Media Center

Join the Rose Foundation in celebrating 25 years of fostering stewardship, building community, and demanding justice! October 11, 2018 at First Unitarian Church in Oakland. Click the image on the left for more details.

Mike Herz (retired) founded San Francisco Baykeeper in 1989, an organization dedicated using clean water laws and science to safeguard Bay Area communities and habitats. Since Mike first reached out to the Rose Foundation with a request to manage settlement funds in 1994, Baykeeper has continued to direct settlement funds to the Rose Foundation for distribution to local environmental groups. In addition to supporting our work as a loyal donor, Mike remains an important part of the Rose Foundation community.

The early Internet promised the world a wealth of content to watch, read, and listen to. Few would say the Internet hasn’t delivered on this promise, but users everywhere feel unsettled at the potential for web companies to watch, listen to, and observe them. “The online medium opens many new avenues for communication, but also has been structured as a form of ongoing surveillance and manipulation,” says Jeff Chester, the Executive Director of the Center for Digital Democracy, a grantee of the Rose Foundation’s Consumer Privacy Rights Fund. Working closely with other civil society organizations, the Center for Digital Democracy is forging solutions for protecting privacy online and expanding the public’s awareness of the use of their data.

Last summer New Voices Are Rising collaborated with five environmental justice programs to give Summer Climate Justice Leadership Academy students an in-depth look at what it means to be a leader for environmental health in their community.

Thank you again to the Sierra Club, San Francisco Bay Chapter for recognizing our New Voices Are Rising youth Fellows at the David Brower Dinner. Make sure to check out this video of Pa, Kyree, and Nate accepting the 2015 Youth Award!

Do you remember the first time you stood up and spoke out? Watch our New Voices Are Rising 2015 Summer Climate Justice Leadership Academy participants as they discuss the power of their voices and how they have gotten involved in the fight for climate resiliency in Oakland.

Although California-based companies continue to pioneer electric vehicle technology, communities that can’t afford a $70,000 Tesla Model S have yet to enjoy the benefits of gasoline-free vehicles. Residents of Arvin, CA, a city with higher poverty than 99 percent of California cities, face exposure to some of the highest levels of ozone and particulate matter in the state.  The Rose Foundation has provided a number of grants to organizations working in Arvin to create solutions for the city’s air quality issues, including the City of Arvin and the Central California Environmental Justice Network

The World Health Organization startled the world this year with its report on finding tiny plastic pieces in 83% of the world’s tap water. At sea, reports of marine life killed from the ingestion of or entanglement in plastic debris continue to reveal the negative effects of plastic pollution on aquatic ecosystems. All One Ocean is using a Rose Foundation grant to mobilize youth to clean up beaches in several counties in and around the Bay Area.



If you’ve ever stumbled upon a coin, arrowhead, or other artifact from the distant past, you probably were happy to pocket the found treasure. Unfortunately, future generations may not be as excited to find some of the innumerable hazardous remnants left behind by today’s society. University Legal Assistance of Gonzaga University School of Law (ULA) is trying to better understand a toxic legacy that affects present-day communities along the Spokane River and will likely continue to affect generations to come.

Helping Underbanked Consumers Avoid Excessive Debit Card and Overdraft Fees: A Cy Pres Success Story

New economic study shows CEQA protects the environment without stunting economic growth.

The Kern Kaweah Chapter of the Sierra Club released a study indicating significant underestimation of NOx emissions associated with oil and gas well drilling activities in Kern County, California. You can read the full report here on our website.