Phoenix Zones Initiative

Hope Ferdowsian is president, CEO, and co-founder of Phoenix Zones Initiative, a nonprofit organization advancing social and environmental justice. Over two decades, as an internal medicine and preventive medicine physician, Hope has cared for individuals experiencing homelessness, displacement, and violence, while also working to end structural inequities and human and animal exploitation. Her work across six continents has included collaboration with the US Office of the Surgeon General and development of medical, public health, and educational resources for nongovernmental organizations and the World Health Organization. In 2017, Hope was named a Humanitarian of the Year in the American College of Physicians. Her book Phoenix Zones: Where Strength Is Born and Resilience Lives, which depicts foundations for individual and societal resilience, was published in 2018 by the University of Chicago Press. In 2019, she co-founded Phoenix Zones Initiative to translate insights in the book into a movement for systemic change.

Disease patterns, the climate crisis, and countless patterns of exploitation and violence demonstrate how the rights, health, and wellbeing of people, animals, and the planet are interconnected. The novel coronavirus pandemic and its origins illustrate these ties in real time, although too few solutions acknowledge or address these connections. Now more than ever we have opportunities to re-envision and recast our relationships with each other, other beings, and our life-sustaining planet. To catalyze solutions to some of the most difficult social and environmental problems afflicting society, Phoenix Zones Initiative brings together communities, organizations, and movements serving vulnerable and marginalized people, animals, and the environment. Phoenix Zones Initiative works in solidarity with these partners to envision, grow, and accelerate holistic ideas and joint solutions that advance ethics, empathy, and sustainability. 

Social and environmental injustices are often perpetuated by links between structural violence against people and animals. These links are apparent in interwoven patterns of human and animal exploitation, including in the far-reaching modern agricultural complex used to produce food, textiles, and other commodities. For example, across all animal slaughtering and processing occupations in the US, more than half of workers are immigrants or people of color who are commonly deprived of their basic rights, while at increased risk for severe physical and psychological injuries and harassment. In the US alone, at least 25,000 communities and millions of community members are adversely impacted by the environmental, economic, and psychosocial costs of expansive agricultural conglomerates. More generally, these industries fuel climate change, hunger, community violence, chronic diseases, and three-quarters of emerging infectious diseases, which disproportionately affect economically impoverished communities worldwide. Despite tangible, life-sustaining connections between people, animals, and the planet, organizations working to address social and environmental injustices commonly work in silos. We must build the infrastructure to bridge gaps between these organizations and movements that have unwittingly or purposefully worked at odds with each other instead of in solidarity.

Phoenix Zones Initiative addresses the roots of structural violence plaguing some of the most historically vulnerable communities. Our programs center on five areas: food (the global food market), fiber (the clothing and textile industry), community (urban and rural environments), knowledge (research and education), and service (community and public service). Working from the ground up and the top down, we support evidence-based models of just transitions that recognize connections between human, animal, and environmental wellbeing, and we offer training and technical assistance to help others do the same. Additionally, we work directly on systems change to make it easier for those working locally to build more socially and environmentally resilient communities. Phoenix Zones Initiative works toward rights-based structural change through targeted shifts in legal and policy priorities, economic approaches, political determinants of health, norms and values, and educational pathways. We take a three-fold approach that includes: 

• researching and analyzing complex, interconnected problems through a legal, economic, public health, and political lens; 
• identifying, evaluating, and sharing of holistic solutions; and 
• advocating for grassroots and systems-level reform that benefits vulnerable people, animals, and the environment. 

Our efforts benefit from the formation and strengthening of nontraditional partnerships and coalitions, and ongoing monitoring and evaluation.

Recognizing the far-reaching impact of modern industrial agricultural practices on people, animals, and the planet, many of our efforts focus on the global food and textile industries and the individuals and communities most affected by these industries. Our work is centered on the needs of migrant communities, communities of color, and those living in economically and environmentally impoverished areas worldwide. To understand and address the needs of these communities, we take a multi-pronged approach that includes:

• engaging with individuals directly affected by the issues upon which we work;
• partnering with community-based organizations serving these individuals;
• mobilizing local, state, national, and international advocacy organizations working on human rights, animal protection, and environmental conservation;
• engaging cross-sectoral professionals and organizations in medicine, public health, law, the sciences, and the media, among other disciplines; and
• educating diverse learners interested in advancing social and environmental justice.

We provide resources and training guided by engagement with individuals and partners, while also addressing problematic laws, policies, and economic frameworks that may prevent community resilience. Additionally, we connect different urban and rural communities to promote shared solutions to common problems. 

The suffering caused by unjust institutions, including those within the modern industrial agricultural complex, is among the most urgent challenges of our time; but it is remediable. My partner, Dr. Nik Kulkarni, and I co-founded Phoenix Zones Initiative with a belief that an organization focused on replacing structural violence with structural resilience could unite multiple collective actors working on systemic change. To address the interconnected roots of enormous structural problems, coordination and mobilization (rather than mere duplication) is needed. Harnessing empathy and wisdom to empower the most vulnerable among us can catalyze transformational change that elevates us all. 

Phoenix Zones Initiative is the outcome of our two decades of work as physicians caring for individuals and communities impacted by social and environmental injustices. Around the world, we’ve witnessed how individuals who have experienced adversity can heal through empowerment and the advancement of interconnected rights, health, and wellbeing. I wrote about this phenomenon and its implications for society in Phoenix Zones, a book named after the term “Phoenix Effect,” which is a transformational recovery that can occur after severe trauma, much like the proverbial phoenix who rises from the ashes. The Phoenix Effect is the result of a natural resilience within us all, which is enabled by supportive environments rather than by an unusual ability to recover from unconscionable circumstances. We believe that the world can be a Phoenix Zone, a place where interpersonal and institutional violence is prevented and where resources are equitably available for recovery. After writing the book, it became clear that an important next step toward making such a world a reality needed to include working with like-minded partners. Since we co-founded Phoenix Zones Initiative, we've been joined by a growing team and network of partners committed to holistic and lasting social change.

The past two decades of work have taught me that we are unlikely to meet current challenges, or those that lie ahead, without addressing the deep interconnected roots of problems in inclusive ways. Looking into the face of a child who has experienced the unthinkable has made me want more for them—beyond treating their immediate pain and suffering. Recognizing the source of their vulnerability as one that is shared with many other human and nonhuman beings across the planet has compelled me to dig deeper. While I have had the privilege of working with a number of nonprofit organizations and government agencies addressing important singular agendas, I have also realized that we need not settle for partial solutions or for merely attenuating avoidable suffering. Every child, every being, should have the same chance many of us have had to thrive. Through my work as a public health physician, I have seen what is possible when we attend to the whole individual and the whole community. Phoenix Zones Initiative is an opportunity to address the whole of society: to promote thriving where there currently is suffering, to prevent future harms, and to inspire and engage others to do the same.

Growing up as a multiethnic child on a farm in rural Oklahoma, I saw how people treated my father, an immigrant, differently than they treated my mother. Those observations inspired me to develop a compassionate curiosity about others’ lived experiences. By the time I was nine years old, I decided I wanted to become a public health doctor after reading William Sears’s book A Cry from the Heart, which describes the persecution of minorities, including children, in Iran. Like many children who grow up on farms, I also grappled with the suffering of animals. By the time I entered medical school, I began to seriously consider links between injustices affecting people and animals, and what we can do to address the root causes of oppression and suffering. My interests were propelled by my work as a doctor documenting evidence of torture in asylum seekers, including another doctor who had been tortured by the same regime I read about in Sears’s book. Having now held clinical, academic, and advisory positions in organizations serving immigrants, women and children struggling in conflict zones, homeless individuals, and people and animals suffering from gross social and environmental injustices, I have worked on many detailed problems facing vulnerable populations. To more fully address these and other deep-rooted interconnected challenges, I co-founded Phoenix Zones Initiative with my partner, and we have assembled a growing team that brings together decades of experience in community organizing, coalition building, nonprofit management, global public health and policy work, and effective advocacy.

In 2014, while I was in Kenya working with colleagues to address sexual violence, I could not sleep due to a combination of jet lag, invasive thoughts, and nightmares. I had just come from the US where I had experienced similar symptoms while caring for torture survivors and working on issues related to the adverse treatment of animals in research and food production. I reflected on what I had been feeling—a sense of powerlessness, hypervigilance, anger, and guilt—and realized I was suffering from secondary traumatic stress related to two decades of disturbing work. By the time the sun came up, I grasped that I could not continue to work in silos that were often competing with each other without also addressing the interconnected origins of problems. Although I did not know what was to come, that morning put me on a better path to understand the deep roots of individual and societal trauma and recovery. Since then, I have realized how stories of survivors' resilience can serve as inspiration for societal resilience. Survivors' stories, my relationships with survivors, the support of my co-founder, and our desire to do more have inspired the creation of and motivation behind Phoenix Zones Initiative.

The tension between medical advancement and research ethics is longstanding. As a physician concerned about the suffering of people and animals, in 2009 I began leading an effort to bring together physicians, veterinarians, researchers, regulators, policymakers, and advocates to explore medical, scientific, and ethical issues related to human research and animal research. The same year, I organized and hosted a conference, funded by the National Science Foundation and the Arcus Foundation, to address these issues in a neutral setting. Hundreds of people attended the conference, including administrators from federal agencies such as the National Institutes of Health and the Food and Drug Administration, academicians from US and international institutions, representatives from patient advocacy and animal protection organizations, executives and researchers from cutting-edge research foundations and industry, and congressional policymakers. The conference sparked new dialogue, peer-reviewed articles on the subject matter, media coverage in outlets such as the Chronicle of Higher Education, interest from members of Congress, and a subsequent grant from the National Science Foundation to further explore issues raised at the conference. The ripples of that work continue today.

Fortunately, more organizations are gradually emphasizing important connections between the health of people, animals, and the planet. Phoenix Zones Initiative goes further by focusing on the nexus between rights, health, and wellbeing and by working to dismantle systemic forces that harm people, animals, and the planet. We reach across established boundaries to foster the formation of unusual alliances and coalitions, and we prioritize strategic partnerships with other individuals, nonprofit organizations, and private and public institutions that are similarly committed to addressing social and environmental injustices. Our partners hail from many different sectors, socioeconomic strata, and professional and personal backgrounds, and we approach our work in interdisciplinary ways that honor the influence of grassroots and systemic change. For example, much of our research and analysis focuses on understanding laws, economic forces, and political patterns that shape norms and behaviors. However, we also recognize that all systems, including legal, economic, and political frameworks, are shaped by human beings, and that they can therefore also be restructured and remedied through community engagement and mobilization. We realize that the best solutions commonly come from those who are most affected by the problems at hand. We lead by creating a network of change informed by multiple stakeholders where the intersections of human, animal, and planetary suffering are most acute.

Phoenix Zones Initiative fuels a movement to advance social and environmental justice through shifts in norms, values, economic and legal frameworks, and policy priorities, so as to improve the rights, health, and wellbeing of those most vulnerable to harm and exploitation. Central to our theory of change is a belief that individuals, institutions, and systems can change, and that all of our work must be driven by values centered on leadership, ethics, evidence, and impact. Our mission deals with issues that are complex and interrelated. Therefore, Phoenix Zones Initiative works with partners, leaders, and stakeholders to identify ways in which we can leverage each of our strengths and craft tactics and activities to create meaningful change for people, animals, and the planet. Our efforts are pre-conditioned on active civic participation and collaboration with communities, nonprofit organizations, corporations, government agencies, and international bodies. By investing in a growing cross-sectoral team and network; synthesis of interdisciplinary information; social, digital, and material resources; curricula and training; and a robust communications strategy, we work toward practical and inclusive real-world change. Our activities emphasize the following: 

• public education and outreach; 
• experimentation with diverse ideas and solutions; 
• rigorous research and analyses; 
• coalition building; 
• unlocking of funding for our programs, services, and partners; 
• identification of scalable, sustainable, evidence-based models of change; 
• advocacy for high-yield systems-level reform within governmental, nongovernmental, and corporate entities; and 
• curation and dissemination of best practices that advance rights, health, and wellbeing. 

All of our efforts are subject to ongoing evaluation and improvement in order to accomplish more effective advocacy, civic engagement, and policy reform to achieve better social, economic, and political conditions for particularly vulnerable and marginalized populations. 

In 2019, we hosted a summit to engage leaders and stakeholders from dozens of communities and organizations that collectively teach, serve, and represent thousands of people and that address issues central to our programs, including child labor, modern slavery, animal suffering, environmental racism, and migration. Participants hailed from adult and pediatric medicine, public health, community service, education, the law, media and the arts, government affairs, and finance, among other sectors. Since then, we have continued to expand our network of organizations working on human rights, animal protection, and environmental protection. Within one year we aim to recruit at least 100 communities and organizations to the mission, and we aim to reach at least 10,000 people through direct outreach, community partnerships, virtual conferences and events, and the creation of a virtual hub for our partners. Within five years, we aim to reach at least 1000 private, public, and nonprofit organizations worldwide, and at least 100,000 people through direct outreach, community partnerships, conferences and events, our virtual hub, training programs, and other services. Through the engagement of cross-sectoral professionals and learners and the mobilization of local, state, national, and international advocacy organizations working on human rights, animal protection, and environmental conservation, we aim to influence structural changes at the municipal, state, federal, and international levels. By addressing the roots of problems, we expect to have an even greater influence on society at large, and we have developed early metrics to track impact on norms, economic and legal frameworks, and policies. 

Phoenix Zones Initiative has two reinforcing aims that guide our programs: 1) To establish a global community of Phoenix Zone projects that address local social and environmental injustices; and 2) To create systemic conditions that foster Phoenix Zone communities, specifically, legal, normative, and economic conditions that advance rights, health, and wellbeing. Our first phase of operation has focused on capacity development, coalition building, identification of key initiatives, and securing optimal frameworks for social impact measurement. Within the next year, we will continue to develop partnerships, open-source resources, and a virtual hub to promote local-global collaboration. One effort will include a virtual conference designed with one of our partners to reach thousands of people, drawing attention to policy solutions to ethical problems within the clothing and textile industry, including child labor, modern slavery, animal suffering, and environmental degradation. We are also continuing to work with legislators on key policy changes to address harms within the food and textile industries. During the second phase of our work, through year five, our efforts will center on the curation and dissemination of best practices to promote needed structural change, as well as ongoing advocacy for policy change. Also within the next five years, we aim to engage corporate executives, public officials, and nonprofit leaders in a commitment to evidence-based holistic structural change that especially benefits vulnerable and marginalized people, animals, and the environment.

In 2020, we entered our second year of operation. Within the first quarter of the year, the COVID-19 pandemic emerged, which has presented a challenge to many nonprofit organizations. Phoenix Zones Initiative relies on the discretionary and voluntary efforts of our core staff and volunteers. The co-founder/president/CEO is a full-time volunteer for the organization, and one other full-time, paid staff member joined us on July 1, 2020. All other staff are paid on a part-time basis or are volunteers. Although we are fortunate to have an enthusiastic and committed team of dozens of people, as well as an expanding network of partners, researching grant-making organizations has made us aware of the limitations of narrow categories often used to indicate issues and populations served. This limitation stems in part from the fact that the majority of organizations, governments, and movements target the downstream effects of structural violence rather than the upstream legal, normative, and economic structures that fuel social and environmental injustices. Similarly, there are few foundations that recognize the interconnections between the suffering of people and animals, or holistic approaches that will result in the greatest improvements in health and wellbeing for people, animals, the planet, and future generations. Nonetheless, our external analysis of political, economic, societal, technological, and other trends has driven home the need for comprehensive, positive, and unifying approaches to address rising partisanship, division, and inequities that have become even more apparent during the pandemic. 

Regarding the COVID-19 pandemic and the economic challenges it has posed, we have taken the opportunity to revisit our five-year budgetary projections, tighten our strategic plan, and secure financial commitments from members of the board to ensure that our programs are sustainable. We have been able to respond effectively to these challenges and we have brought on new staff during the pandemic. In particular, our strategic plan and programs will undertake opportunities presented by the pandemic to highlight connections between human, animal, and planetary wellbeing. Additionally, we will continue to bring attention to the need for structural change across multiple sectors of society, including those in which our programs focus. Through ongoing outreach, we are honing our articulation of intersecting structural contributors to suffering and helping foundations and other funders understand the need for inclusive approaches to address some of the greatest challenges of our time. We believe that the recognition and support available through The Elevate Prize would be instrumental to our success in communicating the value of such approaches. 

Our partners and allies include those working on human rights, animal protection, and environmental protection. Phoenix Zones Initiative is a member of the Harvard FXB Health and Human Rights Consortium, wherein we support efforts to provide open access to publications, democratic exchange of ideas, and inclusive collaboration. We are also partnered and allied with organizations such as the Society for Asylum Medicine, Community Health Cooperative, Wellbeing International, Brighter Green, Impact Fashion, the Animal Defense Partnership, Animals and Media, and the Center for Environmental and Animal Protection at New York University. We have worked with these organizations in a number of different ways, including through our inaugural summit, education and outreach, and ongoing advocacy efforts. Additionally, we work with community-based partners that provide healthcare, legal, and social work services to vulnerable populations. Our senior team has established relationships with medical and public health organizations including the American College of Preventive Medicine, the American College of Physicians, and the Association for Prevention Teaching and Research; environmental organizations such as Greenpeace and Sierra Club; and academic and government institutions such as the Animal Law and Policy Program at Harvard University, the US Fulbright Scholars Program, and the European Environmental Bureau. Additionally, we are partnering with local, state, and federal legislators to provide input on pending legislation.

While we respond to this question in the form of a ten-year, three-phase strategic plan that has benefited from internal and external analysis, we realize that the most effective solutions of the twenty-first century will commit to adaptive leadership, innovative problem solving, rigorous social impact measurement, and continual monitoring, reflection, and improvement. Our work benefits from a growing and diverse team and network, and from access to leaders across multiple sectors including medicine and public health, ethics, law and policy, economics, education, journalism, and other fields. In addition to cultivating resources and diverse revenue streams, and to developing action plans with clear benchmarks that are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound, we work with stakeholders and align our work with the majority of the United Nations Sustainable Development goals. By engaging and mobilizing community-based partners and local, national, and international advocacy organizations—as well as subject matter experts and individuals directly affected by the issues on which we work—we deploy tailored advocacy, programs, and services that address the interconnected wellbeing of people, animals, and the planet. We employ this business model given that an increasing number of Americans and global citizens are concerned about social and environmental justice. Furthermore, people who support an expansive conception of human rights are also more likely to support animal protection, and vice versa. Similarly, legislative trends within states affirm strong public support for social justice and environmental protection. These trends reveal that there is interest in expanding categories of rights, rather than restricting them.

Phoenix Zones Initiative has created conservative five-year financial projections that benefit from long-term commitments of its co-founders and board members, as well as from a fundraising strategy that employs outreach to foundations, major donors, and the general public. The fundraising strategy includes direct peer-to-peer outreach, matching campaigns, and online fundraising through targeted digital outreach. We are also developing a sliding scale program to offer fee-for-service technical assistance to corporate and other entities interested in incorporating a rights/health-based approach in their internal policies and protocols. Similarly, we are developing a speakers bureau which will offer a variety of speakers that can fit any budget or agenda. These tailored pro bono and sliding-scale consulting, educational, and training services are also part of our strategy to fuel broad community-based social change as we grow our donor base.

As a nonprofit organization and designated public charity, Phoenix Zones Initiative raises funds to support the execution of its mission. As noted above, we have secured donations from members of the board and members of the public through direct outreach, matching campaigns, and online fundraising through targeted digital outreach. We are also in the process of submitting grant applications to foundations whose missions align with our work, although we have not yet received grant support.

A conservative five-year forecast has been developed for the organization, and we are now in our second fiscal year of operation. During the first five years of operation, an estimated budget of $1.6 million dollars is projected, of which about $800,000 has been pledged. Phoenix Zones Initiative plans to spend at least 80 percent of funds on direct costs associated with programs and campaigns and no more than 20 percent on general overhead and fundraising. As noted above, fundraising efforts include targeted outreach to foundations, completion of private and public grant applications, major donor recruitment, and solicitation of donations from the general public. The fundraising strategy includes one-on-one outreach, matching campaigns, and online fundraising through targeted digital outreach, as well as email solicitation through our opt-in newsletter. In the future, we may also conduct mail solicitation and we may accept in-kind donations with the intent of using such donations for the nonprofit’s mission. Donations are also accepted on the organization’s website and are securely processed through Give Lively. At times, we may also hold small-scale fundraising events, and we may offer merchandise through our website, such as shirts, hats, mugs, and similar items available through our website that will bear our logo and mission statement.

During 2020, program costs will primarily be dedicated to resource development and distribution, communications, research and analysis, and coalition and network building, including the creation of a virtual hub to connect Phoenix Zone projects and communities. Funds will also be used to continue to develop internal capacity and to implement our monitoring and evaluation program so that interventions can benefit from the use of early metrics. We estimate a conservative budget of $210,000 for 2020, with a gradual increase in annual budget each year through 2024 in order to sustainably and carefully expand our programs and services to include an increase in research, coalition building, training, advocacy, technical consulting, and public relations activities.

Phoenix Zones Initiative is broader in scope than many existing social change projects. The Elevate Prize acknowledges the need for new ideas and comprehensive solutions. The recognition and support afforded by The Elevate Prize would allow us to scale our work and to inspire others to join us more quickly, enabling earlier and broader impact for those who are most vulnerable to the institutional violence of current economic, industrial, and social systems. The marketing and media exposure and introductions provided by The Elevate Prize could be instrumental in helping us partner with socially responsible corporate leaders and thoughtful subject-matter experts. The prize funding, professional development services, and connections to a powerful network of influencers would also be invaluable as we continue to develop capacity and a donor pool.

Assistance with marketing campaigns and media outreach is critical to our work and outreach to the public, partners, corporations, and leaders within government and multi-lateral organizations. Market sector experts could also offer advice on how to better engage key industries and influencers central to our programs.

Phoenix Zones Initiative would value any partnerships with individuals and organizations who are interested in structural change that can benefit people, animals, and the planet. Key to our programs are leaders, experts, and other influencers engaged in the political economy of food systems and the modern agricultural complex, as well as the clothing and textile industry. We are also interested in working with experts with a depth and breadth of knowledge relevant to trade agreements, pertinent legal frameworks, and international development efforts in order to better understand challenges to our work and potential solutions. Any opportunities to engage media experts and journalist groups would also be helpful so that we can better communicate the scope of the interconnected problems on which we work and the value of holistic solutions. Additionally, we would welcome partnership with development and marketing firms that could help us strategically highlight the inspiring work of our team, network, and partner organizations.