Alliance for the Great Lakes

The Alliance for the Great Lakes works to protect the Great Lakes for today and tomorrow. We involve tens of thousands of people each year in advocacy, volunteering, education, and research to ensure the lakes are healthy and safe for all.

Our staff are headquartered in Chicago, with field offices in Buffalo, Cleveland, Detroit, Grand Haven (Mich.), and Milwaukee. Our Board of Directors represent a wide range of interests and expertise from around the Great Lakes region.

The Alliance for the Great Lakes works out front, and behind the scenes, to protect the lakes. Recent successes include:

• Championed federal ban on microbeads in personal care products like face wash and toothpaste, preventing the tiny plastic particles from entering the Great Lakes;

• Released groundbreaking report calling for permanent separation of the Great Lakes and Mississippi River basins to prevent inter-basin transfer of Asian carp and other invasive species;

• Advocated for the historic Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Basin Water Resources Compact to keep Great Lakes water in the lakes, and won significant protections for the lakes in the Compact’s first test, a diversion application by Waukesha, Wisc.;

• Won a historic cleanup goal for Lake Erie, which is plagued each year by toxic algal blooms, when the governors of Ohio and Michigan joined the premier of Ontario to commit to a 40% reduction in nutrients into the lake by 2025;

• Connected nearly 60,000 students with hands-on Great Lakes learning through our Great Lakes In My World curriculum; and

• Involved nearly 15,000 volunteers in the Adopt-a-Beach program last year, cleaning up beaches, collecting valuable data, and building pride in the Great Lakes.                                                                                                                                                         ---We are proud to have received the Charity Navigator 4-star rating, the highest possible, six years in a row.