April 5, 2001 | Read Time: 1 minute
By NICOLE WALLACE
A new organization is building Internet-based tools to help environmental organizations work together to improve their communications efforts.
Green Media Toolshed, in Washington, provides its members with a directory of more than 230,000 press contacts in the United States and Canada and a database of digitized images related to environmental issues, such as photographs of national parks and wildlife. The group plans to introduce a database of public-opinion research on environmental questions early this month.
Martin Kearns, Green Media Toolshed’s executive director, believes that those kinds of services are crucial in preventing environmental groups from duplicating one another’s efforts. “Foundations and environmental groups are wasting money every day, because we’re not managing our intellectual assets effectively,” he says. “As long as we have assets all over the place, they’re not as accessible and they’re less valuable.”
Environmental groups must join Green Media Toolshed to use the tools. Membership fees are calculated on a sliding scale based on organizations’ annual budgets.
The organization got started with $250,000 from the Charles Stewart Mott, David and Lucile Packard, and Surdna Foundations.
To get there: Go to http://www.green mediatoolshed.org
