Summer Reading for Climate Grantmakers — and Other Funders Sweating the Heat

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There’s no bad time to start reading up on climate philanthropy. But summer feels like a particularly apt season to learn a bit more about what grantmakers can do about our overheating world.

Whether the U.S. heat dome has led you to crank up the AC, or if you’re already bronzing on a beach, there’s always more food for thought out there on how donors and people who give money away for a living can lend a hand on the climate emergency.

The publications previewed below cover several major themes and efforts within climate philanthropy, including perspectives on how best to support the Global South, Indigenous peoples and decarbonization in Australia. The authors represent a cross-section of the philanthrosphere, including a consultancy, a regrantor, a funder collaborative and a research group.

This is also, by necessity, a limited sampling of the literature coming out of this rapidly changing arena. The past months have also seen new updates from major intermediaries like the Hive Fund for Climate and Gender Justice and The Solutions Project, which also released three separate evaluations of its work. Still more annual reports have come from climate philanthropy players such as Tishman Environment and Design Center or the Honnold Foundation. In short, depending on your tastes, there’s no need to buy any romance novels this summer. 

Ready to get started? Here’s my take on these four recent publications:

Too hard to give away billions? Try Global South funds, say top consultants

Wealthy people sometimes say it’s tough to give away their riches. Whether we buy that or not, the world’s largest and most influential nonprofit consultancy has a suggestion: Funds in the Global South are ready for way more money.

The Bridgespan Group — famous for advising Giving Pledge-level donors, among others — makes that case in a new 21-page report, “Want to Fund in the Global South? Philanthropic Collaboratives Can Help.” The nonprofit experts found there are at least 175 “collaborative funds” — i.e., organizations that channel money to nonprofits and community groups — working in the Global South. Those funds offer a huge opportunity for donors. Of the 70 funds that participated in the survey, two-thirds said they received less than $5 million in 2021 but could give away more. 

Bridgespan reports these funds are both efficient (because they already have deep relationships with vetted partners) and effective (due to their proximity to local needs and knowledge). Most of these funds reported that three-quarters or more of their grantees are led by individuals representative of the communities they serve, whereas the Council of Foundations has found just 13% of global philanthropic grant dollars go to organizations based in the targeted countries. Perhaps unsurprisingly, these groups also tend to help donors educate themselves, through the help of local experts.

None of this will be news to the dozens of funders and nonprofits — particularly folks in the Global South — that have argued for this approach for decades. Bridgespan itself has been practicing this for years with certain deep-pocketed clients, such as MacKenzie Scott and the Ballmer Group, who have both made such regrantors part of their strategy. The report joins an extensive body of work on collaboratives from Bridgespan and others. The question remains whether more donors will listen. 

But what does a Global South fund look like up close?

For those eager to go a lot deeper, the fund featured in the opening paragraphs of Bridgespan’s report has just released its own 69-page study of its strategy and grantees. Fundo Casa Socioambiental — a Scott grantee which has been featured in IP before — looks back at its 19 years of grantmaking in its new report, “Supporting Solutions Based on Traditions,” with a focus on its funding for Indigenous groups.

The publication cites a variety of numbers, such as how the $6.9 million the fund has distributed to Indigenous organizations since its launch has supported 182 ethnic groups, or 60% of Indigenous ethnic groups recognized by Brazil. But it’s also a story of the fund, founder Maria Amália Souza, the grantees it has supported, and the strategic shifts within both the fund and philanthropy. 

Strikingly, the fund’s support for Indigenous groups accounted for just 2% of the grants it distributed over its first 17 years — the report says that was due to lack of philanthropic support — but since 2018, such grantees have made up 40% of its funding, with most of that support coming since 2020. It’s a reminder of how dramatically the funding landscape has evolved in recent years to channel much-needed support to Indigenous communities — and how donors’ choices determine which visions of the future get funded. For those hoping to effect a similar shift within their own funding, this report offers one potential roadmap, with plenty of tips for the journey.

A big philanthropic push to electrify road transportation is focused on… freight

Even more than most annual reports, the latest update from Drive Electric — the Audacious Project award-winning effort to zero out emissions from road transport — is replete with numbers. Last year, the campaign issued 380 grants to 247 partners in 68 countries who supported 116 policy actions, with at least 10 in every region the campaign tracks. And that’s without getting into its data tracking the progress of zero-emissions transportation around the world.

One number that stood out to me was about where its money goes: 60% of the campaign’s funding went to work on freight trucks, up from just under half of all funding the year before. That is nearly four times what went to the next-largest category, cars, which received 16% in 2023, down by almost half from the year before. Other areas received still less last year, such as charging (8%), batteries (6%), buses (5%) and urban mobility (5%). Auto rickshaws, motorbikes and other two- and three-wheeled vehicles? Just 1%.

When I profiled Drive Electric back in 2022, director Rebecca Fisher acknowledged many people saw its name and thought the campaign was all about personal vehicles — which she stressed was far from the case. But back then, no numbers on funding were available in its annual report. Now it's plain for all to see where Drive Electric’s priorities lie. With sales of electric personal vehicles already well above the campaign’s 2026 goal of 15% in most regions (albeit not yet in the U.S.), based on Drive Electric’s tracking, it’s great to see philanthropic dollars pivot further. Perhaps there’s hope for the buses, ebikes, tuk-tuks and mopeds.

Climate philanthropy is heating up down under

Over the last few years, Australia has unexpectedly — at least to this outsider — become a notable presence in climate philanthropy. Mining magnate Andrew Forrest and tech tycoon Mike Cannon-Brookes have joined the ranks of billionaires promising big bucks. The Sunrise Project — wholly separate from the U.S.-based Sunrise Movement — has become a fundraising powerhouse. And now there’s a new report tracking climate philanthropy down under.

“High-Impact Climate Giving in Australia,” published this week by Giving Green Australia and Effective Altruism Australia Environment, offers a take on grantmakers’ best options in the country. There’s certainly plenty of need: Out of 60-some countries rated by the Climate Change Performance Index, Australia ranks 50th, one spot above China. The 37-page report says philanthropy should focus on decarbonizing industrial exports, which it rates highly on measures like global impact and comparative advantage, as well as classic effective altruism criteria like neglectedness and tractability. It argues for broadly backing green heavy industries, such as iron and steel, aluminum, ammonia and hydrogen. 

In the report’s analysis, the battle against the country’s much-criticized coal and natural gas industry is both less politically viable and less neglected. Other policy goals — accelerating alternative proteins, reducing vehicle emissions, improving land management — also rated lower. We will see if this advice — and its effective altruist orientation — captures the ears of those big new pledgers.

Did I omit your report? Let me know.