May Boeve (2017)

Read the New Frontier Award® announcement

Background

May Boeve, 33, is the Executive Director of 350.org, a landmark grassroots campaign to engage and mobilize communities around the world in political action aimed at holding governments, corporations, and institutions accountable for addressing climate change. Boeve and several college friends co-founded 350.org in 2008 with climate activist Bill McKibben. In the spirit of that collaboration, 350.org has continued to foster partnerships across communities, cultures, and sectors to accomplish the scale of change required to tackle the climate crisis.

Boeve and her team at 350.org were part of the coalition that organized the historic 2014 People’s Climate March, which drew more than 300,000 people to New York City to advocate global action on climate change. The march was the largest of its kind, and brought together more than 1,100 disparate groups that previously had not prioritized climate change as a policy issue, including labor unions, religious institutions, health organizations, community activists, and universities.

Boeve has overseen 350.org’s innovative and highly successful campaign to secure commitments from major institutions to divest from fossil fuels. Between 2014 and 2016, the organization’s work resulted in nearly $5 trillion in divestment commitments from hundreds of institutions including foundations, universities, cities, and churches. At 350.org, Boeve also has led an expansive movement to halt new oil, coal, and gas development worldwide.

Boeve has been at the forefront of the climate movement since 2007 when, as a student at Middlebury College, she helped organize a student-led proposal to make the Middlebury campus carbon-neutral by 2016. In December 2016, the college announced it had reached carbon-neutrality.