Grounded in the rapidly unfolding science about our planet, I help clients craft strategies in the context of extreme impermanence. I listen. I ask my clients to listen - not only to the known voices but to those with critical insights who are often overlooked. I work in partnership with others, as no single foundation or group can achieve transformation of systems. Together, we identify unanticipated opportunities and confront emerging challenges, using grant making and related strategic initiatives to deliver short-term positive results (i.e. improved policies, new financing models, changes in practices, stronger movements for change), while working towards longer-term systemic transformation. I bring a spirit of inquiry and work best with clients who embrace uncertainty in the midst of pushing forward with programs designed for impact.
My content expertise reflects my gray hair and spans a breadth of critical areas, including climate and energy solutions, policy reform and societal change. With a deep understanding of these fields and established connections within them, I navigate complex landscapes to identify and support initiatives driving systemic change. From climate mitigation and regenerative agriculture to peace advocacy and circular economies, I leverage my knowledge and networks to empower individuals and organizations working towards a more sustainable and just future.
“Betsy Taylor was our first Executive Director at the Merck Family Fund. She helped us develop a dynamic grantmaking strategy that encompassed protecting the biodiversity of the eastern forests while enhancing local economies and workforce opportunities; an urban gardening program with an emphasis on community building and youth leadership in low-income communities; and an initiative on sustainable consumption that seeded many of the initial groups and programs in that emergent field. Betsy has a real talent for seeing the big, usually complex picture, convening others to find solutions, and finding those leverage points that made a grant making program as effective as possible."
— Patience Chamberlin, former board President, Merck Family Fund
About Betsy
Betsy Taylor is a philanthropic consultant, author, speaker and campaigner with four decades of directing NGOs, strategic initiatives, and philanthropic foundations focused on confronting major environmental and social problems. She served as the Executive Director of the Merck Family Fund, Ottinger Foundation, Stern Family Fund and the Center for a New American Dream and helped found the Environmental Grantmakers Network and Funders for Regenerative Agriculture. Previously she led numerous non-profit groups and campaigns. She currently chairs Dr. James Hansen’s Climate Science, Awareness and Solutions board and the board of the Volgenau Climate Initiative and has served as a trustee for several foundations. For the past eight years, she has focused on the role that nature can play in addressing the climate, biodiversity, equity, and related crises. She is skilled at helping emergent fields of work reach maturity and impact. She has a BA from Duke University and MPA from Harvard University and has studied adaptive leadership for social change with Ron Heifitz, Robert Gass, Gordon Cosby, and Joanna Macy. Donella Meadows was a primary mentor. Betsy understands the climate, biodiversity, and equity crises as symptoms of a crisis in values and of an economic system rooted in resource extraction, destruction of indigenous communities, and a “more is never enough” approach to consumption and growth. From 2006 to 2023, she led a small consulting firm, Breakthrough Strategies & Solutions. In March, 2024, she closed the firm and shifted to being a part-time consultant. Her previous website was breakthroughstrategiesandsolutions.com