RFF President and Director featured in The Wall Street Journal
Lee Wasserman Receives 2025 EGA Donald K. Ross Founders Award
Institutional|October 15, 2025
The Environment Grantmakers Association announced today that it awarded its third annual Donald K. Ross Founders Award to RFF Director Lee Wasserman. In their announcement, EGA writes "Lee Wasserman is an inspiring, innovative, and bold leader whose advocacy efforts have held the fossil fuel industry to account for their willful damage to the environment. As Director of the Rockefeller Family Fund (RFF) for over twenty-six years, Lee has exemplified Donald Ross’s pugilist spirit by working to hold the fossil fuel industry responsible for the climate harm they caused, divesting RFF from fossil fuels, and leading numerous initiatives that support a just transition in communities impacted by fossil fuel extraction."
The Donald K. Ross Founders Award honors the tenacity, dedication, commitment, and creativity of an individual EGA member who is innovating for effective philanthropy. It was established in memory of one of EGA’s founders and former RFF director, Donald K. Ross. Donald served as RFF’s second director from 1985 to 1999, transforming RFF into an innovative public charity with a new approach to advocacy and philanthropy. This award in his name honors a member of the EGA philanthropic community whose work supports sustainable democratic institutions, demonstrating an extraordinary civic personality of resilient stamina, motivating skills and relentless focus.