'''Big Green''' and an earlier moniker the 'The Group of Ten ' are terms used to describe the biggest environmental organizations in the United States, heavily-staffed, non-profit corporations each with budgets in the tens of millions of dollars a year, offices in Washington, DC and other major cities, highly paid executive directors, and a staff of lobbyists, analysts and marketers. Big Green environmental groups together raise and spend hundreds of millions of dollars a year, most of it contributed by non-profit foundations and individual donors. Many of the Big Green groups partner with corporations and have representatives of major corporations on their boards of directors.
Environmental activists and authors including Mark Dowie, Peter Montague, Brian Tokar and others whose articles andinterviews are listed below have criticized Big Green for soaking up the majority of the money raised for environmental activism, abandoning or undercutting grassroots environmental struggles, and selling out the environment and the grassroots movement to business interests and compromising politicians.