James L. Elder, Senior Advisor

James Elder is a social entrepreneur who uncovers and exploits high leverage opportunities to increase the level of society’s environmental literacy. He currently works on issues of advocacy, funding, and policy development for environmental and sustainability education, both on his own and in consultation with private foundations; he consults with environmental/sustainability education organizations needing help with developing and implementing new business models and strategic planning; and he advises the environmental literacy efforts of several foundations.

Concerned about the need to attract more bright and talented college students to the field of environmental studies, he began his career in 1980 by founding a model program for environmental education, The School for Field Studies, which has now been replicated by over a dozen other higher education institutions. During his seventeen year tenure as President, over 8,000 undergraduates participated in Dr. Elder’s cutting-edge, semester-long curriculum that included such subjects as wildlife and fisheries management, rainforest and wetlands issues, and sustainable development.

Following SFS, he accepted the role of start-up Executive Director of the Global Environmental Alliance, a bilateral, environmental education organization that seeks to advance new thinking about development into the mainstream of Chinese society. In 2004, Dr. Elder was asked to help re-launch The Ocean Foundation (TOF), which is testing a pioneering philanthropic business model called a “cause-driven” community foundation. TOF offers all those with an affinity for the ocean with the most cost-efficient and effective ways to give to their particular ocean conservation causes. He worked with the TOF Board to create the business model, marketing strategy, and initial operations while helping raise several million dollars in contributions and pass-through funds.

Dr. Elder’s longstanding commitment to creating new sources of funding for environmental education led to his conception and execution of the first "debt-for-environmental education swap” with the government of Mexico in 1994. With a similar objective in mind, he wrote the definitive overview of the field of environmental education, “A Field Guide to Environmental Literacy: Making Strategic Investments in Environmental Literacy”, in 2003 to help persuade funders of the opportunities present in EE. In 2005, realizing that sustainability and environmental education had never developed a political voice at the national level and that no organization was actively working on advocacy, policy and funding issues for EE/SE, he founded the Campaign for Environmental Literacy. In its first 8 months, CEL has led the successful efforts to restore $14 million in funding to federal EE grant-making programs run by NOAA and EPA, funding which had been zeroed out the Administration. CEL’s current campaign is to win passage of the Higher Education Sustainability Act which would grant $50 million/year to colleges to establish and enhance sustainability programs.

Since 2001, Dr. Elder has served as Board Chair of the Cloud Institute for Sustainability Education. He was elected to help oversee the Institute’s spin off from its parent organization and scale up to a new level of operation. SEC develops national high school curricula on conventional subjects (civics, geography, business, etc.) from a sustainability perspective, and conducts related teacher training. He also currently serves as Senior Advisor to Second Nature, and has conducted various consulting tasks for a number of environmental organizations, such as developing new sources of business income for The Ocean Project and strategic planning for The Biodiversity Project.
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Dr. Elder received a B.A. in Philosophy and Religion from Colgate University. He is a former Watson Fellow, and was awarded an honorary Doctorate from Barry University for his pioneering social venture work in environmental literacy. He has held long standing appointments to numerous Boards of Directors including U.S. EPA’s National Environmental Education Advisory Council, North American Association for Environmental Education, a founding member of EarthShare New England, and a founding Board member of the Loreto Bay Community Foundation in Baja Mexico.