Member Organizations & Friends

Member Organizations

The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) is a 501(c)(3) non profit organization that certifies sustainable businesses, homes, hospitals, schools, and neighborhoods. USGBC is dedicated to expanding green building practices and education, and its LEED® (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Green Building Rating System™.

The Orion Grassroots Network connects people at work in social benefit organizations whose missions serve people and planet. There are many ways to organize to do that -- as an official non-profit, an ad-hoc group, and even as a for-profit or governmental agency. So long as a group can demonstrate that it is mission-driven for social benefit, the group and its members are welcomed here.

Charity Navigator works to guide intelligent giving. Our goal is to help people give to charity with confidence. At the same time, we aim to help charities by shining lights on truly effective organizations. In doing so, we believe we can help ensure that charitable giving keeps pace with the growing need for charitable programs.

Business Alliance for Local Living Economies
The Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE) is North America's fastest growing network of socially responsible businesses, comprised of 79 community networks with over 21,000 independent business members across the U.S. and Canada.

BALLE brings together independent business leaders, economic development professionals, government officials, social innovators, and community leaders to build local living economies. We provide local, state, national, and international resources to this new model of economic development.

Friends of ours

High County News
High Country News publishes an award-winning newsmagazine, a popular Web site and a weekly op-ed column service, along with special reports and books. Through in-depth reporting, High Country News covers the American West's public lands, water, natural resources, grazing, wilderness, wildlife, logging, politics, communities, growth and other issues now changing the face of the West. From the Northern Rockies to the desert Southwest, from the Great Plains to the West Coast, High Country News’ coverage spans 11 Western states and is the leading source for regional environmental news, analysis and commentary, making it an essential resource for those who care about the West.

Conservation & Preservation Counsel - Today, more than ever, our natural and agricultural landscapes are threatened by development pressure. As urban areas expand, developers look to less expensive rural and natural lands as future sites for residential and commercial development. Often these threatened natural areas are beautiful scenic landscapes treasured by the community.  Moreover, much natural land is able to sequester carbon.  Protecting such lands can help fight global warming.  The need for Conservation & Preservation Counsel's legal services is now greater than ever.  Contact CPC so that attorney Jim Olmsted can help you preserve precious natural, scenic, open space and recreational lands in perpetuity.

Design Workshop is a firm born in the pursuit of ideas.  Our founders, while professors at North Carolina State, set a course to engage clients, staff and colleagues in a collaborative process they labeled “design workshop.”  For nearly four decades, Design Workshop has provided landscape architecture, urban design and strategic s services to clients in North America and throughout the world.  We are committed to creating special places that meet today’s needs and that are sustainable environments for all time.  We have developed a methodology called DW Legacy Design®.  This proprietary process seeks to imbue every project with a balance between environmental sensitivity, community connection, artistic beauty and economic viability that demonstrates measureable results.