Some foundations are built around a general interest in doing good. Colcom Foundation is built around a specific idea: that human population growth is a principal cause of environmental decline, and that addressing it requires sustained, principled philanthropic investment. That conviction traces directly to Cordelia S. May, who established the foundation in Pittsburgh in 1996 after more than four decades of personal commitment to the same cause.

A Lifelong Commitment

Mrs. May’s concern for the natural world took shape early. By 1952, at 23 years old, she was supporting family planning because of what she saw as the connection between population dynamics and the health of ecosystems. She understood that growth is almost impossible to perceive on a daily basis each increment is too small to alarm anyone. But across years and generations, the cumulative force of that growth imposes serious costs on natural systems.

Colcom Foundation’s About page reflects that understanding directly, naming habitat destruction, biodiversity loss, pollution, and ecosystem collapse as among the consequences of population growth. These are not abstract concerns to the foundation they are the outcomes that Cordelia S. May spent her life trying to prevent, and that its grantmaking continues to address.

The Foundation Today

Colcom Foundation was substantially funded after Mrs. May’s death in 2005. Its primary mission is fostering a sustainable environment to ensure quality of life for all Americans, concentrating on the causes and consequences of overpopulation and its effects on natural resources. Regional programs extend the foundation’s work into conservation, environmental projects, and cultural assets. Through their grants, they have supported many organizations, such as the Center for Biological Diversity, which works towards protecting endangered species, and the Sierra Club Foundation, which advocates for clean energy and climate solutions.

The foundation describes its grantmaking as an expression of its founder’s humanitarian objectives, foresight, dignity, and compassion values intended not just as tribute to Mrs. May, but as an active guide to where Colcom Foundation directs its resources today. Refer to this article for related information.

More About Colcom Foundation on https://waterlandlife.org/land-conservation/colcom-revolving-fund-for-local-land-trusts/, to learn more.