Co-founder and former CEO of Planet Women Kristine Zeigler ‘96 stood out during her time at Lafayette College.
“I just rebelled against it and tried to just create my own kind of tribe, if you will,” she said of the college’s culture at the time.
In an editorial written in May 1996, at the end of her senior year, Zeigler described a public protest in Farinon College Center that she participated in to express dissatisfaction with some of the people at Lafayette and Greek life, concluding that the “Lafayette environment made me assert myself.”
“Shit, I just read this over and it’s pretty negative,” she wrote. “But nevertheless, I don’t always have to be positive, do I? No one hired me as a public relations writer. And I bet they’re glad.”
Thirty years later, Zeigler has channeled that assertiveness into the fight for gender equality when facing environmental crises with Planet Women, a non-profit she founded in 2020.
“Some of those same rebellious personality traits maybe are coming out now that I’m getting much older,” she said. “I really want to focus on why there aren’t more women in environmental leadership.”
Planet Women works with women in carbon sinks to empower and fund them to make a difference within their communities. The non-profit focuses on Central Africa, the Andes-Amazon and the American Southwest to change the culture of conservation work.
Zeigler’s fundraising expertise has assisted Planet Women in providing grants to resource female nature activists. They have given away over $2 million with 38 grant partners and invested $4.5 million in “women-led solutions to caring for our planet” since 2020, according to Zeigler.
“I cannot even tell you how good it feels to give money away,” she said. “I didn’t expect it to be as fun.”
In addition to granting funds, Planet Women seeks to provide mentorship opportunities to women in conservation. Leadership programs are free of charge, according to Zeigler.
Jessica Leas ‘96, the vice president of design at Conservation International and Zeigler’s college roommate, participated in one of these programs.
“She’s at an organization that is improving the whole system, or at least working towards improving the whole system, which, as someone who has worked in the system my entire career, is wonderful,” Leas said of Zeigler.
Zeigler was inspired by her experiences as a grant writer for big environmental organizations such as The Nature Conservancy and Conservation International, where she found that “women aren’t really being fully utilized for all their leadership skills.”
While Planet Women does not receive money from the federal government, many of its partners do, leading Zeigler to host free fundraising 101 training events in response to recent federal funding freezes.
“At first, I just felt kind of helpless,” Zeigler said of the freezes. “What we thought we would do is just at least provide resources and some training.”
“Surprisingly, even though the government is behaving in one way, individuals are very giving and very philanthropic,” she continued.
Zeigler related her leadership style to her time as co-editor-in-chief of The Lafayette and said being in charge is “not just about the title” but trying to “empower” the talents of her team.
Leas believes one of Zeigler’s strong suits is her personality, which she has seen since their time together working for The Lafayette.
“She made that work fun,” Leas said.
This has become important when working to solve the climate crisis.
“We also see a lot of horrible things happen, and if you can at least make the day-to-day work fun, that makes it a lot easier to get through every day,” Leas said.
Zeigler recently stepped down as CEO of Planet Women in an effort to practice what she preaches.
“If what we’re saying is that women, especially women of color, are not being given the opportunity to lead, and then we ourselves are not doing that,” she said. “It just didn’t feel right to me.”
Emma Robins will be the next CEO of the non-profit.
Zeigler encourages Lafayette students to embrace conservation work, no matter what field they go into after college.
“I would say that there’s no higher calling than making sure you’re an environmental leader,” Zeigler said.
