Dutch Postcode Lottery Awards RMI Nearly $1.2 Million

The Dutch Postcode Lottery has awarded Rocky Mountain Institute a gift of approximately €900,000, or $1.192,493.

RMI Executive Director Marty Pickett and CEO Michael Potts accepted the award late last week in Amsterdam at the lottery’s annual Goed Geld Gala. The gala was held this year in Amsterdam’s historic Rijksmuseum, where refurbishment of the exhibit hall for the Dutch master painters has been funded by the Postcode Lottery and will open to the public in 2013.

“The Postcode Lottery is a key partner for RMI,” Pickett said. “Its funding, totalling over $4 million of unrestricted revenue since 2009, has significantly increased RMI’s ability to expand our work and reach. The lottery is an impressive organization and the founders and staff often comment about being inspired by the work of their beneficiaries. It’s so great to collaborate with a group of people who are so passionate about their own charitable efforts and bringing about change in the world.”

Judith Lingeman, the lottery’s Charity Department manager, said, "The world needs organizations striving for a better and more sustainable use of our natural resources. Rocky Mountain Institute is able to combine this objective with market-oriented solutions, which creates the much-needed transformation in both the corporate and private sphere."

The Dutch Postcode Lottery, the Netherlands’ largest charity lottery, will distribute a record €284 million, ($376,416,148) this year to 85 charitable organizations, including such annual recipients as UNICEF, Amnesty International, and Doctors Without Borders. Thanks in part to the Postcode Lottery’s 2.5 million players, the charities will be able to continue their important work and launch new projects.

Half the price of every lottery ticket goes directly to charities working in the areas of development cooperation, human rights, nature conservation, the environment, and social cohesion in the Netherlands. Since its founding, the Postcode Lottery has given more than €3.5 billion to human and environmental causes, and it is the third-largest private charitable donor in the world.