Hope cannot be said to exist, nor can it be said not to exist.
It is just like the roads across the earth.
For actually there were no roads to begin with,
but when many people pass one way a road is made.
from Hope’s Edge
About the Small Planet Fund
Small Planet Institute
New thinking, new stories, for a living democracy.
Visit our sister site
for current news on all of our projects and events.
We started the Fund in 2002 to support courageous movements bringing to life citizen-led solutions to hunger, poverty, and environmental devastation around the world. We fund eight core grantees and make emergency grants to additional groups throughout the world for whom a relatively small infusion of resources can make a world of difference.
Since we launched the Fund, two of our core grantees who have been honored with the Nobel Peace Prize: Dr. Muhammad Yunus and colleagues at the Grameen Bank and Wangari Maathai and the Green Belt Movement. And in just a few years with relatively small donations, we have been able to raise and give away more than a quarter of a million dollars.
Consider joining the hundreds of people in our community of changemakers who believe that community-based social change can change the world and make a tax-deductible gift to the Fund today. Together we are making a difference.
-- Frances Moore Lappé and Anna Lappé
cofounders, Small Planet Fund and Small Planet Institute
coauthors, Hope's Edge: The Next Diet for a Small Planet
Our Five Principles:
- Ensure that access to safe and nutritious foods is a human right
- Celebrate and safeguard local traditions, rural communities, family farmers, and indigenous knowledge.
- Promote farming practices that foster healthy workers, communities, and environment.
- Defend gender equality and women’s rights as essential to ending hunger.
- Evolve capitalism to further the social good.
About the Founders
Mother-daughter team, Frances Moore Lappé and Anna Lappé, are co-authors of the national bestselling Hope's Edge: The Next Diet for a Small Planet (Tarcher/Penguin 2002) and are sought after speakers on college campuses and at conferences across the country. Together they lead the Small Planet Institute, a collaborative network for research and popular education.
About Frances Moore Lappé: Frances Moore Lappé is the author or coauthor of sixteen books, most recently Getting a Grip: Clarity, Creativity, and Courage in a World Gone Mad (Small Planet Media 2007). Her 1971 three-million-copy bestseller Diet for a Small Planet continues to awaken readers to the human-made causes of hunger and the power of our everyday choices to create the world we want. Frances is a sought after public speaker and has received seventeen honorary doctorates from distinguished institutions. In 1987 in Sweden, Lappé became the fourth American to receive the Right Livelihood Award, sometimes called the “Alternative Nobel.”
About Anna Lappé: Anna Lappé is a national bestselling author and advocate for sustainability and environmental and food justice. Her writing has been published in the International Herald Tribune, Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, New Scientist, and Los Angeles Times, among many other outlets. She has appeared on PBS, CBC, NBC, and FoxNews and can be seen on public television this year as the co-host of The Endless Feast andnext spring on the Sundance Channel’s Big Ideas for a Small Planet. From 2004 to 2006, Anna was a Food and Society Policy Fellow, a national program of the WK Kellogg Foundation. Along with Hope’s Edge, Anna is the co-author of Grub: Ideas for an Urban Organic Kitchen (Tarcher/Penguin 2006).
You can learn more about the Lappé’s and their work at the
Small Planet Institute.