🔊 The Institute’s Roots: 10th Anniversary Conversation with Keefe Keeley and Kevin Wolz

by Jacob Grace | May 3, 2023 | Canopy, Podcast, Speaker

This year is the tenth anniversary of the Savanna Institute, and in our latest podcast episode, we’re looking back at the institute’s roots. Host Jacob Grace talks with two people who have been at the core of the Savanna Institute over the last ten years: Kevin Wolz and Keefe Keeley.

Kevin Wolz was part of the network of researchers and farmers who founded the Savanna Institute back in 2013, and served as the first chair of the institute’s board of directors. From 2017 to 2022, he served as co-executive director of the organization. He is currently CEO of Canopy Farm Management.

Keefe Keeley was Savanna Institute’s first official staff person. He has served as executive director since he was hired in 2014.

Beginning in 2017, Keefe and Kevin worked together for five years as co-executive directors of the Savanna Institute. During those five years, the organization went from being a scrappy startup (with three part-time employees collectively doing the work of one full-time staff person) to being a thriving nonprofit with over twenty employees, purchasing land in southern Wisconsin to establish a home farm, and launching a spinoff business, Canopy Farm Management, to increase tree planting and perennial farm management services in the Midwest.

In the episode, Keefe and Kevin talk about how Savanna Institute has always had a vision for transformational change, and how, as Keefe says, “we’re not going to achieve that by doing some nice projects on the margins.”

You can hear the full conversation with Keefe and Kevin on the Perennial AF podcast or on our YouTube channel:

Learn more about our first ten years in the most recent Perennial Report!

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Savanna Institute’s Response to the IPCC Climate Report

by Renee Gasch | Mar 21, 2023 | Climate, Press

Spring Green, WI: On Monday, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its latest report, issuing what UN Secretary-General António Guterres described as a “clarion call to massively fast-track climate efforts by every country and every sector and on every timeframe.” The report, dubbed a ‘survival guide for humanity,’ underscores the urgency for local and global leaders to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, and forecasted an overshoot of the goal as early as 2030 if major course corrections are not taken. The Savanna Institute, a Wisconsin-based nonprofit working to transition Midwest agriculture to a climate solution, issued the following statement.