Summaries of Grant Proposals
A Founding Investment in the Future of a Green Economy
Hazel Henderson Center
10 Carrera Street, St. Augustine, FL 32084
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The organizational infrastructure required to care for the Center's resources is the part grantmakers most often overlook, and the part every other program here depends on. This is unrestricted general operating support — the flexible funding that sits underneath everything else the Center does: stewardship of the historic property at 10 Carrera Street, management of the living library and archives, consulting and project management, day-to-day operations and governance, and long-term capacity building. Unlike program-specific grants, it provides the flexibility to care for the Center's core assets and to sustain an institution designed to serve future generations.
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Support for the roundtables, salons, and working retreats hosted at the Center — a practice that predates the Center itself, continuing in the rooms where Hazel Henderson convened the Roundtable on the Future of Democracy, the FinTech Retreat, the SRI Pioneer Retreats, and the Beyond GDP sessions that produced the Green Transition Scoreboard. Each gathering is designed around a specific intended outcome — revised investment criteria, policy frameworks, published scholarship, new working groups, public toolkits — and documented so its value outlasts the convening.
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Scholars, writers, artists, social entrepreneurs, educators, activists, and emerging voices come to the Center for stays of one week to one month, September through May, to pursue independent projects with full access to the living library, the archives, and the Center's practitioner network. Residents live on site and are woven into the life of the Center rather than simply housed there, and each gives something back — a workshop, public talk, written summary, or webinar. Funders may sponsor the full program, a single residency, or contribute to a pooled fund.
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The Center's umbrella for education and applied learning — courses, workshops, seminars, public dialogues, and certification programs. Where residencies and fellowships give individuals time to pursue their own work, this initiative builds the taught side of the Center: curriculum, cohorts, credentials, and the public programming around them. It is anchored by Innovative Studies in Sustainable Business Practices, led by Dr. Paula Seymour, whose Flagler College Social Entrepreneurship classes have been hosted at the Center since 2024, and it carries deliberate outreach — Gen Z programming and fellowships, Women in Finance programming, and participant scholarships. A gift here supports the development of new programming across the initiative; individual programs, such as Mindful Leadership for the Green Economy, carry their own proposals and asks.
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A two-day immersive leadership retreat preparing recent graduates and early-career professionals to enter the workforce leading with clarity, resilience, and purpose. Offered under the Center's Innovative Studies in Sustainable Business Practices initiative, it is designed and led by Dr. Paula Seymour, Director of Innovative Studies Programs, drawing on more than twenty-seven years mentoring emerging leaders. A cohort of fifteen to twenty works through hands-on sessions in conscious leadership, mindfulness, systems thinking, and social entrepreneurship — a room small enough that every participant is known. Participants leave with practices they can use in a first professional role immediately, not theory alone.
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A multi-year publishing initiative in five interconnected parts: a definitive biography drawing on archival research, interviews, Henderson's heavily annotated library, and her archive at the State Historical Society of Missouri; an edited volume of original essays from contributors including Vicki Robin, Fritjof Capra, Ralph Nader, Amory Lovins, and Kate Raworth; annotated reissues of her seminal books with new introductions; a volume of her collected poetry; and volumes emerging from Power of Yin-style gatherings at the Center, where conversation is transcribed and published as collaborative sensemaking in real time. The aim is not to memorialize Henderson but to mobilize a body of work that reads increasingly like a dispatch from the present.
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The sustainable transformation of the Center's buildings and grounds, and at its heart a Community Permaculture Garden that turns underutilized outdoor space at 10 Carrera Street into a living classroom for sustainable living, environmental stewardship, and food production. It is built on ecological principles that work with nature rather than against it — raised beds, native and pollinator-friendly plants, rainwater harvesting, composting and soil-building demonstrations, edible food forests, and educational signage — with free public workshops extending its reach into the wider community. Every technique demonstrated is one a visitor can carry home and repeat the same weekend.
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The Center is rooted in St. Augustine and committed to being a genuine resource for its own neighborhood, not only a national and global convening space. This fund supports place-based programming that connects neighbors, artists, students, and local organizations to the Center's mission — community events, open houses, and partnerships with St. Augustine's civic and cultural organizations. Programming includes the free public workshops hosted at the Center's Community Permaculture Garden. Donation-based and sliding-scale pricing keeps these offerings broadly accessible. Available summers and Wednesdays.
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Researchers across the full arc of a career — undergraduates through doctoral candidates, post-doctoral scholars, faculty, mid-career practitioners, independent scholars and journalists, and senior researchers — pursue original work in sustainability, ethical economics, systems thinking, and social innovation. Fellows engage the Hazel Henderson Collection as an intellectual interlocutor rather than a reference shelf, working with her annotated volumes, working papers, and correspondence, and each takes part in a public-facing activity connected to their research. Funders may sponsor the full program, a single fellowship, or fund collectively.
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Six students a year work alongside the Center's senior team on grant research, ethical markets research, communications, archival projects, event support, and permaculture initiatives, across two tracks: Summer interns drawn from a national and international pool, and Semester interns drawn primarily from Flagler College and other local colleges. Internships are free to students under the terms of Hazel Henderson's trust, which is precisely the problem this request addresses — with no stipend available, participation is limited to students who can afford to work unpaid and cover their own living costs.
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Program Partners bring their own teams and agendas to the Center for a four-to-seven-day gathering, with meeting and lodging space, research library access, public recognition on hendersoncenter.org, and connection to the Center's network. The partnership fee is modest by foundation standards but a genuine barrier for organizations with no budget line for convening costs — which describes many of the newest and most original groups working in ethical finance, regenerative economics, and systems change. Sponsorship removes a financial barrier; it never lowers the selection bar.
Please inquire through the contact form below, or contact us directly.
We invite you to explore these initiatives and consider making a tax-deductible donation to the Hazel Henderson Center. Your support helps us carry forward the visionary work of Hazel Henderson and build a more just, regenerative future. These initiatives will grow our programs and carry Hazel Henderson's ideas further into practice.
Contact
Jan Church McAlpine, Director of Development
Phone: 1 (269) 246-0929