Case Study: Strategic Planning with Earth Island
Earth Island Institute is an environmental fiscal sponsor and organizational home for people protecting the Earth and all life on it.
They support a 30-person core team running in-house programs—including a journal, youth leadership initiative, and legal advocacy—while fiscally sponsoring more than 80 independent environmental projects across the movement.
We supported Earth Island through a year-long, participatory strategic planning and organizational alignment process.
Our work included:
Engaging all staff and over 80 sponsored projects in a structured, inclusive process
Clarifying mission, purpose, and political analysis
Developing a unified theory of change across internal programs and the project network
Redesigning team structure, governance, and operating systems to support that theory
Creating formal feedback loops between Earth Island and its sponsored projects
Facilitating retreats and guiding a sustained, multi-phase change process
Naming and working through underlying tensions and misalignments that were limiting coherence
As Earth Island grew, its impact expanded—but so did complexity.
Projects were operating in silos, and there were open questions about Earth Island’s political analysis and role within the broader environmental movement. The organization’s operational and governance structures had not kept pace with its growth.
Leadership and staff were asking:
Does our mission and purpose still resonate with our staff and project network?
How should autonomy and coordination be balanced between Earth Island, its internal programs, and sponsored projects?
What is our shared theory of change—and how does each work area contribute to it?
Do we need to evolve our governance and operating structures to support the next phase of impact?
They wanted to meaningfully engage staff and project partners while identifying clear 1-, 3-, and 5-year priorities, objectives, and indicators across all areas of work.
Our impact:
Earth Island emerged with shared clarity about its role, purpose, and direction.
The organization gained:
Stronger alignment across staff, programs, and projects
Clear priorities, accountability, and decision-making structures
A solid foundation for ongoing operational development and strategic impact