Stories

Environment/Energy

  • Sparking Development where it’s Needed Most

    Big-money real estate developers are flocking to the American South, lured by aggressive economic development policies, generous tax incentives, lax regulations, low-cost land, cheap labor and a booming population. Investors are pouring considerable dollars into large real estate funds that typically target the same five to ten big cities. These dominance of these so-called “mega-funds,” which...

  • Sharing Just Transition Lessons Half a World Away

    As any map will tell you, Australia is a long way from Appalachia. Despite the distance and differences, their coalfield communities share striking similarities: the fossil fuel industry’s problematic political power, economic challenges, and mining-related environmental and health concerns. As in Appalachia, there is a growing dedication to a just transition from a single extractive industry...

    Latrobe City Hard Hats
  • Celebrating a Year of Successes

    As we begin a new year, we’d like to toast all of our grantee partners across the South for a very successful 2016. Here are a few of the year’s achievements:

    The Georgia Budget and Policy Institute led the successful opposition to a tax-cut plan that would have damaged the state budget and eroded funding for schools and other services. Late in the legislative session, lawmakers...

    Coalfield Development Corporation
  • Envisioning a New Appalachia

    Once a year, the Babcock Foundation travels to a location within our funding footprint to learn from our grantee partners where they work. I always look forward to these trips because they afford us the opportunity to engage with our partners on the ground and meet with some of their constituents and other local residents. To be in their communities, to hear their stories, to see the lay of...

    Coalfield Development Corporation, WV
  • MRBF Joins Divest Invest Movement

    In addition to making grants to organizations across the South, the Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation achieves positive impact by aligning our financial investments with our mission of moving people and places out of poverty. The Foundation recognizes that climate change has disproportionate impacts on low-wealth people and communities of color across the American South, the nation and...

    Father and daughter fishing on Gulf Coast