About Greenhound

Mission

Greenhound is a Nantucket-based philanthropic organization funded by The Schmidt Family Foundation.

It is dedicated to improving how we move around Nantucket, enhancing connections between the harbor, downtown and the rest of the Island, while reducing our environmental impact. 

We work to bring people together around good ideas, based on good research.

What We've Done

In 2008, Greenhound purchased the former Island Spirits property at 10/12 Washington Street to support public transportation initiatives.  Our goal is to give the community the time and opportunity to study the best use of this area and experiment with the use of the site as a future transportation hub.  We updated the interior of the property using simple green building practices, and partnered with the Nantucket Regional Transportation Authority (NRTA) and The Wave to enable a portion of the property to serve as a downtown bus stop from late June through Labor Day.  Read more . . .

In 2009, we've continued the white board "question of the week", increased the hours that the building (and its new bathrooms) is open to the public, and expanded our on-going collaboration with NRTA, by improving the property to accommodate the four most popular bus routes, and provided free on-site wi-fi connection.

Greenhound has also funded research to better understand attitudes about the use of public transportation during the summer season and to develop a set of recommended strategies for increasing the use of public transit.