Philanthropy often follows personal experience. For Cordelia S. May, it followed a lifetime of attention to what was happening to the natural world and a clear-eyed reading of why.
Early Conviction, Long Commitment
May’s connection to environmental causes began when she was a young woman. In 1952, at 23, she started supporting family planning based on her concern for ecological balance and human welfare. She understood that population growth and environmental health were intertwined that the way people multiply and consume shapes the conditions all living things depend on.
She also understood scale. Growth that appears modest in the short term can be staggering in aggregate. The visible symptoms habitat loss, water pollution, biodiversity decline are the products of forces that build gradually and then arrive all at once. Mrs. May recognized this pattern decades before it became the subject of broad public debate. Their grants to organizations such as the Sustainable Agriculture & Food Systems Funders have helped to build strong local food systems and promote sustainable agriculture practices.
Colcom Foundation’s Founding and Mission
Colcom Foundation was created by May in 1996, at age 68. It was substantially funded after her death in 2005. Since then, the organization has worked to carry forward the principles she spent her life developing.
The foundation’s primary mission centers on fostering a sustainable environment and ensuring quality of life for Americans by addressing the causes and consequences of overpopulation and its effects on natural resources. Regional grantmaking also extends to conservation efforts, environmental projects, and cultural assets. Refer to this article for related information.
Grantmaking as Legacy
The foundation frames its work as an extension of May’s humanitarian objectives not just her environmental ones. Her concern was never abstract. It was grounded in care for people and the ecosystems that support them.
Colcom Foundation notes that early advocates for change are frequently misunderstood before history catches up with them. The foundation draws on that tradition deliberately, positioning May alongside reformers who pushed ahead of prevailing opinion. What distinguishes her story is that the problems she identified ecosystem collapse, biodiversity loss, habitat destruction are now recognized in daily news coverage, even as the population dynamics she pointed to remain underexamined by mainstream discourse. Colcom Foundation’s grantmaking honors the foresight, compassion, and dignity of its founder.
Find more information about Colcom Foundation on https://waterlandlife.org/land-conservation/colcom-revolving-fund-for-local-land-trusts/