We build resilience by sharing knowledge.
Letter from the President & Publisher
It’s a great pleasure for me to share the notable achievements of Island Press in 2023.
In book publishing, we signed 28 new titles for publication over the next few years. Among them were new books by Anthony Garcia and Mike Lydon on tactical urbanism; Anna Zivarts on the need for our transportation systems to account for those who aren’t able to drive; Ed Struzik’s new book on the coming animal diaspora, and Sherri Goodman’s book on the Department of Defense’s conversion from climate change deniers to strong advocates for seeing climate change as a threat to national security.
Over the course of the year, we published a number of important titles. First among them was “Inclusive Transportation: A Manifesto for Repairing Divided Communities,” by Veronica Davis, which examined the inequitable and often destructive practices of transportation planning and engineering. She participated in a number of online and in person events about the book, one of which drew an audience of almost 1,600 professionals. All told, our books earned 1,876 media placements in print and online media, widening their potential impact.
Our Urban Resilience Project published more than 60 articles, essays, and op‐eds (“short‐form pieces”) in 2023. Over a third of the short‐form authors identified as people of color. The pieces had more than 500 million potential views, and we garnered 2,500 social media engagements for the op‐eds, essays, and articles.
Collaborating with other organizations is a long-time attribute of Island Press, and in 2023 with their help, we delivered a total of 34 webinars with 6,814 attendees and we created an eight-part video book club series along with Center for Food Safety.
Above all, in 2023 Island Press continued in our belief that an essential component of addressing climate change and creating a healthier environment for all is knowledge -- knowledge derived from science, experience, and the commitment to making the world safer and more just for us all.
Finally, I should mention the many foundations, individual donors, authors, booksellers, and organizations who make our work possible. We can’t thank you enough.
David Miller
President & Publisher
Key Areas of Focus
Island Press is a nonprofit press on a mission to provide the best ideas and information to those seeking protect the environment and create solutions to its complex problems. We focus our work on three key areas.
Built Environment
Natural World
Food & Health
Built Environment
For the past 30 years, Island Press has been publishing books on the built environment – the man-made structures in which we live, work, and play. These books address critical topics including green buildings and infrastructure, safe and equitable transportation, building conservation, and inclusive community revitalization. As city leaders strive to address urgent infrastructure needs, growing populations, and threats from climate change, they need access to solutions and best practices. Island Press’ work in the built environment continues to provide those solutions and inspiration to practitioners, policymakers, and students. In the past year, we published 9 books on the built environment, including our best seller of 2023!
In the US, our transportation system is at the root of some of our biggest inequities. Ever wonder why some neighborhoods get all the pollution, have the most dangerous, high-speed streets, and the longest travel times to job centers and daily needs? Veronica O. Davis breaks it down for you and shares her transportation project battle scars. Read this book if you’re a current or aspiring practitioner who works in any field that touches on public investment decisions, AND if you are a neighborhood advocate – you’ll learn where and how to push for change.
Harriet Tregoning, former Planning Director of Washington, D.C., and Director of the New Urban Mobility Alliance
BEST SELLER 2023
Our best seller of 2023 was “Inclusive Transportation: A Manifesto for Repairing Divided Communities,” by Veronica Davis! The book is a vision for change and a new era of transportation planning. Davis explains why centering people in transportation decisions requires a great shift in how transportation planners and engineers are trained, how they communicate, the kind of data they collect, and how they work as professional teams.
Partnership Spotlight
The book flew off the shelves, and Veronica was also popular among our partnership network. Island Press coordinated 10 events with her in 2023, including a single event in the fall with almost 1,600 attendees.
Natural World
Balancing the wonder with the worries
Human activity is forcing wildlife to extinction and driving significant biodiversity loss. The devastation of the natural world is distressing in its own right—exquisite biological beauty disappearing forever. But it’s worrying for humankind, too. Every living being on earth depends on clean air, water, and food—the systems that support life. Island Press publishes compelling storytelling and overwhelming evidence that motivates people to protect wild species and wild spaces now. Our authors give informed advice on how to stop environmental destruction and present actionable ideas for moving forward. We collaborate with scientists who have a desire to share important discoveries and advances with the public and with other science professionals in clear, compelling prose.
IMPACT ON CONSERVATION
With these books, we aim to inspire readers with the wonders of the natural world, so that together we can protect the wildness that still exists. While the impact of our books can sometimes be hard to quantify, occasionally our books have direct impacts on conservation efforts. For example, after we published “The Cougar Conundrum” (2020), two leading philanthropists read the book and awarded the cougar conservation organization Panthera $3 million in grant funds. The donations allowed the organization to grow rapidly, expanding their impact and translating to greater conservation for cougars.
STAFF PICK 2023
“What a Bee Knows” was a reader favorite in 2023, selling 5,298 copies. Publisher’s Weekly had this to say of the book:
“Fascinating trivia abounds, and the eye-opening material on bees’ interior lives complicates conventional wisdom about which animals are capable of emotions and consciousness… Readers fearful of bees may well gain a new perspective, while those who are already fans will find more to celebrate.”
Food & Health
While environmental issues can sometimes seem distant from daily life, your personal health is hard to ignore. Yet the two are deeply linked. Unsustainable use of Earth’s resources negatively influences public health. The quality of the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the food we grow and eat affect well-being. The consequences are stark: hunger, cancer, and developmental delays in children can all result from unhealthy environments. Island Press’ environmental health program is improving the well-being of both people and the planet. Our books propose practical system-wide changes that can improve food production, enhance nutrition, and reduce exposure to toxic pollutants. They also raise awareness of individual actions that can reduce our vulnerability to disease.
I think that we don't fully understand how connected our own health and wellbeing is to the broader environment. And to me, that's an entry point for people to care more about environmental issues, because what is more personal than your health?
Emily Turner, Island Press Senior Editor, Food & Health
IMPACT SPOTLIGHT
In March 2024, the head of Biden’s Cancer Moonshot Program invited IP author, Kristina Marusic, to speak to EPA officials about her 2023 book, “A New War on Cancer.” A month later, the Biden administration announced that they “will require more than 200 chemical plants to cut their emissions of toxic chemicals as part of a broader effort to reduce cancer cases.” (The Hill)
We believe in the power of books.
In 2023, Island Press inspired and engaged readers by publishing:
19
new books
selling
91,949
units
distributing
5,056
free copies
Books are a powerful way to spread information, insight, knowledge, and lived experience. In environmentalism and climate work, publishing doesn't get enough credit. Island Press does a really good job of protecting the art of publishing and also spreading important information in an age of lack of clarity on what is truth.
Caelan Schick, Island Press monthly donor and former board member
In addition to our books, we achieve impact by...
Producing short-form content
Helped movement leaders tell their stories through 62 original articles, blog posts, and op-eds in 2023. Almost 33% of our published articles and op-eds had at least one author of color.
Gaining wide media coverage
Kept environmental solutions in the spotlight with 1,876 media placements, including in the New York Times, the Guardian, CNN, and Psychology Today.
Collaborating with partners
Worked with partners to adapt our work into 34 educational webinars and 11 podcasts that attracted over 8,700 registrants.
Licensing books internationally
Licensing books internationally -- Took our authors’ messages worldwide by licensing more than 18 books for translation into Italian, Simplified Chinese, Korean, Portuguese, and Spanish.
Short-Form Content
Amplifying voices from frontline communities
In addition to publishing books, Island Press produces short-form content through our Urban Resilience Project. Developing and publishing articles, op-eds, and essays enables us to amplify the voices of activists from frontline communities, particularly those that are fighting both environmental and social injustices.
Short form also provides opportunities for Island Press book authors to address issues that connect their book to current events or to expand their book content or audience. We have successfully secured placements in outlets as varied as Grist, US News and World Report, The Chronicle of Philanthropy, and The Hill, all with the goal of building public support for environmental action and solutions.
Partnership Spotlight
The Urban Resilience Project is proud to partner with the Climate Health Equity Fellows. Doctors and medical professionals of color write op-eds, and Island Press helps get their articles published in their local media—for example: George Crawford’s article, “Alabama should get on the (electric) school bus”.
Prominent Media Placement
In 2022, new Island Press author Ryan Reft worked with the Island Press Urban Resilience Project to write an op-ed on the topic of his book: “Justice and the Interstates: The Racist Truth about Urban Highways.” The article was published in the Washington Post in January 2023 with the headline: “We mythologize highways, but they’ve damaged communities of color”.
Both the article and the book examine the toll that the construction of the U.S. Interstate Highway System has taken on vulnerable communities, and details efforts to restore these often-segregated communities, reaching a potential audience of 62 million readers.
What our community says about Island Press
“We wanted to thank you from the bottom of our hearts for all of your assistance in making season two the great success it has been. We have enjoyed our conversations with all of the Island Press authors and appreciate the amazing books Island Press is publishing.”
Jennifer Hiatt, Island Press partner, Book Review Podcast | Booked on Planning
“Thank you to Island Press. Island Press is elevating folks that are writing important pieces about how to change the world and in particular folks of color. Proud to be a board member and to support the organization.”
tamika butler, Island Press boar d member and Founder & Principal of Tamika L. Butler Consulting
“If every member of Congress read every Island Press publication, we’d see stronger environmental and public health policies.”
Judith Enck, President of Beyond Plastics and former EPA Regional Administrator
“I love the fact that every Island book embodies a mission of some kind — conserving something valuable, or doing something important more efficiently & beautifully, or just understanding the world more clearly. I always feel like I’m on the side of the angels when I work on an Island Press book! These are books that I’m proud to have helped bring to the hands of readers who might then, as a result, help make the world a better place.”
Mike Fleming, Island Press freelance copyeditor
“I can't really believe it, but today is two years since my book was published by Island Press. Sending in that final manuscript was one of the most vulnerable actions of my life. I felt like I was opening up my heart and vision for the world to see. It still amazes me when people email me about what they did after reading the book - change zoning, welcome a bagpipe maker into a downtown storefront, launch a commercial shared kitchen, create a downtown storefront grant for product businesses... it's been an amazing ride!”
Ilana Preuss, Island Press author of “Recast Your City” (2021)
Partnerships
Better Together
60+
organizational partners
Island Press sees partnerships with other organizations as key to our success in disseminating critical environmental information to those who can effect change. We develop book-specific marketing partnerships that help us share our authors’ expertise with a wider audience. These collaborations enable us to reach our partners’ audiences in ways that we alone cannot, while providing them with valuable content and communications support that helps the partner organization achieve their own goals.
Island Press maintains a network of approximately 60 partner organizations that rely on us to help them provide and distribute information. For example, through our partnership with Next City, a non-profit media outlet that provides daily online coverage of urban affairs, we reach a potential 2.5 million readers. For Next City, our content helped expand the definition of “urbanism” to include a wider array of issues, which advanced their goal of inspiring environmental change. This partnership gave publicity to Island Press books and free content to Next City’s readers .
Financial Snapshot
$4.8 million
Income increased by 29% from the previous year
2023 Income: $4,806,576
Island Press depends on supporters and readers like you to promote solutions that lead to change. In fiscal year 2023, revenue from earned income was $1,883,467. Including the release of previously restricted donations, philanthropic contributions to our Annual Fund from individuals and foundations equaled $2,923,109, for total revenue of $4,806,576. Total expenses were $3,899,625, with 77% going directly to activities that disseminate the information people need—however they need it—to create a more sustainable environment. Donations to the Future Fund brought the amount raised for our capital campaign to approximately $565,000, more than halfway to our goal of $1,000,000 for an emergency reserve fund to weather storms, like the pandemic, in the future. More detailed financial information can be found online at islandpress.org/financial-statements
Board of Directors
- Rob Griffen (Chair)
- Deborah Wiley (Secretary & Treasurer)
- tamika butler
- Ed Chen
- Margot Ernst
- Laura Kutnick
- Marsha Maytum
- Christine McEntee
- David Miller (President & Publisher)
- Helen Morrison
- Kirsten Moy
- Eric Rodenbeck
- Alison Sant
- Caelan Schick (Student Director)
- James Socas
- Sandra E. Taylor
- Sally Yozell
