Author name: Mark Tercek

A defense of DEI and other issues It’s been a tumultuous few weeks, fueled in large part by inflammatory rhetoric and baseless accusations. Such matters have been a feature of the American political scene for a while now. You’ll recall Vivek Ramaswamy, for example, calling climate change a hoax in a Republican debate (and no […]

Help NGOs Now! (Part 4) Editor’s Note: My son remarked to me that we seem to be publishing the Instigator more frequently than usual these days. I assured him this was a temporary but intentional move. We knew with the new administration and congress taking office, it would likely be a tougher but more important

Help NGOs Be Great (Part 3) Editor’s Note: We are heartbroken by the widespread devastation wreaked by the wildfires in LA and are thinking of all our readers who are impacted. We take some solace in the mass outpouring of support we’ve seen from individuals and organizations alike, and we’re grateful for this community dedicated

How Board Members Drive Success We were pleased to hear from many of you over the past week about our last issue on the topic of NGOs. Clearly, many of you care deeply. One of the important questions we heard: How can board members help their NGOs achieve more? As you know, boards have official

4 Steps to Achieve More As the year was winding down, a friend asked me to contribute to what looked like a worthy nonprofit organization. I was happy to consider a gift. I hugely admire the nonprofit sector, and I’m grateful that I’m able to help good organizations by making donations. It was clear the

Get Your Org Engaged in Financial Innovation for Good This continues to be a challenging moment for environmentalists and all progressives. Over the period ahead, we’ll likely make good progress in determining the full set of strategies needed to address challenges like climate change and biodiversity. But, as we wrote in our last issue, there is a lot

Now What? For climate hawks, it may seem like time is now divided into two distinct periods — the hopeful one before the election and the bewildering haze ever since. Clearly, things did not go quite as many environmentalists hoped. Big challenges lie ahead. We’ll need more time to figure out the full range of

The Instigator Turns 4 Dear Readers,  We’re 4 years old! On the occasion of our birthday, we want to take a moment to acknowledge the reason we keep going—you.  Thank you very much! We appreciate how you stay engaged, ask tough questions, share our issues with friends (please keep doing so), and offer feedback (we

What Will We Do? Last year, I was invited to a brainstorming session on climate change with prominent environmental leaders and academics. Our specific angle: The 2024 election. To my surprise, one of the academic superstars shared a bold forecast:   “First,” he said, “it’s extremely likely that there will be a catastrophic hurricane that badly

What the climate world needs now Today’s Instigator comes to you live from New York where we just wrapped up another Climate Week. I’ve been participating in Climate Week for years and always find it encouraging and positive.  This year was no exception. It was the biggest group yet of NGOs, activists, philanthropists, business people, and government