Letter from Board Co-Chairs
Lisl Schoepflin & Holly Roberson

Dear Panta Rhea Community,

Our story of friendship and collaboration started in 2004 when we met at a leadership retreat and quickly fell into long conversations about life, challenges and dreams. When Panta Rhea Foundation expanded to include our first cohort of non-family trustees in 2015, Holly was honored to be asked and excited to join.

This step for the Foundation marked the beginning of a series of important transitions for Panta Rhea. After Lisl became Board Chair in 2017, Holly and Lisl worked closely with the board and staff to shepherd in a new ED (now CEO). Joining in late 2019, Connie Archbold Robinson’s leadership has been incredibly grounded and full of care, grace and vision. Together we navigated the COVID crisis and ratified a new grantmaking strategy in 2020.

In 2021, after a long search involving trusted partners & grantees, we welcomed trustees from the broader social justice and nonprofit community, Solomé Lemma and Cedric Brown.

As the co-chairs of Panta Rhea Foundation, we are committed to inclusive and transformative philanthropy. Our goal is to explore additional pathways and tributaries to democratize and share the power of grantmaking, while continually balancing and redefining the role of legacy and stewardship in the Panta Rhea Foundation. Working in partnership with our fantastic board and staff to, we plan to:

• Actualize and deepen our new internationalist grassroots strategy;
• Improve justice and equity practices within the organization;
• Cultivate grantmaking tools such as participatory, trust based philanthropy;
• Engage in collaborative, network based donor efforts and expand our voice and role in donor organizing; and
• Deepen our transatlantic partnership with our sister philanthropic and nonprofit entities working in Germany (Schöpflin Stiftung) and globally (Spöre).

We uphold the spirit of Panta Rhea’s long standing values to be adaptable, resilient, bold, creative, caring, relational, and trusting of the emergent and iterative process of change. The dedication and leadership of our stellar staff as well as the critical role of partnership and collaboration in our strategies allow us to make a big impact while remaining a lean and flexible organization.

With gratitude and humility for the opportunity to share in the essential work of transformative change, we strive to boldly and creatively meet today’s diverse challenges with grounded, long-view initiatives that foster and engage the wisdom, dignity and beauty of the planet, its peoples and cultures. Onwards!

Warmly,

Lisl Schoepflin, President & Co-Chair and Holly Roberson, Co-Chair

Letter from CEO Connie Archbold Robinson

Dear Community,

As Panta Rhea’s CEO, I steward the Schoepflin family’s US-based Foundation alongside our dedicated staff and trustees. I joined the team in 2019, drawn here as a former environmental justice grantee with a belief and life’s work in social change—not charity. I had come most recently from the James Irvine Foundation, and was finishing a decade-long appointment drawing electoral maps on California’s first-ever independent Citizens Redistricting Commission.

Since I’ve served in this role, we’ve faced wildfires and hurricanes, an extended global pandemic, and political and economic upheaval around the world. What it means to thrive, and not just survive, has dramatically changed – and with it the need to transform how we show up as resource organizers and philanthropic activists.

On Panta Rhea’s website you’ll see the through-line of who we’ve been as long standing social justice funders, and the emergence of how we’re reshaping our values in action. On these pages we humbly offer our evolution in progress…a journey inspired by each of you and the Greek philosophy of “all things flow, all things change.” Please read on and let’s find ways to take action together!

In short, Panta Rhea’s mission is to catalyze a just and sustainable world through resourcing movements, organizations, and leaders across three intersectional anti-racist strategies:

• Food Sovereignty Fund
• Global Roots Fund
• People Power Fund

With a sister foundation in Germany and longstanding grantees around the globe, you’ll see we’re increasingly leaning into a global identity and impact rooted in deep relationship building and partner trust. Both in the U.S. and abroad, we continue to offer tailored Resilience and Renewal resources to support learning, capacity building, and leadership development. We also fund creative arts and expression to inspire and sustain social change, as has long been core to our DNA…and one-time mission critical opportunities as they arise.

Thank you for the opportunity to continue transforming together.

“We are the ancestors of the future…what we do now will have an impact.”

—Yeye Luisah Teish

¡Pa’lante! Onward!

Connie Archbold Robinson, CEO
PANTA RHEA FOUNDATION