DIRECTOR’S NOTES
In 1967, a group of community members gathered around a bonfire in Central Illinois and began organizing to stop a dam that would have flooded parts of Allerton Park; a now critical piece of habitat, surrounded by a sea of corn and soybean fields. Thankfully, they were successful in their multi-year campaign, allowing generations the opportunity to enjoy this special place. From that effort laid the foundation for Prairie Rivers Network (PRN) to become a statewide organization with a mission to protect water, heal land, and inspire change. Since those early days, one thing has never changed – our belief in the power of community coming together to make lasting change.
Fast forward to 2023, and the interconnected crises impacting our water, lands, biodiversity, and climate are growing more urgent by the day. To meet this moment, we’ve been working hard to grow and diversify our team, expand our programs, and provide a voice for our rivers, habitat, and communities. These challenges require systemic, landscape-wide solutions, but these won’t happen without community input, support, and leadership. PRN is the right organization to help Illinois communities realize this moment!
With historic climate legislation in place at both the state and federal levels, and a new equity-centered State Water Plan adopted, Illinois is charging forward on a path towards resiliency and survival. And with your generous support and trust in our shared mission, our team is working hand-in-hand with communities to help them navigate these uncharted waters.
In my first year as Executive Director, I am proud of the team we’ve built to advance solutions throughout Illinois. I am immensely grateful for your trust and financial support along the way. It’s your investment – be it time, donations, feedback, or guidance – that has brought PRN to this exciting point. While the challenges facing our network are daunting, we’ve never had so much opportunity in all of our 57 years as an organization to make a meaningful change. As you read through our 2023 annual report, I hope you will feel a part of something that is bigger than what a group of community members in 1967 could have never imagined – a powerful network of people determined to leave Illinois better than we found it.
SCALING OUR WORK TO MEET THE MOMENT
2023 was a pivotal year for Illinois and Prairie Rivers Network. As we committed to at the start of the year, Prairie Rivers Network successfully expanded our programs and deepened our reach into new communities. With our headquarters still deeply rooted in Champaign, Illinois, we now have staff in communities in southern Illinois, western Illinois, Chicago and the Quad Cities. This geographic expansion allows PRN to grow our network and advance our mission.
PRN is a leader in the implementation of historic climate and resiliency legislation like the Inflation Reduction Act, Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, and Climate and Equitable Jobs Act. This legislation has created a remarkable moment for our network to advance our shared mission. To do such, our team took time in early 2023 to recalibrate and identify new opportunities where PRN can make an impact while also keeping science, justice, and collective action centered throughout our work. Specifically, we identified the need to address Illinois’ shared water security and the systemic pollution damaging trees and habitat across the Midwest, support the clean energy transition for rural electric cooperatives (co-ops), and advance nature based solutions to increase community resilience. Here are just a few updates of our new program work that will help PRN meet our mission to protect water, heal land, and inspire change:
Clean Water Forever: With unchecked pollution from agriculture and legacy pollution from coal mining and decades of burning coal, recent rollbacks of the Clean Water Act, and more extreme weather from a warming planet, it’s clear we need to find long term solutions to address our shared water security. That’s why in 2023 we launched Clean Water Forever – a campaign to change the way Illinois thinks and acts to protect its water for the long term. The campaign is centered around addressing water quantity, quality, access, and equity. To do this, PRN is working to advance and restore protections, implement our new equity-centered State Water Plan by leveraging historic federal funding opportunities, and inspire leaders to take a holistic approach safeguarding Illinois’ water.
As part of our campaign launch, we strategically engaged leading Midwest water advocate, Chris Jones, to join us and help turn the heads of polluters. Illinois needs a strong voice for clean water and PRN’s Clean Water Forever campaign is our call to action.
Rural Illinois Climate Leadership: This year we began a sustained effort to support the clean energy transition for rural electric cooperatives (co-ops.) This work is critical to reaching Illinois’ climate goals because these co-ops – representing 360,000 metered customers and co-op members – are not required to transition to clean energy sources as part of CEJA’s statewide goals, making them the last coal energy holdouts in Illinois. Their reluctance to join in this historic energy transition means they are passing up unprecedented federal funding for clean energy and continuing to emit damaging greenhouse gasses and other fossil fuel pollution. With new funding secured in 2023, our team is working hand-in-hand with our membership and local communities to ensure co-op members are aware of clean energy opportunities and that climate leaders are at the decision table. Illinois needs climate leaders at every level who are advocating for clean energy solutions.
Save Our Trees: As a national leader in the fight against herbicide pollution threatening our trees, water, and communities, 2023 was PRN’s year to scale up our efforts. We launched the Save Our Trees coalition to raise awareness on the toll herbicide pollution is costing our communities. We took decision makers and state agency staff to view the damage in person, held community briefings, and ensured this topic was covered in the news every step along the way. Illinois needs healthy trees and forests if we are to withstand the impacts of a warming planet and PRN is raising the alarm.
Assessing Climate Vulnerabilities: Climate change is here and our communities need to plan to withstand the extreme conditions ahead. With new funding from National Wildlife Federation, our national partner, PRN embarked on a new project in 2023 to model the impacts of climate change within the Quad Cities region while also building community support and buy-in of the assessment to deepen its potential impact over time. Leveraging climate models and through intentional community engagement with over 50 stakeholders, our team ensured that these communities’ values are properly reflected in a vulnerability assessment and will build upon this work to make sure their input is incorporated in exploration of potential solutions. Illinois communities need nature-based solutions to help mitigate the dangers of climate change and PRN is leading the way forward in the Quad Cities.
PROTECTING RIVERS THAT CONNECT OUR COMMUNITIES
Illinois rivers are the place where nature still exists and that’s why PRN continues to be the strong voice for our rivers and streams. In 2023, we secured another huge victory for the Middle Fork of the Vermilion River, Illinois’ only National Wild and Scenic River. After nearly a decade of advocacy from our Network, Dynegy has agreed, as part of a legal settlement, to move its toxic coal ash from the floodplain of our National Scenic River. Dynegy is now required to demolish the power plant, build a new onsite high-and-dry landfill, and move the coal ash out of the floodplain and into the landfill. We’ve been calling for this solution for over a decade, and with your support along each step of the way, we are now closer than ever to a beautiful Middle Fork free from coal ash, helping protect downstream communities.
BUILDING CLIMATE RESILIENCE COMMUNITY BY COMMUNITY
Make no doubt about it, there is a historic clean energy transformation underway in Illinois and Prairie Rivers Network is helping to make it happen. 2023 brought the opportunity for PRN to work hand-in-hand with coal communities, supporting their efforts to secure critically-needed funding through the Climate and Equitable Jobs Act’s (CEJA’s) Energy Transition Community Grants. Our network worked hard to ensure these grants were included in CEJA to live up to our commitment of make sure we are mitigating climate change in a just and equitable way. Now, with your ongoing support, PRN’s team is working to ensure these funds are transforming frontline fossil fuel communities across the state in a way that is responsive to each community’s needs.
Our work helps these communities chart a new course forward by lessening the negative social and economic impacts of the energy transition, and reducing harmful carbon pollution by bringing more clean energy onto the grid. PRN is uniquely positioned to help communities make this transition the smart way, incorporating habitat protection and minimizing threats to our rivers and water. Between CEJA and historic federal climate and water opportunities in the Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, PRN is moving the needle to help communities adopt clean energy, address legacy pollution, and enhance clean water to build resilient communities like those we’ve supported in Carrier Mills, Dowell + Carbondale’s joint project.
2024: OPPORTUNITIES AT EVERY BEND
Make no mistake, 2024 will be a BIG year for Prairie Rivers Network! Our team and our network are stronger than ever, and well-positioned to advance historic climate legislation and our new equity-centered State Water Plan, all while cleaning up legacy pollution and raising the public will to demand better. In this pivotal moment, Illinois communities have an opportunity to change our future, and PRN is the right organization to lead the way. We are dedicated to the cause and will work to make you – our generous supporters – proud to be involved. From our fight against pesticides, to our efforts to make Illinois water clean, fishable, and affordable, every bit of the work we do would not be possible without your support, actions, and inspiration along the way.
We will push for change at every turn and where we hit a dead end, we will take the lessons learned to build our tool chest, reset, and move forward. From the start, our founders taught us that some of the most important fights we take on may require decades of work to make change. That’s why we are dedicated to building leadership to know the work will continue. Along the way, we must leave no stone unturned, find opportunities at every bend, and hold up our vision for a healthy environment. Here’s to the year ahead and all we will do together!
2023 FINANCIAL SNAPSHOT
Revenue = $1,177,407
Donations = 38%
Grants = 56%
Endowment Payout, Interest, Other = 6%
Expenses = $1,098,902
Programs = 74%
Fundraising = 17%
General & Admin = 9%
PRN Endowment = $503,262
This financial snapshot shows our 2023 operating revenue and expenses plus the current value of our endowment at the end of 2023. Our financial statements are audited each year by an independent certified accountant and are available along with our Federal 990 at prairierivers.org.
YOUR INVESTMENT IN PRN IS POWERING CHANGE
2023 was a pivotal point for our work together and PRN seized the moment. Our rich network of engaged members, scientists, farmers, landowners, small business owners, community leaders, and policy makers all pulled together to make lasting change in Illinois. With your continued support, we will always ensure that communities have a say in their future – a future that has access to clean water and biodiversity, with increased resiliency to manage the impacts of our changing climate. Thank you for your trust, your direct actions, and your generous financial support of our work. We are stronger because of you.
PRN GROWING TO MEET THE MOMENT!
Our growing team is more reflective of the people and places of Illinois and we are thrilled to have you working alongside us at this critical time.
