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Full Circle Fund congratulates Melanie Nutter, our Environment/Energy Circle Chair, who Mayor Gavin Newsom today named as the Director of the San Francisco Department of Environment. Melanie will lead the Department of Environment, which helps all San Francisco residents and businesses take an active role in protecting and enhancing the urban environment, produces and publicizes information on sustainable practices, and develops innovative and practical environmental programs for all residents.

“Melanie brings years of experience and stewardship on environmental policy,” said Mayor Newsom. “Her knowledge of government and her role in building coalitions to promote major environmental policy initiatives will be invaluable as we chart our City’s efforts toward a greener, more sustainable environment and green jobs economy.”

Since 2005, Melanie has served as Deputy District Director for the U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, where she manages the Speaker’s district office by supervising staff, addressing constituent concerns, and advising on local policy issues. Melanie functions as the district policy liaison to Speaker Pelosi’s policy advisors on issues including the environment, energy, transportation, environmental health, women’s issues and food policy.

In 2007, Melanie co-founded the Energy and Environment Circle for Full Circle Fund with the help of Vice President Al Gore and green jobs advocate Van Jones. Melanie has been a grassroots political organizer with Greenbelt Alliance, the Public Interest Research Groups (PIRG), and Green Corps Congratulations Melanie!

Posted in Wade Crowfoot, Gavin Newsom, Melanie Nutter, Van Jones, environment, Nancy Pelosi, special announcement

As communities across the nation strive to recover economically, they are increasingly seeking guidance on how to create green job training programs. While the green economy has tremendous potential to positively transform communities, sustain the environment and lift the quality of all our lives, it won’t happen by chance.

Until now, green collar job training best practices were not consolidated in one easily accessible place. We are excited to announce that this is no longer the case, since in Spring 2010, the Ella Baker Center, Full Circle Fund, and Oakland Apollo Alliance officially launched Making Green Work, a guidebook of best practices and case studies on green workforce development.

Download Making Green Work

Says Member and Project Co-Lead Wade Crowfoot, who by day works for the Environmental Defense Fund, “This project was right up our alley: helping an entrepreneurial non-profit leverage technology to greatly expand its positive influence. We’re glad the toolkit is up and running.” At the inception of the project, Full Circle Fund Members including Andrew Byrnes, Karen Hanson, and Wade worked to set the scope, identify the audiences, and draft the outline for the guidebook. By conducting research and holding interviews, Full Circle Fund Members provided content for the seven case studies in the guidebook, and wrote a great deal of the first draft of the guidebook, including the Best Practices section and the Policy Making section.

Several Full Circle Fund Members were also integral in interviewing key stakeholders in the target audience such as workforce development professionals and policy makers to learn more about what content and what mode of distribution would be most useful. For instance, based on this research, Ella Baker Center decided to deliver the toolkit online, instead of making many printed copies.

“The Ella Baker Center is extremely grateful to Full Circle Fund’s Members for the their hard work, passion, and talent on this project. They were instrumental in nearly every stage of creating the “Making Green Work” guidebook, from concept, to research, to writing,” said Ian Kim, the Director of the Green-Collar Jobs Campaign, “We simply could not have done this project without Full Circle Fund. “

According to Full Circle Fund Member and Project Co-Lead Andrew, who by day is a partner at Covington & Burling law firm, the collection will also save time and resources.

“The toolkit takes lessons learned by Ella Baker Center’s innovative green collar jobs program, and helps community groups across the country build successful job training programs without reinventing the wheel,” he said.

The guidebook is now available for download on the Ella Baker Center website, and is also being presented nationally at conferences through Summer 2010. Full Circle Fund is proud to have been a key partner in the development and creation of this document.

Posted in Karen Hanson, Andrew Byrnes, Wade Crowfoot, impact, green jobs, environment, Ella Baker Center, grantees