him recognition as the Earth Champion for 2021, but also becoming the namesake to all future awards.
George Basch Earth Champion Award Recipients:
2022 - David Lawlor - formerly of the Western Environmental Law Center
2023 - Casey Bartrem, PhD. - Terragraphics International Foundation
2024 - Lewis Medina - formerly of the Eastern Sierra Interpretive Association
2025 - Timm Esque - volunteer, Desert Abundance
Our Leadership
Phil Allsopp, board chair 2025/2026 (Arizona), President, Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) USA
Phil Allsopp’s professional and academic qualifications span the fields of business and economic development, architecture, system dynamics and public health in both the UK and the US.
After decades of research and professional activity, Phil continues to be focused on the effects of public and financial policies on the quality and durability of human habitats; the places we inhabit, and which play decisive roles in shaping and enabling communities to achieve social, economic and environmental resiliency.
Phil holds a D.Arch from Kingston University, London and a M.S. in Health Services Planning and Design from Columbia University. In 2009, he was admitted into the Fellowship of the Royal Society for the Arts, Manufactures and Commerce – RSA – in London.
In 2014, Phil was appointed Adjunct Professor at Arizona State University’s School of Sustainability and Senior Sustainability Scientist with ASU’s Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability. In this role, he conducts collaborative research into complex urban systems with a focus on the social and economic drivers of human health and wellbeing.
Andrew Bernier, PhD, Nominating Committee (Ohio), Assistant Professor, University of Cincinnati
Andrew Bernier’s work weaves together sustainability science and education, systems theory, curriculum, career readiness and organizational design with storytelling and media.
Andrew is a visiting assistant professor of STEM Education at the University of Cincinnati and runs the education programs for the City of Cincinnatti. He also is a Senior Sustainability Fellow at ASU's Global Institute of Sustainability and Innovation.
Andrew has served on leadership teams for civic and academic organizations, including the boards of The Journal of Sustainability Education, Trees Matter, and Cincinnati Public Schools Outside. He also worked as a public radio science journalist for SPOT 127 Youth Media Center in Phoenix, after years of teaching secondary science.
Vernon Parker, J.D. (Arizona), past board chair, President, The VBP Group, LLC
Vernon is a former attorney and was the first ever Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the United States Department of Agriculture.
As the head of the VBP Group, a company specializing in assisting national companies with their government and public relations issues as well as legal and compliance issues. Mr. Parker currently sits on the boards of Abrazo Hospital in the Phoenix metro region, Cerberus Sentinel, and Lincoln Heritage Life Insurance.
Current and past clients include, Lincoln Heritage Life Insurance Company, Waste Management, Turf Paradise, Crown Realty, Five Star Realty, Square One Restaurant Concepts, Kahala Brands, New Vision, Nuskin, United States Department of Agriculture, United States Small Business Administration, and POSA (Scottsdale Police Association).
Mr. Parker served as Mayor of Paradise Valley, Arizona. Along with the Town Council, he helped navigate the Town through one of its toughest economic periods.
Mr. Parker served as the first ever Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the United States Department of Agriculture having been nominated by the President of the United States and unanimously confirmed by the United States Senate. While at USDA, he assisted the department in settling the Pickford lawsuit and many other lawsuits filed against the USDA.
Mr. Parker also served as General Counsel of the United States Office of Personnel Management in Washington, DC, and he served in the White House as Special Assistant to President George H. W. Bush.
Susan Swern (Colorado), Major Gifts, Global Green Grants, Founder, Executive Director, Pickleball for Good
Renee Myers (Oregon), former executive director of Forest Park Conservancy, nonprofit consultant
Scott Harelson (Arizona), former media and PR professional, consultant
Jason Pulver (Utah), Director of Development, Grand Staircase Escalante Partners
Louis Medina (California), former nonprofit leader, Editor, newspapers covering the Sierra Nevada
Janice Rodricks (Toronto), ESG & Sustainable Finance Professional
Klara Phillips (Phoenix/Nashville), Environmental Sociology student at Vanderbilt, former Earth Gives intern
Former board members:
Elaine Fogel (Arizona), former marketing and fundraising professional
Jen Yee (Arizona), Assistant Executive Director, Arizona State Fair
Jamescita Peshlakai (Navajo Nation, Arizona) formerly a senator with the Arizona state legislature and the Department of the Interior under the leadership of Secretary Deb Haaland
George Basch (Taos, New Mexico) (deceased) business leader, adventurer
Debbie Hill J.D. (Oregon) attorney, nonprofit CEO, global business executive and consultant
Sandra Price, PhD., (Arizona, Kansas) Nonprofit executive, former attorney, lobbyist, consultant
Connect with Us
602.370.3560
7000 N 16th Street, Suite 120-232 Phoenix, AZ 85020-5547 -Yes, it's hot here!