The Earth Trust Foundation: supporting innovative business ideas in service of social justice and the environment.

As the firestorm swept through the Malibu-Topanga area, all of Los Angeles watched in horror as beautiful wild canyons and hundreds of homes were destroyed. Even now, nearly two months later, residents continue to take inventory of what was irretrievably lost. Yet even in the midst of charred debris and scorched hillsides, recovery is rapidly taking place.

Insurance agents, contractors, and homeowners are sorting out plans for rebuilding. Hikers have made macabre discoveries of deer and rattlesnake skeletons, yet have also noted that the rabbit population is rebounding like, well, rabbits. Low walls of sandbags are sprouting up, hoping to stop the almost inevitable landslide, yet, even as the rains begin, the first sprouts of new growth are also appearing -- the tiny patches of green are easily visible against the blackened landscape.

Malibu's Earth Trust Foundation is also making a recovery from the devastating fires. The November 2 fire destroyed the Earth Trust House, a well-known facility that provided about one-half of their operating income through rental and fundraising activities. The beautiful building had recently hosted environmental organizations, local school groups, non-profit boards, and human rights events.

The nearby offices of the foundation, however, were saved by the founder's efforts and a timely water drop from a firefighting helicopter's. Amidst the charred remains of their neighborhood, their work is continuing unabated. Now, the challenge for the small foundation is to maintain its ambitious work on a budget halved by the fire.

The Earth Trust Foundation was founded as a 501 (c)(3) tax-exempt non-profit organization in 1985 by Andrew Beath. Beath, a longtime Malibu resident, flourished in the local real estate business before deciding to dedicate his time to social justice, education and the environment. Says Beath, "I came from a very specific path -- East Coast prep schools, competitive athletics, Duke University, and Wharton. After working for many years in that setting, I felt like I was missing something -- but I didn't know exactly what. It took me years of traveling around the world observing, reading, and studying various philosophies. After a long process, I felt that I had developed a clear direction to 'give something back.' I established the Earth Trust Foundation as a way to encourage personal awareness and social responsibility from a global perspective."

This broad vision translates into support for a wide variety of innovative programs. The Earth Trust Foundation supports 15 "EarthWays" projects, which are involved in social justice and environmental activism around the world. Earth Trust is not, however, a grant-making foundation. Instead, it initiates its own projects and works in partnerships with other activists and projects. For its own projects and its partners, Earth Trust provides financial and administrative support, office space, fundraising and public relations assistance, and program planning consultation at no charge.

Two of the "EarthWays" projects are of special interest to the business community. Instead of using a traditional charitable donations approach to helping poor people and the environment, these efforts represent new ways of utilizing the marketplace and general business practices to make change.

The first of these is the Women's Communal Bank Project. These "banks" are small loan funds which are administered by local non-governmental organizations and community groups in Belize, Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. Each bank consists of 15-20 poor women, who learn in a special training program, simple business administration and management of their bank -- calculating and collecting interest payments, evaluating loan applications and monitoring savings and growth. They then make very small loans, usually $100-350, for small local enterprises operated by the women bank members themselves. The participants would not be considered by any local banks, and until now have had to use rapacious loan sharks to receive any credit at all.

With these loans, women are able to make tortillas, sew children's clothing, repair shoes, or open a stall in the marketplace. Their increased earnings can be the difference between starvation and relative prosperity for themselves and their families. The business experience gained is helping to build a grassroots economic base in areas devastated by war and endemic poverty. Lastly, the initial capital that the Earth Trust Foundation provides continues to make a difference for a much longer period than usual charitable donations. As a loan fund recapitalizes itself through a required savings program over several cycles, the original capital can be removed and used to establish another bank. These banks are making a measurable difference on the horrific shantytown conditions and are functioning beautifully. The average repayment rate is currently an incredible 98%. In two banks, no member has ever missed a payment!

These banks have already proved to be a popular method for business-minded people to make effective charitable donations. Recently, a consortium of Los Angeles business people funded a new bank in a shantytown community in El Salvador. The funders recently received their first financial report, listing the names and micro-enterprise activities of the first cycle's loan recipients.

The other business-related plan is working to develop an international market for ecologically sustainable timber. Market research and business planning have recently begun in Australia and the U.S. to establish an export business which will market wood from the rainforests of Papua New Guinea that has been selectively cut by local indigenous people. Currently, vast tracts of rainforest hardwoods are being clearcut by foreign companies, mostly Malaysian. At current rates, these forests will have vanished in less than a generation. The loss of forests will also mean destruction of the habitat for the world's largest concentration of butterflies and orchids, as well as thousands of other species and scores of indigenous cultures.

These Malaysian companies are now being challenged by the Pacific Ecoforestry Program, supported in the US by Earth Trust and in Australia by the Rainforest Information Centre. Wood that is cut with hand-carried "walkabout" sawmills under stringent Ecological Management Plans by indigenous landowners will be dried and milled in a new mill operation. Lumber will then be distributed internationally by a still-to-be-established company. This effort can sustain the rainforest, provide increased profits to the local population and still provide valuable and competitively priced wood products to the international market. Non-wood forest products are also being research to find other marketable products.

These projects are using business principles to contribute solutions to some of the world's most pressing problems. Other "EarthWays" Projects are equally important. Spirit Awakening is helping juvenile offenders in Los Angeles area detention camps. The Speaker's Program produces lectures and workshops with leading philosophical, environmental and spiritual teachers. The Children's Comedor program feeds children suffering from malnutrition in rural Peru. The Whale Rescue Team rescues sea lions, whales and dolphins in the Santa Monica Bay.

Through these and other projects, the Earth Trust Foundation has created a unique forum in the Los Angeles area. As a non-profit organization, it is also very unusual in that 100% of all donations go directly to the designated projects. With all overhead support coming from Beath and membership dues, no hidden administrative cuts are ever taken. In this age of tight money and stories of financial mismanagement in non-profits, Earth Trust Foundation provides an effective and trustworthy way to make tax-deductible donations.

Matthew Nichols is the executive director of the Earth Trust Foundation. For more information on membership, funding priorities or upcoming events, please contact Earth Trust at: 20110 Rockport Way, Malibu, CA 90265. Phone: [phone]. FAX: [phone].