Executive Q&A: Eva Hernandez, Mosaic

Shaped by the environmental injustices she witnessed in her childhood community and the lack of inclusivity in the natural spaces she cherished, Eva Hernandez has spent two decades organizing for a more equitable environmental movement. Today we’re featuring Eva Hernandez, executive director of Mosaic.

Know someone who should be featured? Email us: [email protected]. 

Mosaic provides funding and strategic support to strengthen the climate, conservation, and environmental justice movements. A participatory grantmaker governed by a Leadership Council of grassroots, nonprofit, and philanthropy movement leaders, Mosaic supports the connectivity and shared tools—also known as movement infrastructure—advocates and activists need to build and exercise power across demographics, geographies, and issue silos.

About Eva: Eva Hernandez has over 20 years of experience in the U.S. environmental movement, serving as an organizer, strategist, and leader at organizations like Sierra Club, MoveOn, and Dogwood Alliance.

As Executive Director at Mosaic, a funder and field catalyst, she leads the organization’s work as a whole to strengthen climate, conservation, and environmental health and environmental justice movements, fostering collaboration, amplifying underrepresented voices, and bridging divides. Previously, as Managing Director at Sierra Club, she led organizational transformation, modernizing systems and culture to enhance impact.

Beyond her executive roles, Eva coaches social justice leaders through The Management Center and serves on the boards of organizations like Friends of the Earth US and Go Austin/Vamos Austin.

Based in Austin, TX, Eva finds renewal in nature, exploring the Texas Hill Country with her family.

We spoke with Eva over email this week:

 How did you get into the climate world and end up leading Mosaic?

Eva Hernandez: I grew up spending a lot of time outdoors—canoeing, hiking, camping. Not many people looked like me or my family in those spaces, though I didn’t fully understand why at the time.

One summer, we weren’t allowed to swim or fish in the river near our home in Kansas because the waters were so polluted, largely from agricultural runoff. In college, I began to connect the dots between personal experiences like that and the larger systems driving environmental injustice and climate change. That awareness shaped everything that came next.

Right out of college, I jumped into organizing—and was lucky to be trained, challenged, and mentored by brilliant movement leaders. For the last twenty years, I have focused on building a bigger, stronger, more inclusive environmental movement—one that is collaborative, grounded in justice, and built to win.

I started at Dogwood Alliance, working with communities in the South to protect endangered forests by running corporate campaigns. Then at MoveOn, I organized around national legislation, and after Obama’s election, I knew I wanted to focus on climate. I joined Sierra Club as an organizer in Texas, taking on the entrenched fossil fuel industry—work that taught me the power of organizing across difference, with labor, farmers, students, elders, and energy burdened communities.

I spent over a decade at Sierra Club, eventually serving as the Managing Director, where I led efforts to break down silos, create a more rigorous and equitable foundation, and built organizing infrastructure across the organization.

Because I live in Texas and cut my teeth organizing in the south, I’ve always seen this work through an ecosystem-wide lens—where climate, conservation, health, and justice are deeply interconnected.

That’s the lens I bring to Mosaic, where I now serve as executive director. Mosaic is a funder and a field catalyst, working to resource the leadership, infrastructure, and collaborative power we need to accelerate meaningful change. For the last twenty years I have seen firsthand the impact that’s possible when we invest in the connective tissue of movements—shared strategy, narrative power, data, and most of all, relationships grounded in trust and collaboration.

 What is the biggest challenge facing advocates for advancing clean energy and how is Mosaic helping its grantees navigate this moment?

EH: The next several years will be pivotal as the movement seeks to defend five decades of environmental progress while continuing to build power to win new fights for clean air and water, healthy and just communities for all, and thriving natural systems. Succeeding in this effort will take strategic, large-scale investment in bolstering movement power and aligning strategies, both within the movement—including climate, conservation, environmental health and justice—and across the many other movements whose issues intersect. Progress isn’t just about having the right solutions, it’s about having the power to make them unstoppable.

This surge in urgency comes at a time when the largest source of revenue for NGOs—federal funding—is shrinking. Philanthropy cannot fill that gap alone—but it can step up to deploy its resources more strategically, more collaboratively, and with greater speed. At Mosaic we are doing just that, and we have been excited to convene and collaborate with peers in this regard. We moved quickly this year to launch an open call for concept notes so we can get resources into the field fast and direct them to efforts that build bridges across differences. In a time of deep political polarization, we believe that growing the tent, building a pluralistic movement, and deepening connection is essential to defending progress, advancing local solutions, and building movement power for the long haul.

 What’s the biggest risk you’ve ever taken?

EH: Becoming a mama—hands down. It’s the most rewarding and the most challenging role I’ve ever taken on. It’s a leap into the unknown, and every day you’re shaping a little human while holding deep uncertainty about the world they’ll grow up in.

I think a lot about the future my kids will inherit—what their lives might look like when they’re my age, in their mid-40s. That thought is both humbling and motivating. It pushes me to make every decision count, to do work that’s not just urgent but enduring. We’re still living with the consequences of decisions made 30 years ago—some of them visionary, some deeply harmful. And I think about that every day in the work I do now: How do we make choices today that future generations will thank us for, and how do we continue to learn from the wisdom they bring?

 What’s something about you that might surprise people?

EH: Something that might surprise people is that I’m extremely analytical. Because my work is so relational—focused on collaboration, trust-building, and long-term movement power—folks often assume I lead purely from instinct, experience, or values. And while values absolutely guide me, I’m also constantly pattern-mapping, scanning for leverage points, and asking hard questions about strategy, structure, and systems. I love dissecting what’s working, what’s not, and why. I think good analysis makes our values actionable—and helps us lead with more clarity and intention.

Know someone who should be featured? Email us: [email protected]. 

Check out our recent conversations:

• Bryant Jones, Executive Director, Geothermal Rising
• Sam Evans-Brown, Executive Director, Clean Energy New Hampshire
• Matt Traldi, Founder & CEO, Greenlight America
• Laura Zapata, CEO & Co-Founder, Clearloop