“What compels me to fight this society is, of course, outrage over injustice, a love of freedom, and a feeling of responsibility for perpetuating and enlarging the human spirit — its beauty, creativity, and latent capacity to improve the world.”

― ISE co-founder Murray Bookchin

For over 50 years, the Institute for Social Ecology (ISE) has been a laboratory of imagination and experimentation, inspiring thousands of students to work to realize a free and ecological society. Yet, as the current US Presidential administration lurches from crisis to crisis, the social and ecological problems we face are only growing more urgent. While our situation may feel desperate, now is not the time to despair. Millions of people are looking for alternatives. The present vacuum of visionary leadership opens opportunity for transformative grassroots movements to seize the moment. As a social movement-based educational institute, the ISE can play a key role galvanizing this change from below. But to do so, we need your help.

Right now, the ISE is planning to ambitiously expand our programs to deepen our impact at this critical moment. The type of education and movement support that the ISE specializes in inspires and activates people to make real change. Here’s the thing: we need to raise at least $20,000 in individual donations this summer to launch these new programs and offer community organizers and radical thinkers the support they need to put their ideas into practice.

This summer's donation drive will set the scope of the transformative contribution we may make to the broader struggle over the years to come, and we ask you to consider seriously how transformative a contribution you yourself can make in this moment. Supporters who donate at least $500 will be invited to a funders briefing this November, where development staff will detail all the ways their donations have been put to use and outline future programming.

Please donate to the Institute for Social Ecology today!

New & Expanding ISE Programs:

Our work aims both to educate activists and organizers and to actively put our theories into practice in the real world. Here’s a taste of our new and expanding programs:

NEW - Neighborhood Union Organizing Cohort - This summer, the ISE is launching a new program based around the emerging organizing model for building community power: the neighbor union. This program is action-oriented and aims to develop community organizers building grassroots democracy and resiliency amid the encroachment of federal agents and climate disasters across the country. Participants will learn organizing principles from an experienced instructor while supporting each other’s local organizing efforts in strategy circles. ~ Funding needs: this entirely new program requires dedicated staff time for program development and evaluation as well as instructor compensation.
EXPANDING - Online Course Offerings - Just in the past year, hundreds of students have taken our courses on topics including critical theory, art, philosophy, anti-fascism, climate justice, and social ecology. By expanding and regularizing our course offerings, we aim to better equip our students with the foundational knowledge to make effective social change. ~ Funding needs: additional funding will allow us to regularize our key course offerings and grow our reach to a larger audience of change-makers.
EXPANDING - Social Ecology Mentorship Program - Experienced mentors are paired with mentees to help cultivate their skills as organizers, writers, and practitioners in one-on-one and small cohort meetings. Exciting work such as new writings, coures and podcasts by these up-and-coming movement intellectuals, is emerging from this program. ~ Funding needs: donations will support scholarships for mentees.
UPCOMING & CONTINUING - Programs: The Art of Organizing - ISE’s in-person summer intensive course this summer in Lexington, KY August 2 - 8; the ISE’s Racial & Environmental Justice series led by Kali Akuno; the ISE’s publication Harbinger; quarterly Reading Groups; and more! ~ Funding needs: support for scholarships for our summer intensive course and general staff capacity to support these programs.

What your donations will cover:

As an independent institute of higher learning, the ISE has profound freedom to offer a bold and transformative curriculum. However, this also means we don’t have the resources that universities and corporate-backed think tanks do. Our programs attract a wide array of grassroots organizers, artists, writers, educators, social workers, and students who are drawn to the kind of outside-the-box thinking that the ISE is known for. To maintain this diversity, it is important we keep our program fees within the shoestring budget of community organizers. This is where your financial contributions will make a profound impact. By increasing our individual donor base, we can ensure that our programs remain open to all, including those whose circumstances require a full scholarship. It will also support our Program Director and Development Director to better administer our offerings, recruit and retain more faculty, vision new programs, and build deeper connections with movements.

Why the ISE? Why now?

For over fifty years, the Institute for Social Ecology has offered experiential radical education for grassroots organizing and community-building. We continue to be tireless movement educators for direct democracy, radical social transformation, and reharmonizing human society with the rest of nature. With its sweeping yet concrete vision for a genuinely democratic society, social ecology offers profound and practical steps to create lasting change. We need that vision now more than ever.

In 2025, we know that the climate change era has already begun. From disaster events like fires, hurricanes, and floods to shifting growing seasons, rising tides, and systemic instability, the impacts are all around us. Despite this grim reality, we still have the power to limit the severity and scale of the crisis if we take the kind of bold action that the political establishment has demonstrated it is unwilling to do. The present moment calls us to organize our communities towards the grassroots solutions that the ISE has been leading the way on for decades, such as community-based renewable energy, agroecology farms, municipal assemblies, and global solidarity. Trump and his cronies know that an organized movement, rooted in community and committed to social and ecological justice, poses a threat to their corrupt and hateful agenda. That’s why he is seeking the right to unilaterally revoke the status of radical, grassroots non-profits like the ISE. But we will never let this regime intimidate us away from our important, historic work. With you at our backs, we know we that we will not simply withstand these attacks—we will resist and overcome them, and bring to life a new world out of the shell of the old. Donate today.

How you can support our work…

Right now, the most impactful way you can support the ISE’s work is by making a donation. We deeply appreciate your contributions. We also encourage you to put social ecology into practice in your community. Talk to your neighbors, start composting, grow a vegetable garden, organize an assembly, Google Murray Bookchin! Be sure to sign up for our newsletter to hear about our educational offerings as they are announced. In solidarity!

“If we don’t do the impossible, we shall be faced with the unthinkable!” - Murray Bookchin

Institute for Social Ecology Summer Fundraiser

Help the ISE expand our programs and capacity to build an ecological society!

Team Members