The Bush Foundation undertook an ambitious agenda in remaking its environmental program area. The work is long term and complex. However, according to the Health and Environmental Funders Network (HEFN), other foundations have invested in ecological health as a result of the Bush Foundation’s interdisciplinary approach. For that we are gratified.

As an organization we have learned the following about the field:

		Evidence of the link between the environment and health is incontrovertible. The Foundation took steps to get applied knowledge from research into the field. It’s important to continue the goal of applied research.
		Scientific knowledge is growing exponentially, especially in the area of hormone disruptors and the effect of toxins on development. Research results confirm that the impact of environmental exposures are worse for fetuses and for young children.
		Health is a powerful organizing framework for environmental action. At a primary (program) level, there is a hunger for scientific knowledge about the health implications to children who are exposed to toxins. Interestingly, the health sector seems to understand the link between the environment and health more easily than the environmental sector understands this connection.
		Ecological change and improvements, even to large systems, is possible. For example, as a result of Foundation grants, pesticide applicator training was implemented through state agencies and university Extension services. This program has since been replicated across the nation. In addition, the Foundation seeded enough work to build nonprofit capacity and create networks on the ground that grantees were able to achieve policy and legislative changes, such as the Tracking Toxins legislation passed in Minnesota.
		An “ecology” of grantees is important to achieve results. Minnesota has significant strength in the state’s environmental and health sectors. Unfortunately, there is less organizational “capital” in the Dakotas around this topic, primarily due to a small number of ecological nonprofits.