OVERVIEW: Sea Change Foundation and its Bermuda-based counterpart, Sea Change Foundation International, fund climate change mitigation and clean energy policy in the U.S. and internationally. Current areas of interest include utility reform, business and finance, communications and public engagement, transportation, and energy efficiency.
IP TAKE: Sea Change Foundation and Sea Change Foundation International are major climate funders that punch above their weight through targeted investments in policy advocacy, market transformation, and large-scale decarbonization efforts. While annual giving has moderated in recent years, the foundations remain important backers of climate policy infrastructure and often provide substantial, multi-year support to established organizations and intermediaries. As IP climate reporter Michael Kavate has observed, Sea Change favors technocratic, policy-oriented approaches, making it a challenging prospect for smaller or grassroots organizations.
For grantseekers, alignment and relationships are critical. Because Sea Change does not accept unsolicited proposals, organizations are most likely to gain visibility through collaborations with current grantees, climate funding intermediaries, and major policy coalitions. Strong prospects typically demonstrate policy expertise, measurable climate impact, and the capacity to influence systems-level change at national or international scale. Note that this is one of several vehicles associated with the Simons family, who are also behind the Heising-Simons Foundation and the Foundation for a Just Society.
PROFILE: Based in San Francisco and Bermuda, respectively, the Sea Change Foundation and its international counterpart, Sea Change Foundation International, are the philanthropic vehicles of Nat Simons and his wife, Laura Baxter-Simons. Nat Simons, a billionaire, is the son of Renaissance Technologies co-founder Jim Simons, who died in 2024. Prior to establishing his own investment company, the Meritage Group, Nat Simons was a vice-chair at Renaissance. Both Nat and Laura graduated with advanced degrees from the University of California at Berkeley. Laura Baxter-Simons also holds a J.D. from Stanford Law School. Laura currently serves as general counsel at Meritage Group LP, a U.S.-based investment management firm. Both Nat and Laura are members of the the Giving Pledge. They have also co-founded Prelude Ventures, which is a venture capital firm that partners with entrepreneurs to address climate change, but also manages capital exclusively for Simons family philanthropic entities and is a founding member of the Breakthrough Energy Coalition.
Sea Change and Sea Change Foundation International both strive to “address the serious threats posed by global climate change” by funding mitigation initiatives and policy development. The foundations aim to work with “flexibility and urgency,” providing large grants to the most promising nonprofits, NGOs, social enterprises and collaborations, with acknowledgment that climate change funding must account for rapidly changing “shifts in strategy” and risk. The foundations’ current areas of focus include supporting efforts to reduce the use of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) in cooling systems as per the Kigali Amendment of the Montreal Protocol; encouraging large, global corporations to adopt climate friendly practices; decarbonizing the production of electricity in the American West; and accelerating clean transportation in Europe.
Grants for Climate Change and Clean Energy
Climate change mitigation and clean energy constitute Sea Change’s entire current funding portfolio. Its stated focus areas include utility reform, business and finance, communications and public engagement, transportation, and energy efficiency. The foundation seeks opportunities where philanthropy can influence both public policy and market behavior.
- Sea Change has been a significant philanthropic supporter of implementation of the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol, which phases down climate-warming HFC refrigerants. It joined 17 other foundations and donors in a $51 million commitment pairing HFC reductions with greater cooling efficiency, particularly in developing countries.
- Recent grantmaking is extremely concentrated. In 2024, Sea Change awarded $37.35 million through just nine grants. Three awards totaling $25.85 million went to the United States Energy Foundation, making it by far the year’s largest recipient. Other major awards included $5 million to the Building Decarbonization Coalition and $3 million each to Potential Energy Coalition and the Partnership Project.
- Sea Change was among the philanthropic funders that helped launch Climate Action 100+, an investor-led effort to engage major corporate greenhouse gas emitters. The initiative remains active in 2026, with more than 600 participating investors engaging 169 companies, although several prominent U.S. asset managers withdrew amid political and legal pressure beginning in 2024.corporations” that emit most of the greenhouse gases that cause climate change.
- The Sea Change Foundation’s recent grantmaking also focuses on utility transformation in the interior west of the U.S. Funding focuses on developing the region’s high potential sun and wind resources for power generation. Grantees include Western Resource Advocates and the Southwest Energy Efficiency Project.
- Sea Change Foundation has supported initiatives to accelerate clean transportation in Europe, with an emphasis on “policies that are helping to accelerate the transition to clean vehicles in Europe.”
- One grantee in this area, the European Climate Foundation, which was instrumental in the creation of the European Green Deal, “which sets a trajectory for transportation emissions to reach zero by 2050.”
- Sea Change has also funded the U.K.’s Carbon Tracker Initiative, “an independent financial think tank that carries out in-depth analysis on the impact of the energy transition on capital markets and the potential investment in high-cost, carbon-intensive fossil fuels.”
Grants for Public Engagement and Civic Participation
Communications, public engagement and civic participation are components of Sea Change’s climate strategy.
- Recent funding has supported organizations that educate and engage the public around climate, clean energy and democratic participation.
- Sea Change awarded $5.3 million to the League of Conservation Voters Education Fund in 2023 for climate and clean-energy public education.
Intermediary and Regranting Support
Sea Change has historically made grants to organizations such as Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, and its repeated large grants to the Energy Foundation also demonstrate a strong preference for organizations capable of coordinating or redistributing substantial climate funding.
Important Grant Details:
The Sea Change Foundation awarded $37.35 million through nine grants in 2024, down from $45.54 million in 2023 and $46.57 million in 2022. The foundation reported $208.5 million in total assets at year-end 2024. Individual grants ranged from $150,000 to $20.1 million, with a median grant size of about $3 million.
- Comparable annual grantmaking data are not readily available for Sea Change Foundation International. It is a Bermuda-based philanthropic organization rather than a U.S. private foundation and therefore does not file a U.S. Form 990-PF.
- Sea Change frequently renews support to established grantees over successive years, but the foundation says individual grant terms generally run for one year or less.
- Neither Sea Change Foundation nor Sea Change Foundation International accepts unsolicited funding requests.
- General inquiries may be submitted to info@seachange.org telephone at (415) 830-9330.
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