Bridgespan Looks to Inspire “A Mass Rush Off the Sidelines” for Climate Philanthropy

Donors often tell the Bridgespan Group that they think climate philanthropy is really hard. It’s complicated and no one knows what will work, they say. And they don’t feel like their money will make any difference.

That’s the impression I got from reading the influential consulting firm’s new report, “Winning on Climate Change: How Philanthropy Can Spur Major Progress over the Next Decade,” and speaking with two of its authors.

To my ears, such complaints — not that Bridgespan characterizes them that way — sound a lot like people with more money than they could ever use sitting on it, and their hands, as flood, famine and fire storm the globe. Yes, climate philanthropy can feel overwhelming. But in so many words, the report’s authors say that there’s a lot of brilliant and passionate people already doing great work, but without enough money. As the report notes, “you don’t have to be an expert to begin giving.”

“Across every bucket of the climate space, you have massive underfunding relative to need,” said Noah Deich, deputy assistant secretary for the U.S. Department of Energy’s office of carbon management, in an interview with Bridgespan’s team. “The only wrong answer is doing nothing.”

Through the report, Bridgespan aims to convince climate-curious big-dollar donors to step up. Or, as I would put it, to put their big-kid pants on and just write some checks already. Bridgespan condenses the complexities of climate philanthropy into three essential points: back big goals early, fund collaboratively through existing groups, and equitably implement laws and policies, especially the new U.S. climate bills. While that cannot possibly cover everything, I found it an elegant and helpful framework.

“We don’t have the time to coax this sector along. What we’re trying to do is inspire a mass rush off the sidelines,” said Henry Platt, a Bridgespan partner and one of the report’s seven co-authors.

The consulting firm is far from the first to make this case. The Aspen Institute published a similar report this spring. McKinsey put out one out in 2021. Then there’s the Climate Leadership Initiative, which has spent years bringing megadonors into the fold, and contributed a page of tips to the report. The first one? “Act quickly while continuing to learn.” My read? Get off your butts. Inside Philanthropy, too, has been making the case for billionaire donors to wake up to the climate crisis for years.

All that pressure is needed, and a whole lot more. The report cites a shocking — but not all that surprising — 2022 Center for Effective Philanthropy survey finding: While some 80% of foundations call climate change an “urgent” issue that will negatively impact their work, roughly the same percentage also don’t see the emergency as within their giving purview. Then there’s ClimateWorks Foundation’s finding that just 2% of global philanthropy goes to climate action. Not only are funders not acting — as my colleague Tate Williams has laid out, U.S. philanthropy’s historical preference to remain above the fray by shying away from anything resembling the “political” is arguably one reason among many that things have gotten so bad on climate.

“We were just perplexed,” said Brian Burwell, another author and Bridgespan partner, in reference to the survey figures. The team knew complexity, political concerns and uncertainty about how to get started all played a part, but they also saw a gap. “What’s missing from this space is more of a positive story.”

The authors compiled a list of the 10 greatest successes the climate movement has achieved thus far, based on milestones mentioned by four or more of its interviewees. All, in Bridgespan’s telling, were accomplished with the help of philanthropy.

Examples include the global youth movement’s impact on public opinion; the Beyond Coal campaign to close coal-fired power plants across the U.S.; the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, the largest climate bill in the nation’s history; the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol, an international agreement restricting planet-warming hydrofluorocarbons; and the growing recognition of Indigenous peoples and local communities’ vital role in land preservation and emissions reductions.

Drawing from about 50 interviews, the report features voices from major climate funders, like Bezos Earth Fund, Bloomberg Philanthropies and the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation, as well as at regrantors like Climate Imperative, Rights and Resources Initiative and Hive Fund. There are also quotes from leaders at nonprofits like Natural Resources Defense Council and WE ACT for Environmental Justice.

The report was funded by ClimateWorks Foundation and the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation, whose representatives were also interviewed. One of the seven authors, Bridgespan partner Sonali Patel, also co-authored an IP op-ed last year arguing for funders to back feminist movements as a response to climate change.

Using the report’s three guiding principles, but putting them in my own words, here are some additional thoughts on how funders can get off the sidelines, drawing on IP’s own coverage of climate giving as well as Bridgespan’s recommendations.

1. Fund big dreams when they’re still seeds, from all types of dreamers

For examples of this concept — which Bridgespan spelled out as “invest in early efforts connected to a big goal” — one need look no further than the headlines. Sixteen young people in Montana won a landmark climate lawsuit earlier this month after a judge found that the state’s approval of fossil fuel projects without considering climate change was unconstitutional.

The nonprofit law firm behind the suit, Our Children’s Trust, got started in 2010 after its founder saw no one taking on such cases, according to a profile in the Chronicle of Philanthropy. While most of the nonprofit’s support comes from individuals, a third is from institutional funders, including the Wallace Global Fund, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the Libra Foundation.

One could also look at those funders for further ideas. Both Wallace and RBF have been early and critical supporters of the divestment movement despite their relatively modest grantmaking budgets. Libra has been a committed and respected supporter of grassroots environmental justice and climate justice groups. To its credit, Bridgespan’s recommendation in the report goes beyond backing classic philanthropic big bets. As one way to invest in early efforts, the authors include “championing grassroots organizations with deep roots in their communities.”

There are, of course, risks to any such early-stage funding. The report notes, candidly, “there will be false turns and bad bets.” Yet with climate chaos speading, the risk of funders sitting on their hands seems much higher.

2. Work together, but without reinventing the wheel

There’s a dizzying number of intermediaries in climate and environmental philanthropy, and the number seems to grow weekly. Whether you want to reduce methane emissions, support Indigenous land rights or remake the food system, there’s a group for you, or maybe a half-dozen. And there’s deep expertise within those bodies.

That drove Bridgespan’s recommendation to “join other climate actors through existing structures.” As Burwell said, “the climate space is one of the more developed issue areas in terms of infrastructure,” with dozens of collaboratives and intermediaries across many topics, from legal pursuits to regional issues. “The basic idea is that you don’t have to go it alone,” he said.

Bridgespan also found that collaboratives or intermediaries played a big role in nearly all the climate wins most often mentioned by the team’s interviewees. As the saying goes, if you want to go far, go together.

3. Get those federal climate dollars — and make existing laws work

As you’ve likely heard, there is currently a gusher of federal funding for climate action thanks to three big bills: the Inflation Reduction Act, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, and the CHIPS and Science Act. On top of that, the Biden administration has made a government-wide commitment, called the Justice40 Initiative, that 40% of the benefits from climate-related investments go to disadvantaged and marginalized communities.

For U.S. funders, that means there’s no time like the present to get leverage for your dollar — and equitable impact, too. This includes local funders, who can build up on-the-ground partners to be part of this ongoing transformation. Hence Bridgespan’s final recommendation: “Support equitable implementation of laws, treaties and policy changes.” There are also plenty of existing structures (see recommendation #2), like the Justice 40 Accelerator or Invest in Our Future, whose lead new philanthropists can follow.

For those funding outside the U.S., there’s perhaps even more opportunity, given historically low levels of grant-based big-money philanthropy (relative to the U.S.) in most other corners of the world, and our outsized wealth. There’s also similar rush of new legislation, treaties and policies overseas. As the authors point out, longstanding international efforts, like implementing the Kigali Amendment, have also been helped along by philanthropic partnerships, notably through the Clean Cooling Collaborative.

“Philanthropy needs to play more of a role in accelerating progress on implementation, more than it has in the past,” Platt said. “Simply having that opportunity is reflective of the progress that has been achieved to date by philanthropy.”

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