If you’re concerned about the state of the environmental health of this country – and since you’re reading this, chances are that you are! – It behooves you to support your local non-profit organizations that are working to turn your community green.

How can you do this?

Volunteer your time.
Most organizations need volunteers, to perform a variety of tasks.  It may be in the form of providing free secretarial service, book-keeping, or just acting as a chauffeur – depending on how big the organization is.  Well-established organizations may just need neighborhood canvassers; ready, willing and able to visit people and inform them about environmental issues.

It’s also possible to volunteer your time to an organization even if it isn’t local.  Many organizations need tele-volunteers to do a variety of tasks.

Make a donation.  If you don’t have the time or inclination to become a volunteer, the next best thing is to make a donation to the cause.  Most non-profit organizations will accept a donation of any size, and be able to put it to good use.

You can find environmental organizations in your area in a variety of ways.  Your local library will doubtless have a list of them.  Alternatively, conduct a search on the internet, starring large, with “environmental organizations” and then narrowing it down to those in your area.

For example, I just typed in the search phrase, “non-profit environmental” Hampton Roads, into my favorite search engine.

Results included:

GoGreenHamptonRoads.com which is a website that lists all the non-profit environmental organizations in the area.  There are eight of them, as a matter of fact, each one involved in their own little environmental niche:

•    Back Bay Restoration Foundation (works to restore the polluted Back Bay)
•    Chesapeake Bay Foundation, Hampton Roads Office (works to restore the polluted Chesapeake Bay)
•    Elizabeth River Project (works to restore the polluted Elizabeth River)
•    5 Points Community Farm Market
•    Hampton Roads Green Building Council
•    Lynnhaven River NOW (works to restore the polluted Lynnhaven River)
•    Oyster Reef Keepers of VA Oyster (works to restore the decimated oyster beds in the Chesapeake Bay)
•    Virginia Clean Cities and the Hampton Roads Clean Cities Coalition

And that was just the first website in the search results.

If you have a concern about a business or activity in your neighborhood that is having a negative environmental impact, consider forming a neighborhood group to work to solve the problem, if one does not already exist.

A study by the Urban Institute found that registered environmental and conservation organizations grew at an average rate of 4.6 percent per year from 1995 to 2007, or nearly twice the rate of all nonprofits.  Beginning in 2008 and going forward, however, that number is likely to go down, as the recession is hitting everyone hard, and potential donors to your cause may be hard to come by.

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