The Instigater Newsletter

The goal is to motivate the private sector to take significant steps for the environment—before it's too late. This isn't about continuing with the same old practices. Instead, we aim to encourage business leaders and institutional investors to think innovatively, involve all relevant parties, and collaborate with community organizations in fresh and meaningful ways.

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Articles

A Simple Proposal for Higher Ed

6 days ago | marktercek.substack.com | Mark Tercek

The House just passed a budget bill that, for those of us who care deeply about higher education, feels like a gut punch: a 21% tax on the earnings of many college and university endowments. Endowments aren’t just rainy day funds for the ivory towers. Generally, more than half of endowment investment income goes directly to financial aid. And the remainder funds things we should all want—innovation, discovery, and the public good.
Green New Deals

3 weeks ago | marktercek.substack.com | Mark Tercek

Trade deals are back on the table. And while the commentary seems mostly focused on whether or not the deals will close, or how ambitious they will be, or what can be done with China, let’s consider another angle. Could these deals include provisions that address environmental challenges like climate? Let’s take stock. Thanks for reading The Instigator! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. The White House is under pressure to close the deals (even if they deny that).
Notes from Underground

1 month ago | marktercek.substack.com | Mark Tercek

More than a decade ago, I wrote a book called Nature’s Fortune: How Business and Society Thrive by Investing in Nature. Its central thesis was that investing in nature not only protects the environment for us, other species, and future generations, but it also produces enormously useful outcomes at very low cost. Things we may take for granted, like clean water, healthy food, protection from storms, outdoor areas to enjoy, habitat for biodiversity, and so on.
The Untold Story of Public Service

2 months ago | marktercek.substack.com | Mark Tercek

In this week’s fusillade of crazy headlines, here’s one we shouldn’t forget: Layoffs of 10,000 Government Health Workers Begin. This is . . . not good. What’s worse is how these civil servants are finding out their years of service have come to an end—-with deactivated badges when they try to open the building door. Thanks for reading The Instigator! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. This isn’t new of course.
It’s Not Us. It’s Them.

Mar 9, 2025 | marktercek.substack.com | Mark Tercek

Our heads are spinning. Each day brings a barrage of bad news about the new administration’s haphazard and harmful decisions. As we’ve written, that’s their strategy. You know what else is part of the strategy? Getting us to turn on one another, arguing about direction, while they plow forward. Thanks for reading The Instigator! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. Many organizations we care about—including NGOs and universities—are in the fight to address these wrongs.
SOS

Feb 16, 2025 | marktercek.substack.com | Mark Tercek

Another week has passed and there’s no letting up in the new administration’s torrent of executive actions. Long running strategic initiatives are being stymied, agencies shuttered, funding eliminated, website content stricken, and organizations of all stripes bullied. (I mean, the Kennedy Center, really?!)As we wrote last week, it’s one thing to review, finetune, or even restructure existing efforts—indeed, that’s usually a smart practice. But this is something entirely different.
Yes, We Should Speak Up!

Feb 9, 2025 | marktercek.substack.com | Mark Tercek

It’s been a tumultuous few weeks, fueled in large part by inflammatory rhetoric and baseless accusations. Such matters have been a feature of the American political scene for a while now. You’ll recall Vivek Ramaswamy, for example, calling climate change a hoax in a Republican debate (and no one correcting him). But with the new administration officially in place, they’ve turned the dial way up. One target is DEI.
Don’t Be the Next New Coke

Jan 19, 2025 | marktercek.substack.com | Mark Tercek

Editor’s Note: We are heartbroken by the widespread devastation wreaked by the wildfires in LA and are thinking of all our readers who are impacted. We take some solace in the mass outpouring of support we’ve seen from individuals and organizations alike, and we’re grateful for this community dedicated to making climate progress so we can prevent and/or mitigate further disasters. This week, as we continue our focus on helping NGOs accomplish even more, we come to you with a cautionary tale.
Help NGOs Be Great (Part Two)

Jan 12, 2025 | marktercek.substack.com | Mark Tercek

We were pleased to hear from many of you over the past week about our last issue on the topic of NGOs. Clearly, many of you care deeply. One of the important questions we heard: How can board members help their NGOs achieve more? As you know, boards have official duties in the areas of governance, financial oversight, and compliance. We're not going to address these matters because we think most boards handle them well.
Help NGOs Be Great (Part One)

Jan 5, 2025 | marktercek.substack.com | Mark Tercek

As the year was winding down, a friend asked me to contribute to what looked like a worthy nonprofit organization. I was happy to consider a gift. I hugely admire the nonprofit sector, and I’m grateful that I’m able to help good organizations by making donations. It was clear the org is trying to do good things. But there were a few matters I wanted to better understand. Namely, how it set priorities and held itself accountable and exactly what big outcomes they aim to make happen.