A Look at Eight Major Conservation Regrantors Based in the Global North

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Climate philanthropy infamously still accounts for less than 2% of all global giving, yet the total money spent on action has expanded substantially in recent years — and regrantors have been major beneficiaries of that growth.

With a new generation of billionaire climate donors pouring money into the field, funds focused on subsections of the space are seeing their fortunes rise. One particularly ascendant area? Conservation funds focused on the Global South, particularly those emphasizing Indigenous peoples, land rights and forest protection. 

Two massive philanthropic pledges show the scale of the funding in this space. First came the 10-year, $5 billion Protecting Our Planet Challenge, known as POP. Launched in late 2021, its philanthropic donors include several major players in this funding landscape, such as Bezos Earth Fund, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Moore Foundation and Wyss Foundation, as well as Arcadia, Bobolink Foundation and the Rob Walton Foundation. Two months later, a coalition announced a $1.7 billion pledge for Indigenous communities land tenure in tropical forests, with backers including multiple governments and foundations, including the POP pledgers. 

It’s a tight-knit funding landscape. Consider a $50 million slate of grants last year by Bezos Earth Fund for the Brazilian Amazon. The list of grantees included Nia Tero, Rainforest Trust and Re:wild. All three, along with Bezos, are members of POP. Another award went to Rainforest Foundation Norway, a major grantee of the Norwegian government, which, like Bezos, is part of the $1.7 billion pledge. 

On top of such connections, research from these groups and others helps guide decision-making by grantmakers. The funds in this space also have direct links with each other, with some originating as spin-offs of others and many working closely together and sharing the same funders. 

Another important commonality? Many of the fastest-growing global regrantor funds in this space are based in the Global North. All four Bezos grantees mentioned above are based in the United States or Europe, as are several of the other top conservation regrantors.

To map this emerging group of grantmakers and their rise, I’ve assembled a list of Global North-based funds. I chose the ones that came up most often in my recent coverage as well as in conversations about this space, both with funders and with several of the regrantors listed below. As noted above, the named funds largely focus on similar groups — Indigenous peoples, Afro-descendant peoples, local communities — and on securing land tenure or other rights-based protection of forests, usually tropical rainforests. 

The fact that these funds are based in the Global North, of course, is a contentious matter — and a complex one. Power dynamics inevitably come into play when Global North-based groups back work in the Global South, and can carry colonial echoes. Yet such regrantors can also play a critical and welcomed role in navigating between those worlds, often with practices designed to address imbalances, and the guidance of staff and leaders from those communities. 

Recently, several coalitions have formed aiming to push more money directly to regrantors headquartered in the Global South, such as Shandia and Alianza Socioambiental Fondos del Sur, which I recently profiled. (That’s a trend I aim to review in a future piece.) There’s also been renewed attention on what percentage of such funding actually goes directly to Indigenous communities, with the funders of the $1.7 billion pledge making notable tracking efforts. 

Another big takeaway: Funding for these operations is growing. Among those that share their grantmaking data, nearly all have awarded far more in recent years, with many doubling how much they moved out the door between 2019 and 2022. This is in line with foundation funding for the field as a whole: Philanthropies granted $3.7 billion for climate change mitigation in 2022, according to ClimateWorks Foundation, more than double such funding in 2019. 

As usual, this list could be longer. There are other Global North operations that do similar grantmaking, such as Forest Peoples Programme or Landesa (a MacKenzie Scott grantee), and there are many that fund such issues as one branch of their work, such as the Global Alliance for Green and Gender Action, known as GAGGA, or the CLIMA Fund and its partners, like Thousand Currents and Global Greengrants Fund.

Finally, I’ll note that for simplicity’s sake I’ve used the word “regrantor” as well as “fund” to describe these operations, though not all of them use those terms themselves.

Climate and Land Use Alliance

Originally a product of ClimateWorks Foundation and other backers, this funder collaborative is one of the longest-running philanthropic-led efforts to ensure forests and land use benefit both people and the climate. Founded in 2010, the group focuses on Indonesia, Mexico and Central America, and Colombia and Peru, as well as the planet as a whole. 

Members of this San Francisco-based collaborative, which is known as CLUA, include the Packard, Ford, Moore and Good Energies foundations, while Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies provides aligned funding. Most recently, it got a major infusion from Steve and Connie Ballmer, who pledged $118 million to CLUA through their Ballmer Group in 2022, an award that accounted for about half of the couple’s first-ever round of climate awards (but not their last).

Forest, People, Climate

Launched in 2022 and hosted by the Climate and Land Use Alliance (see above), this collaborative is focused on halting and reversing tropical deforestation. It centers its work on three geographies — the Brazilian Amazon, Congo Basin and Indonesia — with overlapping strategies related to carbon markets, Indigenous people and local communities, private finance, communications and more. (Wondering exactly what it does in relation to CLUA? There’s an FAQ.)

Its goal is to mobilize $2 billion over five years and it has already secured $780 million in commitments. In addition to CLUA’s members and supporters, this network’s philanthropic backers include Children’s Investment Fund, the Grantham, Hewlett, Joseph and Vera Long, Klarman Family and Skoll foundations, as well as Instituto Arapyaú and Vere Initiatives. 

Nia Tero

From its headquarters in Seattle, this regrantor supports Indigenous peoples across Amazonia, North America and islands in the Pacific Ocean. Like many on this list, it’s growing fast. It granted $17 million in 2022, up from $13.1 million the year before, and nearly double its totals in the two years before that.

Established in 2017, Nia Tero’s funders include the MacArthur Foundation, Mulago Foundation and Emerson Collective. It’s recently received major grants from MacKenzie Scott and, as noted above, Jeff Bezos. Both it and Bezos are POP members.

Rainforest Foundations: Norway, U.K., U.S

This trio of intermediaries was founded in 1989 under the name The Rainforest Foundation by 17-time Grammy winner Sting and his wife, Trudie Styler. Now three separate independent organizations, each has a slightly different geographic focus, but they collectively cover Central Africa, South America and the Amazon, and Southeast Asia and Oceania. In short, regions with rainforests. Most of the action takes place at the Norway branch, whose expenses totaled approximately $33 million in 2022, while the U.K. branch’s budget was about $3 million and U.S.’s nearly $9 million in 2022, including $3.6 million in grants.

The Bezos Earth Fund’s grants to the Norway branch make Bezos the latest big philanthropy to back one of that group, a list that includes the Ford Foundation, Good Energies Foundation, Climate Land Use Alliance, Sobrato Philanthropies and Hans Wilsdorf Foundation. RFUK backers have included the Arcus Foundation and Swire Charitable Trust. Support for all three has also flowed through a fourth organization in the group, Rainforest Fund, which has recruited stars like Elton John as fundraisers.

Rainforest Trust

Founded in 1988 under another name, this nonprofit rebranded as the Rainforest Trust in 2013. Based in Warrenton, Virginia, it focuses on creating protected areas around the world. Its IRS fillings list $26 million in grants in 2022, roughly in line with what it granted during the two prior years, but a substantial increase from its earlier years.

Like several members of this list, it is a member of POP, to which it pledged $500 million by 2030. Based on its reporting, it invested more than $112 million across 63 projects related to the pledge between 2021 and 2022. 

Re:wild

This regrantor has perhaps the most complicated backstory of any on this list. Once known as Global Wildlife Conservation, it was given its present name in 2021, when it combined forces with the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation’s environmental arm. The Hollywood star is not the only big-name backer; Laurene Powell Jobs and private equity titan Brian Sheth are also on board. It listed $40.5 million in grants in its most recent fiscal year, down from $46 million the year before, but a large jump from about $24 million annually in the prior two years.

From its headquarters in Austin, the group works with more than 500 partners, largely in Indigenous communities, across more than 80 countries. As its name suggests, its focus is on protecting and restoring wilderness and wildlife, as well as supporting individuals that protect forests, known as guardians. It partners with or runs global and local campaigns and funds on topics like lions, sharks, the Galápagos and the commercial wildlife trade. It is also a member of the Protecting Our Planet Challenge.

Rights and Resources Initiative

This Washington, D.C.-based network comprises 21 partners and more than 150 organizations, mainly in Africa, Asia and Latin America, that work on land tenure resource rights. Founded in 2005, its funders include the Bezos Earth Fund, Quadrature Climate Foundation, Skoll Foundation, Sobrato Philanthropies and Wellspring Philanthropic Fund.

The Rights and Resources Initiative had a big year in 2022. First, the group, in partnership with the Wyss Campaign for Nature, launched an initiative known as CLARIFI to channel money directly to Indigenous peoples and communities. A few months later, it announced it had received $15 million from MacKenzie Scott, part of a wider slate of Scott gifts to climate and Indigenous regrantors. It also granted $2.8 million in 2022, up from $1.8 million the year before and $1.3 million in 2020.

The Tenure Facility

Originally formed by the Rights and Resources Initiative (see above), this group makes grants in countries across Central and South America, Africa and Southeast Asia. Headquartered in Stockholm, it is known for providing large grants, typically at least $10 million a year for 10 years, with each grantee usually receiving $1 million or more. Formally known as the International Land and Forest Tenure Facility, most references use its shorter name.

The organization was significantly boosted by its selection as an Audacious Project awardee, leading to grants by MacKenzie Scott (amount undisclosed) and Steve and Connie Ballmer ($12 million over five years). It has also had legacy foundation backers, such as the Ford Foundation, which has awarded it more than $11 million and helped seed the group’s launch in 2017. It has grown rapidly since then. The Tenure Facility granted $26 million to 32 projects in 18 countries in 2023, according to its annual report, up from $12 million the year before and $5.1 million in 2021.