Climate Philanthropy Giants Launch $180 Million Fund to Implement Federal Legislation

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Editor's Note: This article was originally published on July 18, 2023.

Five of the nation’s largest climate funders have officially launched a $180 million fund to convert last year’s historic climate legislation and other major bills into on-the-ground community investments, following months of presentations to prospective partners and widespread rumors within the field about the forthcoming fund.

Called Invest in Our Future, the fund has not yet hired a full staff but has started pumping money into the field, including more than $20 million issued by its partners early this summer and a recently approved $30 million set of grants, with each round made up of roughly 15 grantees.

Through its grantmaking, the fund aims to ensure that all communities can access the more than $1 trillion in public and private investment expected to be sparked by three recent federal bills — the Inflation Reduction Act, Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the CHIPS and Science Act. The first represents the largest investment in climate action in U.S. history, and the other two include substantial related funding, as well. 

Invest in Our Future, which plans to grant $60 million annually over the next three years, is headed by four legacy funders — William and Flora Hewlett, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur, David and Lucile Packard, and Rockefeller foundations — along with Bill Gates’ investment platform Breakthrough Energy, which also makes grants. Rockefeller’s subsidiary, RF Catalytic Capital, is the fund’s fiscal sponsor and, as is common, will charge a 4% management fee. 

The fund marks a new phase for U.S. climate philanthropy, which focused much of its support over the last decade-plus on advancing policy efforts, sometimes nationally or internationally, but increasingly at state and local levels due to the near impossibility of passing federal legislation. The trio of COVID-era bills will test all climate funders’ ability to pivot toward policy implementation and to anticipate potential barriers to success.

“This is such an extraordinary opportunity,” said Deborah Philbrick, a program officer in MacArthur’s Climate Solutions initiative who is on the fund’s management team. “What is philanthropy’s job if not to make sure that the window of opportunity is really seized?”

The fund’s early steps, as one might expect, have given rise to disagreements over its approach. Multiple sources shared concerns that the fund is focusing on helping organizations apply for funding without also building grassroots pressure on reluctant state and local government officials to pursue the funds, which critics fear will leave vulnerable communities in some regions behind. Several also expressed concerns that the fund’s first leader, Aimee Witteman, a veteran of the Department of Energy, as well as the McKnight and Energy foundations, departed in May after only five months in the position. Organizers say it’s too early to judge the effort and emphasize that equitable access to federal funding is a major concern for the fund.

While the tensions are a sign of the high stakes, after whole careers spent trying to pass legislation, funders across climate philanthropy are enthused by the potential and possibilities of the moment. David Beckman, president of Pisces Foundation, applauded large foundations for mounting a coordinated response. 

“It's critical that funding match the peerless importance of the issue, the scale of the opportunity, and the sheer number of NGOs that are going to be involved,” said Beckman, who was briefed about the fund by organizers but is not involved. “The IRA is unlike anything that our communities have ever attempted to implement.”

Where’s the money going so far? 

Invest in Our Future’s big-picture goal is to make the maddeningly complicated task of applying for federal funding accessible to more groups, particularly those who may be unaware of these opportunities or who lack experience in such applications. The fund aims to help more communities successfully navigate that process, and related challenges like meeting permitting requirements and ensuring federal dollars create economic benefits for all.

But who is the fund actually backing? So far, it has made four of its grantees public: the multi-donor Families and Workers Fund, formed in the early days of COVID to provide rapid support; the Alliance for Tribal Clean Energy, a Native-led nonprofit previously known as the Indigenous Energy Initiative; the Rural Climate Partnership, a project of the Heartland Fund to back clean energy in rural communities; and Rewiring America, which helps Americans electrify their homes and businesses.

“A lot of this was timing,” said Carrie Doyle, a Hewlett program officer on the fund’s management team, adding that the grantees reflected work that was “more fully developed.” The rest of the fund’s grantees have not been released publicly, pending notification of recipients, but fund organizers shared a list with IP on the condition that we not publish names yet. Other grantees include a variety of networks and alliances, most working with individuals and communities to expand access to clean energy and the benefits of climate spending, as well as a smaller number of think tanks and policy shops.

Future funding may flow to work in the Southeast, Midwest and Interior West, according to Doyle. “Those have been three regions where we’ve started to go a little bit deeper,” she said, adding that implementation will differ in each region based on local preferences.

Who is behind this fund? 

Invest in Our Future’s top backers are known, but the fund’s day-to-day leader remains to be determined. Witteman, its initial leader, departed after five months.

Witteman, who built the climate grantmaking program at McKnight Foundation during a decade-long stay at the Midwestern funder, and later spent 14 months at the Department of Energy, led the launch of the fund as an Energy Foundation fellow starting in January, according to LinkedIn. But she left in May 2023. 

“Aimee is an incredible leader and thinks about problems in a really three-dimensional way,” said Philbrick. “We're all extremely, not only grateful, but proud of the work that she did.” Witteman and the fund’s backers declined to comment on the reason for her departure.

A search is now on for a new executive director, led by executive staffing firm Isaacson, Miller. According to the backers, the fund is also hiring for an operations manager, managing director, program manager, grants manager and executive assistant. 

To recruit more backers, the team has held conversations and briefings with a wide range of foundations during its opening months, according to multiple sources. Philbrick, for example, said she has been in contact with community foundations working in every region of the United States.

But to date, other than the five lead funders, the only supporter listed on the fund’s recently launched website is the High Tide Foundation. However, the executive director job description indicated “several additional funders have made smaller contributions.”

How much money is involved?

Invest in Our Future will spend $60 million annually over the next three years, with contributions from partners varying. Hewlett has committed $40 million over three years, while MacArthur has pledged $20 million over that period, both contributions representing increases to the foundations’ regularly planned climate funding. Packard will contribute $25 million total, and Rockefeller will put in $20 million over the fund’s term as part of its scheduled grantmaking, as well as in-kind staff support for RF Catalytic Capital.

Breakthrough Energy declined to share its contribution, but the fund’s executive job posting indicated each managing partner contributed at least $20 million to the fund.

Even more implementation funding will be available from at least some of its partners through aligned grants coming directly from the foundations. For instance, MacArthur will spend $10 million over the three years in grants for implementation, all above its budgeted spending, while Hewlett plans to make an additional $20 million annually in aligned grants.

Organizers also hope the fund will get significantly bigger. One measure of that ambition comes from the job posting, which states a goal of raising and spending $500 million over three years. Another comes from Philbrick: “It’s just as much as we can, as fast as we can,” she said, adding that the backers would do their utmost to be  “responsible philanthropists and not send people off the cliff” in terms of financial support.

Concerns about equity

With tens of millions yet to be spent, and few public details, it’s hard to size up Invest in Our Future’s approach to date. But we did hear some familiar tensions among climate grantmakers about whether the fund is taking the best path, particularly when it comes to ensuring equity. 

Philanthropy infamously invested heavily in a high-level technocratic push for climate legislation back in 2008 and 2009 in a failed gambit to bypass political division. Multiple postmortems have since argued for a broad-based movement that includes communities long left out of mainstream environmentalism, particularly people of color. Funders now have largely upped such support, but to varying degrees, and differences over the strategic need for such funding remain a flashpoint in climate philanthropy.

Four sources who participated in briefings about the fund, all of whom requested anonymity to preserve relationships with its partners, shared similar concerns that the fund is prioritizing support for nonprofits applying for funding and, in its early steps, undervaluing the need for broad-based movements that will push state and local government officials to apply for federal funding. In particular, they pointed to regions where governments may be politically disinclined to tap into such funding, which could leave vulnerable and historically disinvested communities in those areas behind.

Asked about those concerns, Philbrick pointed to the structure of the IRA as ensuring diverse participation, Philbrick says. “If you were to design the policy in which the maximum number of people had to say yes, this would probably be it,” she said, adding that she feels “extremely confident” in the way equity has been incorporated into Invest in Our Future.

Philbrick and Doyle both said their foundations were squarely focused on addressing questions of equity in their work through the fund. The fund’s other partners also emphasized that focus in statements.

“For Hewlett, this opportunity and [the] need for philanthropic engagement in successful implementation really hinges on communities being able to … not just access federal dollars, but use them to support thriving communities as we go through this transition,” Doyle said. “That commitment has been clear from the beginning.” 

One notable foundation that opted not to join the effort is the Kresge Foundation, a longtime champion of equity in environmental philanthropy. Multiple sources cited Kresge’s choice as evidence of their concerns about the fund’s early approach. Asked about the decision, Lois DeBacker, managing director of Kresge’s environment program, shared a statement that praised foundations committing additional funding and said that her foundation would “align our efforts” with Invest in Our Future.

“Rather than invest in new pooled funds, we are focusing our efforts on what we do best — matching the expertise of our national, discipline-based programs with our understanding of place-based grantmaking and our deep commitment to ensure that public investments benefit low-wealth communities and communities of color,” she wrote.

Moving at the speed of philanthropy

Organizers of Invest in Our Future have been pleased by the pace of the initiative so far. Multiple funders — each with their own boards and funding processes — have made both commitments and grants in the tens of millions. Started in January, the fund is launching just over a half-year later. That process included conversations with “hundreds” of experts in economic development, climate and clean energy, Doyle added. 

By the standards of philanthropy, that is quick. That said, the Inflation Reduction Act was passed nearly 11 months ago. The private sector listed 100,000 new green jobs in the roughly five months after it was passed. Billions of dollars are committed to ramp up battery production and other impacted industries. Nonprofits have been eager to learn more about this fund — including repeatedly contacting me — for months.

Nor is Invest in Our Future the first to respond to the current flood of federal funding, though it is notable for its multiple, large partners. For example, Arnold Ventures launched an infrastructure initiative in May, while two funders with a rural focus, the Ford Family Foundation and T.L.L. Temple Foundation, are working to level the playing field for such communities.

“The leaps and bounds that climate philanthropy has made”

Invest in Our Future and the broader effort to make the most of the current bonanza of federal climate funding face both old challenges and new ones. 

Climate and environmental philanthropy has had stark internal differences of opinion on how much — to oversimplify the debate — technical versus movement funding is necessary. This effort must not only navigate that divide, but do so at a much-greater speed and scale than funders have historically worked.

“The IRA requires us to move quickly, but also to do it well, and to do it in a coordinated way — and that balance is very difficult,” Beckman said. “Reasonable people can see it differently as to how you maximize all the variables you're trying to maximize.”

At the same time, climate philanthropy has changed. Environmental justice is taken seriously by most major legacy foundations, even if actual funding levels vary. For instance, Hewlett, MacArthur and Packard foundations, in addition to making some big grants for climate justice, have committed to the transparency component of the Climate Funders Justice Pledge. Their funding for people-of-color-led environmental justice groups is still well below the recommended 30% level, but specific grants and greater openness demonstrate how the field is evolving. 

“Five years ago, I don’t think this type of conversation would be out in the open the way it is now,” Philbrick said of the critiques of the fund. “It shows the kind of leaps and bounds that climate philanthropy has made around deep understanding that you have to build power within communities to make sure that the policies are implemented well.”

Invest in Our Future is, in many ways, a symbol of how this moment is testing all of climate philanthropy. How well will this fast-growing field collaborate and coordinate? How smoothly can it remake itself as an implementing force? How fast can it move while also being inclusive of differing opinions? What lessons has it learned from past failures — and past exclusions? And how well will it anticipate new barriers and challenges? It’ll be some time before we know the answers.