Midwest Environmental Advocates (MEA) is the first and only non-profit environmental law center in Wisconsin. MEA provides legal and technical support to grassroots groups that are working for environmental justice in the Western Great Lakes region.

Prior to coming to ESC, MEA had spent two years interviewing candidates without finding an executive director to replace their founding director who began the organization eight years ago.  Staff were eager to orient a new executive director and engage the board in the process more.  With the TOA grant MEA was able to hire a new executive director in October 2007 and are so far pleased with the results.

In August 2007 Midwest Environmental Advocates was granted a capacity grant for $5,000 to facilitate an executive director search through Barnes Development Group, a national executive search firm dedicated to helping client companies identify and recruit qualified senior level management.

“While hiring an outside firm was a difficult decision to make financially, having concluded the process we feel that it was certainly worth the cost. We attempted to conduct our own executive searches in the past and we feel that the savings in staff time and the improved pool of candidates were invaluable. We would certainly recommend that ESC support other organizations in hiring search firms for difficult-to-fill positions.”

– Florence Edwards, MEA staff