How a Couple Became Major Climate Donors with a Game-Changing Gift to Cut Industrial Emissions

Jill Kearney

At first, Jill Kearney thought she had misheard.

Rebecca Dell, head of ClimateWorks Foundation’s industry program, had just explained that the $20 million donation from Kearney and her husband, Stephen McDonnell, made them the largest single philanthropic funders of efforts to reduce industrial emissions. 

“I thought, that can’t possibly be true,” she told me. A small part of her was proud. The donation to ClimateWorks was their first significant climate donation and by far the biggest gift the couple had made since the 2015 sale of the company her husband founded, Applegate Farms, left them with the means to give so much away. 

“The other part of me was just mortified. That shouldn’t be. That’s revolting. I was very upset to hear it. And that’s why I agreed to this interview,” she told me, in one of the rare times Kearney has spoken with the press about her philanthropy. 

The donation is an illustration of the vast amount of need remaining when it comes to climate funding, but also how significant sources of carbon emissions remain mind-bogglingly underfunded. Individual donors, even those whose wealth does not reach into billions, can still make profoundly influential gifts.

Industry — which spans areas like aluminum, mining and petrochemicals — accounts for 24% of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to the IPCC. It also includes concrete, which is the world’s most used building material and the topic that drew Kearney to support the sector. Cement alone — the most energy-intensive ingredient in concrete — accounts for about one-third of industrial emissions. Yet foundation grants for climate mitigation within industry averaged just $25 million annually between 2015 and 2020, according to ClimateWorks, which tracks climate funding.

Dell contrasts that with the amount spent on road transportation, which accounts for as much as 15% of global emissions, based on International Energy Agency data. It has received more than twice as much on average from philanthropy, around two-thirds of all transportation funding, or $53 million annually. And one of the field’s biggest grantmakers — the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation — has set out to raise a whole lot more. Add to that the extensive private sector and government attention on electrifying cars, trucks and buses. 

“Think about how many hundreds of organizations and thousands of people and hundreds of millions of dollars that are being spent on electric vehicles and cleaning up road transportation,” Dell told me. “That’s a big part of what makes Jill’s gift so powerful.”

“This long-term underinvestment means that there are fewer organizations, there are fewer experts, there’s less policymaker awareness,” she said.

Kearney and McDonnell represent a class of donors that has received less attention in both philanthropy and mainstream media. Billionaire after billionaire has made massive climate pledges in the last couple years, including John Doerr, who gave $1.1 billion to Stanford University, a gift announced last week. Yet even amid a flood of such mega-donors, mere millionaires can still make transformative climate gifts.

After all, there’s a lot more of them. Educated guesses put the number of billionaires in the United States at fewer than 1,000 (still a lot!), but there were nearly 22 million millionaires as of 2020, according to a study by Credit Suisse. It’s hard to say if that adds up to more total assets, but with annual funding for many key climate areas still totaling in the millions, there’s a lot of highly impactful grantmaking still to be done. Not to mention, individual donations — from the $5 to $50 variety on up — can add up to make a huge difference when it comes to climate mitigation, outnumbering foundation gifts as much as four to one, according to ClimateWorks.

The couple — once dubbed the “Sausage King and Queen” by the New York Times — are also members of a fast-widening circle of first-time climate donors and those making their first major donations in response to this global emergency. Many of the reasons that led Kearney to act have pushed other families to do the same: powerful storms close to home, the example of other grantmakers big and small, and a growing sense of doom; these motivations may lead to more giving in the months and years ahead.

As Kearney put it, “It’s been slowly dawning on me that the world’s pants are on fire.” 

From barn fundraisers to a multimillion-dollar climate gift

Philanthropy still feels new for Kearney. She went to college on a scholarship. Her parents were artists whose Depression-era upbringing led them to save every scrap of string and tinfoil when she was growing up. Prior to selling their business, one of the couple’s main forms of philanthropy, if you can call it that, was hosting political fundraisers in their barn. “I didn’t ever anticipate being in this situation,” the 64-year-old said.

Then her husband sold Applegate Farms, which he had grown from a smokehouse into a national organic meat vendor, to Hormel for $775 million. It changed what was possible. (Kearney said they received “considerably less” than that figure after investors, employees and the government received their shares.)

Their first forays in grantmaking took a “buckshot approach” based on “whatever lovely thing tumbled into my path,” she said. The couple funded a chocolate cooperative in Ecuador, well-drilling in Kenya, and helped rebuild a temple in Bhutan. Art was also a major cause. Kearney founded and runs ArtYard, an arts center that includes a theater, incubator and residency program for emerging artists. 

She is now trying to be more systematic, but in a way, climate change has also blown across their path — and in one case nearly blew it away. 

In the past year, the couple’s home has been hit twice by extreme weather. In June, a tornado cut a 180-degree arc around their house, reducing more than three dozen old-growth trees to splinters. Two months later, Hurricane Ida struck. A friend whose home was damaged sheltered with them for months, and Kearney had a harrowing trip over a bridge leading to their property after the storm washed away its asphalt. “It’s come very close to home,” she said. 

Kearney and her husband maintain separate funds they can use for philanthropy. “I find that it’s challenging to agree on things,” she said. One demonstration of their independence is that Jill Kearney, the former Sausage Queen, is now “97%” vegetarian. But for the most part she’s taken the lead on their philanthropy. “It’s harder for him, after building a company, to have everything flow the other way,” she said. “It’s not really his bailiwick.”

To get her bearings on climate, she started by reading “Drawdown,” the 2017 book that lays out a detailed plan to confront global warming. A shot-in-the-dark email to Jonathan Foley, the author and executive director of the related nonprofit, led her to the Climate Leadership Initiative, a ClimateWorks spinoff that offers free advice to major donors on funding in the sector. 

Webinars, readings and several conversations with CLI gave her a “crash course” in climate philanthropy, Kearney said. She was ultimately attracted to “unsexy” topics like concrete and refrigeration that have outsized impact and undersized funding. Then it was about choosing how much to give.

“It’s sort of like trying to psych yourself up to run a marathon,” she told me. “I start with a number that isn’t that scary. And then I think, ‘Well, what if I doubled that? What if I doubled that again?’ And I try to get to a number that’s kind of overwhelming but that I know I can handle.” 

“This was a huge step for us,” Kearney added. “We’ve given a lot of money away, but we’ve never done this much in one fell swoop.”

Having made their wealth in agriculture, the couple did consider what they might do in that area, looking into projects like creating more sustainable hog farms or recycling methane. “Each idea was an entrepreneurial rabbit hole,” Kearney said. Her husband, who suffered a severe stroke about a year before selling the company, was not ready to dive into another business venture. While they did invest in some related projects, such as mycelium-based meats, for her, such pursuits were not “burning in my heart,” she said.

Ledelle Moe, From the series “Erosion.” Photo by Elsa Mora

The ClimateWorks gift was not, incidentally, the first time she had been drawn to concrete. A little before she made the ClimateWorks gift, she came across the work of Ledelle Moe. The South African artist makes massive sculptures from the material, such as heads that are 28 feet tall. All are displayed on their sides, as if toppled by war or revolution, or yet to be erected. Kearney’s nonprofit ultimately bought five of her works that were destined for a Manhattan show that was canceled due to COVID. They’re now in ArtYard’s permanent collection.

“I didn’t really make the connection, but I was very moved by these pieces,” Kearney said. 

The fondness is not without a touch of guilt. Learning more about the climate impact of concrete left her hesitant about any use of the material, particularly during recent construction of a new building at ArtYard. But she noted the sculptures are hollow with a “thin veneer” of concrete over a steel structure.

What ClimateWorks will do with the gift

Past philanthropic funding on industrial emissions has largely gone to long-term public policy efforts broadly known as Buy Clean, according to Dell. That’s because governments are leading purchasers of such products. 

For instance, federal, state and local governments in the U.S. purchase nearly half of all of concrete. Other wealthy countries’ rates are around 35% to 40%. Taxpayer-funded purchases also typically account for about 20% of steel. 

With the new gift, which is spread over two years, ClimateWorks’ Industry program will back a variety of measures to support clean concrete and building materials, including expanding its Buy Clean work. A key aim is to create bigger markets for materials, particularly via government purchases. The goal is to foster scaled-up production and improved efficiency to open the door for wider adoption. ClimateWorks will also do parallel outreach and education within the private sector. One hope is to have an immediate impact on emissions by spreading the word of existing alternatives.

An example is LC3, a cement formulation that uses limestone and calcined clay. Research shows it can be manufactured by the same or similar facilities at a lower cost than traditional mixtures and that it reduces greenhouse gas emissions by up to 40%, with no changes in construction or design practices necessary, according to Dell.

“In terms of near-term opportunities, what we can do tomorrow, that’s one of the best examples we have,” she said.

ClimateWorks also plans to look at how to reduce the pollution produced by concrete production. One focus is reducing emissions from cement kilns, whose numbers are limited, but which generate heavy metal and sulphur oxide fumes. Another is ready-mix concrete plants. Needed wherever there are construction sites nearby, they generate an enormous amount of dust, and are a hub for diesel exhaust from the stream of trucks going in and out.

“I have no business deciding who’s doing game-changing work”

Kearney has a favorite word to describe her approach to life, and by extension, her giving philosophy: anosognosia. For her, the mental health term reflects her conviction that “I know enough to know what I don’t know.” Instead, she looks for experts. “Figure out who knows what they’re talking about and get out of the way,” she said. 

The couple’s philanthropy, operating as the Sprocket Foundation, is guided by the same principle. Founded in 2007, the Erwinna, Pennsylvania-based foundation gave away $1.8 million last year out of an endowment of around $25 million. Focused on topics like criminal justice and racial equity, it sends money largely to community-led groups by way of progressive intermediaries. 

Some top recipients include Borealis Philanthropy’s Black-Led Movements Fund and Proteus Fund’s Rise Together Fund, as well as similar work at places like Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice, Neo Philanthropy and Common Counsel Foundation.

“I have no business deciding who’s doing game-changing work in social justice in cities around America, but I can find the people who do know,” she said.

Kearney has a number of philanthropic guides. She is a follower of John Hunting, an heir to the Steelcase furniture fortune, who advocates a spend-down model of philanthropy, which he did with his own foundation, the Beldon Fund. She’s also part of Threshold Foundation, a network of progressive philanthropists. And reading a book by Peter Singer — who emphasizes the multiplier effect of talking about your philanthropy — pushed her to speak about her ClimateWorks donation. 

Most recently, she’s been inspired by novelist MacKenzie Scott, who has all but broken land speed records in the pace of her giving, not to mention its no-strings-attached style. “She’s the bomb,” Kearney said. “I hope she’s worming her way into everyone’s consciousness.”

The couple also have three children, Nora, Kearney and Flannery, who are 30, 28 and 26, respectively. One is a death penalty attorney, another is studying social work, and the third works with adults with developmental disabilities. All are members of Resource Generation, a progressive group that organizes wealthy young people. Kearney calls them “my best philanthropy models.”

All of those influences helped lead her to this gift. It not only makes her and her husband the biggest supporters of climate-oriented industry interventions, but also puts them ahead of some billionaires, not just in terms of the share of their wealth, but even the raw amount going out the door.

Kearney has no plans to create an elaborate climate funding apparatus, but she does anticipate more gifts down the road. Getting ArtYard off the ground has been more than a full-time job, but once she catches her breath she “absolutely, absolutely” intends to give more to climate. Some other unsexy topics, refrigeration and food waste, are leading candidates.

In the meantime, she hopes sharing her story will prompt others to act — and see that now matter how busy they are, they can get started now.

“They don’t realize there are systems in place to help them,” Kearney said. “They don’t have to start a foundation. They don’t have to have a board. They don’t have to do all those things.”