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Quincey Tompkins Imhoff brings global vision home to Sonoma County
Conservation runs in Quincey Tompkins Imhoff’s family, but she’s made it entirely her own. “I’m not any one thing,” she says. “I’m a pull-bunch-of-other-people-and-ideas-together kind of person.” It’s a modest description for someone whose life has been shaped by some of the most ambitious environmental work of the last half century—and who is now making her own mark right here in Sonoma County.
Quincey grew up in San Francisco, the daughter of Doug Tompkins—co-founder of The North Face and Esprit, and one of the great conservation philanthropists of the twentieth century—and Susie Tompkins Buell, who after Esprit became a prominent philanthropist focused on women and girls empowerment as well as a leading fundraiser for the Democrats. Her father, Doug Tompkins , was a visionary who would tell her, “don’t let your imagination limit your potential.” He was also a man of his word. The scale of conservation he inspired—millions of acres protected across Chile and Argentina, including the creation of new national parks in those countries—left a permanent imprint on how Quincey thinks about what’s possible. “I’m always trying to boost the numbers up,” she says, with her mantra of “let’s do more.”
Her mother brought a different but equally powerful force of social conscience embedded in business. At Esprit, values and impact were inseparable from the work. The company ran volunteer programs, partnered with community organizations, and used its advertising voice to challenge consumerism—thirty-five years before sustainability became a corporate talking point. “If we were running a business and making a profit,” Quincey says, it was imperative to her mother that “we also needed to be making a difference.”
When asked what she learned from both parents, and what her own philanthropic work is really about, she says it comes down to this: “Dig deep and reach high. Sign up and show up.”
Those lessons stayed with her. Tompkins Imhoff went on to run the Foundation for Deep Ecology, her father’s organization, for a decade as its executive director, distributing funding in grassroots grants across biodiversity, sustainable agriculture, and a then-radical critique of mega-technology and globalization. Today, she channels that innovation and generosity into her work closer to home. Five years into her tenure on the Sonoma Land Trust board, she is stepping into a more active role on the philanthropy committee, focused on widening the circle of support for the Land Trust’s work.
Today, she channels that innovation and generosity into her work closer to home. Five years into her tenure on the Sonoma Land Trust board, she is stepping into a more active role on the philanthropy committee, focused on widening the circle of support for the Land Trust’s work.
She and her husband, author and Watershed Media co-founder Dan Imhoff, have split their time between Healdsburg and Valencia, Spain for nearly a decade. It’s a choice that keeps her connected to the international conservation network she has deep roots in, including Rewilding Argentina and Rewilding Chile. But Sonoma County is pulling her back. “The obviousness of the work, the longevity of the work—it all speaks to me,” she says.
Part of what speaks to her is scale. Coming from a family that protected millions of acres across Patagonia, she finds Sonoma County’s size clarifying. “I use the word ‘quaint’ only in comparison to South America,” she says, “but it just seems so manageable here—how much we have that is so spectacular and beautiful, in good shape and so worthy of our attention.”
The work she cares most about right now is building up the next generation. Last spring she attended the Land Trust’s Conservation Council graduation and left energized, recently helping facilitate staff member Mirella Ramos’s invitation to an international conservation training conference in Spain. Thinking big is a lesson Quincey learned early from her father, and one she’s intent on passing forward.
As for her role at the Land Trust, she’s characteristically direct about where she wants to put her energy. “Reaching out and broadening the network, helping widen our net of support with people who are excited and feel the meaning of this work—especially when these landscapes are things that you can actually see with your own eyes,” she says.
This spring, Quincey is putting that commitment into action as our matching donor for the spring campaign, generously offering to match every gift up to $100,000 and inspiring others to join the movement she believes in so deeply.
“If you’re driving from Sonoma to San Francisco and you look out at the big swaths of green, you can usually trace back a movement that has preserved those places,” says Quincey. “That’s the kind of work I’m proud to be involved with.”
