The Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life (COEJL) was established in 1992 after Carl Sagan and Al Gore invited Jewish religious, civic, and political leaders to Washington, D.C. to discuss the role of the Jewish community in addressing the environmental crisis. After similar gatherings were held with leaders from various Christian denominations, the National Religious Partnership for the Environment (NRPE) was founded as a collaborative project including COEJL, the U.S. Catholic Conference, the National Council of Churches (NCC), and the Evangelical Environmental Network (EEN). NRPE gathered funds for short-term environmental projects for each of these faith communities. COEJL was officially founded in 1993 as a short-term project to articulate a distinctly Jewish form of environmentalism and to begin to incorporate this into Jewish life. Within the first six years, twenty-three national Jewish organizations joined COEJL as participants and the new organization accomplished a wide range of activities including the publication of resource materials, the initiation of environmental education and retreat programs, as well as advocacy campaigns, the provision of small project grants, and the formation of regional affiliates. The successes of COEJL’s initial six year phase made it clear to stakeholders that it should become a permanent organization, and in 1999, a strategic plan for the formation of COEJL as an independent, permanent entity was adopted. Between 1999–2001 COEJL focused primarily on organizational development and leadership training, supporting regional affiliates, bolstering institutional partnerships, expanding outreach and communications, and engaging in political advocacy. Now that these different areas have been firmly established, COEJL intends to expand its programmatic work in the areas of education, advocacy, spirituality, scholarship, and outreach.