What Happened to Laurene Powell Jobs' and Leonardo DiCaprio’s Once-Ambitious Green Group?

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Three and a half years ago, Laurene Powell Jobs, Leonardo DiCaprio and private equity billionaire Brian Sheth unveiled a joint effort called Earth Alliance to confront the twin threats of climate change and biodiversity loss — and convince the public to get involved.

Marking the latest shift in an ever-changing climate funding landscape, the organization quietly closed its doors as a standalone organization at the end of 2023, folding its operations into Re:wild, another group co-founded by DiCaprio.

Greeted with coverage in Variety and later Vogue, Earth Alliance brought together the star power of DiCaprio and financial might of Powell Jobs, plus additional backing from Sheth, whose Sheth Sangreal Foundation was to cover all operational and administrative costs. 

It looked like the next big thing. At the time, IP said it had “potential to become an environmental powerhouse,” given not just its high-profile backers, but also its plans to make grants, work with grassroots groups and Indigenous communities, and fund media campaigns ranging from documentary films to independent reporting. It was also fun. It called its dozen-plus campaigns Delicious Nuggets — and advertised them with vibrant colors and pop culture smarts.

Earth Alliance is now an initiative within Re:wild, and while its Instagram and Facebook accounts continue to pump out posts, nearly all of its staff appear to have departed and much of its website has been taken down, based on internet archives and LinkedIn. Its initial plans seem to have been scaled back well before closure — for instance, though it was once framed as a potentially large grantmaker, a spokesperson said the operation “did not have grantees.”

The organization’s work, which seems to have recently consisted of in-house campaigns to promote climate awareness, will continue under Re:wild. But it’s unclear to what extent the megadonors’ alliance remains intact. 

Powell Jobs is still working with DiCaprio and will continue to fund Re:wild and Earth Alliance, according to a spokesperson. A representative for Sheth said he continues to be involved in Re:wild, where he is emeritus board chair, but could not confirm whether he continues to fund the group or collaborate with the other two donors. DiCaprio’s spokesperson declined to comment.

One former employee, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, named DiCaprio and Powell Jobs as the sole donors involved with Earth Alliance in its last months, with the latter’s LLC, Emerson Collective, overseeing the group in its final incarnation before it was incorporated into Re:wild. The Re:wild spokesperson declined to comment on Earth Alliance’s donors or reason for its closure as a standalone operation.

So while there is some collaboration still happening, at least among two of the founders, the initiative seems to have essentially fizzled out, or at least been substantially downsized from its initial ambitions — the latest example of shifts among high-profile climate donors that have left the field in a state of flux. 

JPB Foundation, historically a top 15 green funder, sent shockwaves through the field by shuttering its standalone environment program, though its new leader said the operation will continue to back environmental topics and many of the same grantees. Robertson Foundation is going through a strategic refresh after the death of its founder, and Open Society Foundations announced last year it would cut 40% of its staff and close offices as Alex Soros takes the reins as board chair. Legacy green funders like Hewlett and MacArthur are also going through program or leadership transitions.

The brief life of Earth Alliance

Earth Alliance had a short, if complicated lifespan. When it first launched in 2019, DiCaprio billed it as “the next step in the evolution of [the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation] as it fully merges under the new Earth Alliance management and grantmaking framework.” The prospect of his foundation’s splashy environmental work becoming a new entity with two billionaire backers on board promised to make it a heavyweight funder. Plus, it could call upon the experts at the nonprofit Global Wildlife Conservation, which Sheth had served as a board member since shortly after its launch and DiCaprio had long supported. 

Earth Alliance did indeed back some conservation work, including a fund in 2020 to protect Virunga National Park. Then, in 2021, Global Wildlife Conservation was rechristened as Re:wild, which was billed as a combination of the nonprofit with the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation’s environmental work. And now Earth Alliance exists as a project of Re:wild. Got all that? 

In any case, Earth Alliance’s end came in a hurry, at least for staff. The former staffer I spoke with said the group’s CEO, Brady Piñero Walkinshaw — a former congressional representative and past CEO of the green news outlet Grist — along with a representative from Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, the group’s fiscal sponsor, informed staff of the decision to close their doors on a Wednesday in early November. Initially given until the end of the week, the team ultimately had until the end of the month to shut down all projects, according to the former employee.

The cause of Earth Alliance’s demise as a high-ambition independent operation — and as an alliance of wealthy and powerful donors — is unclear. For all three donors, the episode could be a case of wandering interest and attention, or an attempt at  entrepreneurial iteration and rebranding. The backers may have had differing visions, after all, or maybe one or all of them got pulled toward new endeavors or decided to focus on their other environmental funding outfits. Or perhaps they simply decided Re:wild was a better home for their efforts. In any case, the nonprofit’s mission — to move the climate conversation from “doom and gloom” to a focus on a “joyful future” — was always going to be a tall order. 

What’s next for the donors behind Earth Alliance?

For Laurene Powell Jobs and Leonardo DiCaprio, at least, Earth Alliance may be looked back upon as a blip in their ongoing careers as high-profile green donors, both of which have experienced shake-ups. 

Laurene Powell Jobs, for instance, is the donor behind Emerson Collective, a massive investment and grantmaking operation whose wide-ranging portfolio includes environmental causes. She also founded the climate-focused Waverley Street Foundation, through which she’s pledged to spend $3.5 billion by 2035. Four staffers abruptly departed from that operation early last year, as I reported at the time. Since then, Waverley has added several staff and board members, as I covered in a recent update, and in 2021, grew its grantmaking to $164 million.

For DiCaprio, whose philanthropic and communications work has long existed under several roofs, another shift feels relatively unsurprising. The actor’s giving was carried out for years via a donor-advised fund housed within the California Community Foundation and branded as the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation. Longtime advisor Justin Winters mostly led that work, which had included big fundraisers, media campaigns and support for Indigenous communities. The fund spun off as a private foundation with the same name, first active in 2018 and under the leadership of Terry Tamminen, but IRS filings show that operation, too, wound down in 2019 as Earth Alliance formed. Now, he seems to be operating mostly through Re:wild. 

Regardless of the changing banner and the fact that he’s a relative financial bantamweight with reported assets of around $300 million (compared to Powell Jobs’ $13.6 billion), DiCaprio wins a lot of fans for his environmental projects. One online survey last July found Americans rated the 49-year-old as “the most trusted authority on the climate crisis,” above Greta Thunberg, Al Gore, President Joe Biden and the Rock. 

Sheth, worth $2.3 billion, is less of a known entity in green giving. The Sheth Sangreal Foundation, whose grantmaking fell to just $3.3 million in 2022, also names the environment as a priority, alongside children, music and arts education, and veterans.

What will happen to the group's staff, projects?

Some of the organization’s employees will join Re:wild and others will join partners, according to a spokesperson, who declined to provide details. According to LinkedIn, eight of the group’s 10 staff have updated their profiles to indicate their time at Earth Alliance has ended, but none have added roles at Re:wild.

At least one staff member landed elsewhere in the Powell Jobs’ nonprofit network, securing a job at Elemental Excelerator, a climate technology investment nonprofit, and another is now with Harmony Labs, one of Earth Alliance’s partners. A third is at Bill Gates’ family office, Gates Ventures, while others are working as consultants, freelancers or on pre-existing projects, according to their LinkedIn profiles.

The spokesperson said Re:wild will “incorporate their research into our existing programs” and that the defunct group’s partnerships with content creators will be continued. For instance, Re:wild will continue to share educational curriculum created with the United Nations and data produced with Harmony Labs. While Earth Alliance did not have any grantees, the group did award prizes, including recently announcing the 50 winners of the Earth Alliance Creator Fund via Instagram. 

“Earth Alliance did a lot of excellent R&D on ways to utilize social media and other platforms to reach new audiences with climate-friendly messaging,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “Folding EA back into Re:wild enables more funding for the environment and ensures that these projects have the widest possible reach.”

Correction (March 18, 2024): Sheth served on the original board of Global Wildlife Conservation, joining in 2009 and serving until 2020, but was not a co-founder of the organization.