Enviropreneur Fellowship Program
Fostering Market Solutions for a Sustainable Future
The Hoover Enviropreneur Fellowship Program is a nonresidential, project-based fellowship tailored for mid-career professionals committed to exploring innovative market approaches to solving environmental challenges. Fellows will collaborate with Hoover Institution scholars and Stanford faculty, drawing on their extensive knowledge in business, finance, law, and environmental strategy.
Fellows will visit the Hoover institution three times during the program to engage in interactive discussions, peer learning, and workshops. These sessions are designed to highlight economic institutions that make conservation and environmental improvements profitable and to help participants refine and apply entrepreneurial skills and market approaches to their own projects, making them both financially viable and environmentally impactful. Fellows will also participate in virtual sessions to maintain momentum and continue developing their strategies.
The fellowship runs from January through August and is open to practitioners with significant hands-on experience. Candidates must come with an existing project and the drive to convert it into results. Fellows will continue to work full time in their current professional roles while building their existing projects to incorporate greater innovation to achieve measurable ends.
Who Should Apply?
In line with the Hoover Institution’s mission, this fellowship seeks innovative people and ideas who will help improve the human condition by advancing market opportunities to enhance measurable environmental results. It is ideal for practitioners with five years of hands-on experience in a for-profit or nonprofit enterprise with a validated business model. Applicants must have a planned or existing project that seeks to deliver environmental improvements using market approaches.
Application Requirements:
- Minimum of 5 years hands-on experience in conservation
- An existing or planned project to serve as a capstone for development
- Openness to challenge perspectives and offer constructive feedback to peers
- A cover letter and statement of interest outlining your current position and business
- A project prospectus detailing your project, its market approach, and funding mechanisms
- A curriculum vitae or resume.
IMPORTANT DATES
DATE
PROGRAM
November 5, 2024
Applications Open
January 6, 2025
Applications Due
Early February 2025
Acceptance Notification
March 14, 2025
Project Prospectus Due
April 14, 2025
Online Orientation
Virtual introductions and brief prospectus presentations, setting the stage for the fellowship.
May 12-15, 2025*
*Module 1: Markets vs Mandates
Attend Hoover’s Markets vs Mandates Workshop, dive into market-driven solutions, and discuss the implications of markets and mandates for fellows’ projects
July 30-August 1, 2025*
*Module 2: Innovative Enviropreneurship
Engage with Hoover and Stanford faculty and apply entrepreneurial insights to projects
September 22-24, 2025*
*Module 3: Final Project Presentations & Graduation Retreat
Showcase final projects and celebrate program completion
*In-person activity at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University campus.
Mission and Expected Outcomes:
What success looks like in the Hoover Enviropreneur Fellowship Program:
Successful Candidates are conservation leaders with at least five years of on-the-ground conservation experience. They are conservation practitioners (not academics or researchers) and are familiar with business and economic principles. They are proficient in spoken and written English. They are conservationists with an entrepreneurial spirit looking to enhance economically sustainable solutions to environmental problems.
Successful Projects are part of applicants' existing work and are rooted in developing solutions using market approaches. Throughout the program, these projects evolve as fellows gain deeper insights and the ability to articulate how emerging markets can enhance environmental outcomes, surpassing those achieved by government interventions and at a reduced cost.
Successful Hoover Enviropreneurs demonstrate accountability for their projects’ design, pace, and advancement. They clearly articulate the purpose of their project and ensure their progress aligns with their established plan, while remaining adaptable to incorporate feedback. Possessing effective communication skills, they convey their projects’ goals and objectives with clarity, are receptive to feedback, and display resilience in the face of challenges. Embodying a proactive “get-it-done” mentality, they contribute both individually and as team members.
Successful Cohorts offer genuine support and constructive feedback to their peers, embracing mistakes as learning opportunities and openly sharing insights. Moreover, they leverage their networks to enhance the success of their cohorts.
FAQ
See FAQs for the Enviropreneur Fellowship Program.
Markets vs. Mandates
Markets vs. Mandates is based on the Hoover Institution’s founding principle of generating ideas that advance healthy and free societies. The research program evaluates when, if, and how institutions and policies can improve environmental quality while also promoting economic prosperity and individual freedom. It does so by conducting research that analyzes the incentives that policies create, rather than hopes that inspired them.
“Challenges to the governance of free peoples suggest to me that we need really good answers to the problems we’re facing. . . I can think of no better place to provide this need in our society than the Hoover Institution, a public policy center based on the notion that free people, free markets, and prosperity and peace are to be sought”
Condoleezza Rice
Tad and Dianne Taube Director | Thomas and Barbara Stephenson Senior Fellow on Public Policy
