Energy Foundation
/OVERVIEW: The Energy Foundation supports organizations that promote clean energy and clean energy jobs, energy efficiency, and carbon emissions reduction. Its priorities include clean transportation, energy markets, energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies. As well, it invests in grants for security, grants for public health, and grants for climate education as they relate to building a cleaner future.
IP TAKE: While the Energy Foundation does not offer unsolicited grant opportunities, preferring to choose its own grantees, don’t hesitate to contact it and see if your work aligns with its priorities. If it does, introduce your project to get on its radar. The foundation also tends to invest in medium-sized or larger, established organizations with a national impact; however, it funds plenty of smaller outfits.
This funder often gives multi-year support for its grantees, so it’s funding space is crowded and competitive. The Energy Foundation, as a partnership between several organizations, has deep pockets and still funds new grantees each year.
PROFILE: In 1991, the Rockefeller Foundation, John D. MacArthur Foundation, and the Pew Charitable Trusts joined to form the Energy Foundation. Though its headquartered in San Francisco, it maintains regional offices in Raleigh, North Carolina; Chicago; Washington, D.C., and Las Vegas. The Joyce Mertz-Gilmore, McKnight, and David and Lucile Packard Foundations have joined in order to secure a “clean and equitable energy future to tackle the climate crisis.” In 2019, the foundation gave 58 million in grants. Today it invests in energy optimization; renewable energy; health; transportation efficiency and greenhouse gases; and ensuring market access for new energies.
The foundation, through its work, envisions a “healthy, safe, equitable economy powered by clean energy.” It believes this crucial work is centered on a “clean energy economy” that has the power to ‘create sustainable opportunities, spur innovation, and protect our climate—for today and future generations.” To this end, the foundation supports work that aligns with its vision for transformational impact through an equity lens.
Grants for Clean Energy, Work Development and Public Health
While the Energy Foundation does not have a distinct program dedicated to climate change, it conducts related grantmaking through a sustainability lens across its initiatives. In its strategies, the foundation believes that that developing a clean energy economy is the way to create a large-scale transition around the globe. The foundation targets climate change by developing access to green jobs; improving health outcomes for vulnerable people impacted by a changing climate; and increasing national security by addressing the climate’s influence on the government’s ability to keep up with changing climate risk multipliers. As a result, the foundation views the road to a clean economy as one that considers the relationship between a rapidly changing global climate, public health, jobs, and security. In this vein, the foundation also makes grants for security and grants for public health as they relate to building a cleaner future. As well, the foundation prioritizes facilitating the work of grantseekers addressing renewable energy technologies, efficient and clean transportation, energy efficiency, and energy markets.
The foundation cites the annual U.S. Energy and Employment Report to support its narrative on bolstering a green economy – “From construction workers to solar installers to energy auditors, the fast-growing clean energy industry is providing well-paying American jobs—and the momentum continues.”
To facilitate its work, the Energy Foundation employs a variety of strategies. It believes in and funds grantmaking that not only develops a clean economy, but also: invests in sound policy, works to engage the public, communicates the foundation’s mission, and empowers local expertise. So, grantseekers whose work addresses any facet of these goals, including grants for green education, may have some luck in securing a grant from the Energy Foundation.
Clean energy and climate change-related grantees include Fresh Energy; Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc.; United Nations Foundation, project of U.S. Climate Alliance; Conservation Law Foundation, Inc.; KEEA Energy Education Fund; Partnership Project, Inc.; Resource Media, a Nonprofit Corporation; Western Resource Advocates; University of Maryland; American Lung Association of the Upper Midwest; Green Tech Action Fund; Minnesota Housing Finance Agency; the Tides Center, a project of Western Clean Energy Campaign; Climate Solutions; League of Conservation Voters Fund; Build It Green; and Pembina Institute for Appropriate Development, among many others.
Important Grant Details:
The Energy Foundation’s grants range in amount from $5,000 to $3 million; however, grants typically fall in the $50,000 to $300,000 range. The Energy Foundation only funds organizations based in or serving located in the United States; however, this work has a global effect. Grantees tend to be mid-sized or large and established. To learn more about the Energy Foundation’s grantees, explore its searchable grants database.
The Energy Foundation does not accept unsolicited requests for funding or letters of inquiry. Instead, it identities its own funding opportunities; however, it has several ways of contacting its staff.
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