In the early stages of coordinated climate philanthropy, directly educating and influencing policymakers could drive reductions in carbon emissions across various sectors — but today's climate policy changes require extensive public support from a diverse array of engaged stakeholders. The future of climate solutions heavily depends on the public's grasp of how these initiatives benefit them, and their active role in championing these causes. Effective communication is vital in mobilizing this support, helping individuals recognize the value of these efforts, and empowering them to actively contribute to community-specific solutions.1
Over the next decade, international collaboration will play a pivotal role in curbing emissions — avoiding wide-spread human suffering, economic decline, and mass-scale species extinction. This monumental task demands transformative strategies across industries, businesses, and governments, which all rely on robust public engagement and corresponding investment.
The role of communication has never been more critical in achieving public backing — influencing both individual and corporate behaviors, and addressing societal challenges. As emphasized by the Hewlett Foundation's study, the philanthropic arena must shift from targeting elite policies to garnering broad public endorsement1 For new funders entering this space, an opportunity exists in combating digital disinformation — which remains underfunded — exerting pressure on digital platforms to step up their efforts in regulating misinformation.
Margaret Klein Salamon
Philanthropy Needs to Step Up
Philanthropic endeavors have played a tremendous role in shaping societies globally, whether by championing health or education initiatives, alleviating poverty, or enhancing culture with performing arts. But in the face of the climate emergency, we need transformative change ultra-fast, and there is a shocking shortfall in the funding of the grassroots climate movement — particularly groups that engage in disruptive protest, which has been virtually unfunded. These groups are powered by volunteer activists — but they need some compensated full-time staff, as well as resources for travel, room rental, food for activists, and action supplies.
From historical precedents and social science, it is clear that disruptive activism — such as sit-ins, road-blocks, hunger strikes, and other high-visibility actions — has the power to reshape public opinion and initiate policy change. From the Women’s Suffrage movement to the Civil Rights era, the world has consistently been remodeled by brave souls daring to challenge the status quo.
In the last few years, we have seen disruptive climate activists push policy forward — whether it is Extinction Rebellion forcing the UK Government to become the first global economy to commit to a legally binding net-zero target, the Sunrise Movement and other protestors making the Inflation Reduction Act possible, or Futuro Vegetal pushing the Spanish government to ban new large-scale cattle farms. We are seeing over and over that disruptive protest works.
And yet this form of protest is grossly underfunded. Extinction Rebellion, for example, has a budget 450 times less than the World Wildlife Fund.2 New activist groups — which are springing up all the time — have an incredibly difficult time finding any funding at all. Climate philanthropy should be funneling resources towards these activist movements as quickly as possible.
Climate activists, unlike established charitable organizations, might not possess sophisticated fundraising know-how. They are often unschooled in donor liaisons or financial planning, which, rather than being deterrents, underscore the purity of their cause. These are individuals from diverse backgrounds, driven by commitment, risking personal liberties for the collective good. Intermediaries like the Climate Emergency Fund, Equation Campaign, and Global Green Grants can be key in facilitating relationships between philanthropy and activists, as well as shielding donors from potential legal or reputational risks.
Even as disruptive climate activism has risen to public attention, gotten billions of media hits, and won legislation, philanthropy passes it over in favor of less “risky” or “controversial” approaches that work within the system. Disruptive activism might be an inconvenience, but it is also an essential. Activists are fighting the good fight. It's high time philanthropy stepped up — not out of mere obligation but an inherent duty to future generations. If, as Bill McKibben states, "Winning slowly is the same as losing," then the time for swift and decisive support is now.
The rise of youth-led climate initiatives significantly influenced global climate policy and the broader movement. Yet, there is an urgent need for greater financial support for these groups, particularly through philanthropy. Research by Climateworks Foundation shows that youth-led initiatives receive less than 1% of climate mitigation funding from the world's largest climate foundations. This lack of financial backing inhibits their ability to drive change, especially as youth movements often rely on volunteers and grassroots mobilization — making them vulnerable to burnout, security risks, and lack of diversity.3
Philanthropic practices often overlook smaller, newer groups due to their unconventional structures. Philanthropic bodies should rethink their grantmaking approaches, adopting more youth-friendly practices such as flexible, low-administration grants which would help facilitate youth-led initiatives advocate for urgent, intersectional, justice-focused climate action. Foundations have an important opportunity and responsibility to leverage their resources to amplify the work of these campaigners — especially in underfunded areas in the Global South.3
Rajiv Shah
Social Change Starts With Activism
Large-scale change requires large-scale understanding of the problem, and large scale enthusiasm for being part of the solution. Experts, advocates and activists have led the charge for many years — and then all of a sudden, everyone else joins the effort. You can go through so many different examples — from the Civil Rights Movement to when LGBTQ rights became more enshrined in American law over the last decade. We need the activist to be on the front line, and we have to have faith that at some point, we'll hit that tipping point. And people will begin to believe that in fact, they can make a difference. It's when we hit that tipping point that we really start to accelerate change.
Young people have been the loudest voices, and most great social change starts with their activism. So we need young people to be incredibly confident and to hold everybody else to account, including themselves. The parts of the youth movement I'm most impressed with are those young people I see at global meetings, who know the data and understand the shallowness of some of the big corporate and global commitments around net zero by 2050. And that all these things happen too slowly, too far into the future. I want to encourage young activists to be confident, well-informed, and hold larger institutions to account — because there is too much broad commitment to change way into the future, and not enough action today.
Youth-led groups are not the only ones that remain critically underfunded: Despite the significant impact that BIPOC-led climate organizations — such as the Climate Justice alliance and Indigenous Environmental Network — have made in promoting renewable energy policies and addressing community impacts of the climate crisis, research shows that these organizations receive a mere 1.3% of total climate funding. The Donors of Color Network is campaigning to direct at least 30% of all US climate funding to BIPOC-led groups — the conversation around donor priorities extends beyond climate justice into voter rights and political engagement, highlighting the need to fund BIPOC-led organizations adequately. As the US government shifts its funding focus towards BIPOC entrepreneurs for climate innovation, it's time for philanthropy to follow suit.4
Nyombi Morris
On Being a Young Climate Activist in Uganda
My mission is to be a spokesperson and mobilize young people to take action. My contribution to the movement has been to bring young people together and equip them with climate and campaigning knowledge through school strikes and climate education projects. Since 2020, I have worked with more than 20 schools and planted trees, both with school children and local communities.
In Uganda, being a climate activist requires more than bravery — you must also be willing to spend money. We are not supported by local organizations, as they perceive us to be against the government; the police sometimes arrest us simply for protesting.
Securing funding for our activities is a struggle. Many organizations in the global north are willing to support you if you want to carry out protests or demonstrations, but running educational projects aimed at young people receive a lot less support. As a result, sometimes we need to use our own money — which we do out of passion, but we shouldn’t have to.
Protest movements have become increasingly popular in recent years, with the number of movements tripling from 2006 to 2020. Still, many of these movements are underfunded, under-resourced, and ignored by philanthropists. Historically, protest movements have instigated large scale social change but receive dramatically less funding compared to charities and NGOs working on similar issues. For example, Extinction Rebellion (XR)’s annual income sits at £750,000 — compared to Greenpeace International at about £75 million, a hundred times larger but not nearly as cost-efficient in terms of carbon reduction.2
Analysis by Social Change Lab found that climate-focused movements such as Extinction Rebellion (XR) perform better than even the most successful charities in terms of carbon emissions averted per dollar spent on advocacy. What’s more, funding activist groups can achieve a hundred times the amount of CO2 reduction compared to carbon offsetting. While these analyses aren’t fully conclusive, these stark trends cannot be ignored.
Protests can drive social change in a number of ways — such as changing public opinion, shifting public discourse, influencing policy, and affecting voting behavior. After a period of mass protest by Extinction Rebellion in the UK, public concern for the climate increased significantly. Protests can also directly influence the way the media, politicians, or the public talks about certain issues — in particular through movements’ proliferation on social media.
The role of the philanthropic sector in social change is not to be underestimated, and in fact it has a responsibility to help catalyze climate action by supercharging investment in solutions.5 Research by HERO, a subscription platform which raises funds for activists, conducted a survey which found that 83% of activists are unable to focus their time solely on their advocacy for financial reasons — whilst often putting in full-time hours into their campaigning work.6
Kumi Naidoo
Appetite for Change
In recent years, and even through the COVID-19 pandemic, social movements have seen unprecedented growth. Since 2015, social movements such as Black Lives Matter, Extinction Rebellion, Me Too and Fridays For Future have seen a dramatic rise in the participation and sway that they have on the general public.
There is an important distinction that needs to be understood when examining these more recent formations of civil society and what has come before it. These new movements seem to have set their sights not only on the symptoms of the various ailments in our society, but they are taking aim at the structural and systemic causes of the current failing system.
What we have seen more evidently after the global economic recessions of the 2008 financial collapse and the COVID-19 pandemic is that the appetite for structural and systemic change is at an all-time high and is felt in all corners of civil society movements, including the climate movement. Young people have been showing up in greater and greater numbers to push those in power to act decisively. That is not to say that this tendency constitutes a critical mass or a majority, but it is a much more visible and growing body of opinion and practice.
Funding activist groups is a highly effective way to create positive change, and can happen either directly or through an umbrella organization which delivers grants to groups. James Ozden, founder of the Social Change Lab, suggests five factors that can help philanthropic organizations and individuals identify groups with potential to bring about fast-tracked policy change:2
- A clear purpose and shared values
- A strategic theory of change
- A clear governance and process especially on difficult issues such as compensation and internal conflict
- Ambitions to scale through a focus on recruitment
- Diversity in participation and unity in messaging and group coherence
The important role of activism has become undeniable in recent years, as a number of key policy wins demonstrate. But much of their progress is slowed down — or even hindered — by a persistent lack of funding, despite grassroots and youth-led groups operating at the frontlines of social change. Philanthropy has been historically instrumental in shaping societal trajectories, and now has a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to shape the course of history beyond traditional paradigms. Rectifying this lack of funding is not just a matter of equity, but of efficiency — giving the philanthropic sector a chance to make lasting impact through tangible climate solutions. We call on philanthropy to step up to the challenge and amplify some of the most powerful communicators and changemakers we could hope for.
Our Brain and Climate Change
Climate change presents the most pressing challenge of our time, demanding urgent and coordinated action from governments, businesses, and individuals alike. Addressing this complex issue requires an understanding of not only scientific and technological aspects, but also the human behaviors and psychological factors that drive our responses to the crisis.
Keep reading- Hewlett Foundation. Climate Communications Opportunity Strategy: 2019-2022. Published online January 2020. https://www.hewlett.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Climate-Communications-Opportunity-Strategy-and-field-assessment-FINAL.pdf
- Ozden J. Protest Movements Could Be More Effective Than the Best Charities. Stanford Social Innovation Review. Published 2022. Accessed May 23, 2023. https://ssir.org/articles/entry/protest_movements_could_be_more_effective_than_the_best_charities
- Cracknell J, Williams H, Méténier N, Desanlis H. The case for funding youth-led climate initiatives. ClimateWorks Foundation. Published February 17, 2023. Accessed August 5, 2023. https://www.climateworks.org/blog/the-case-for-funding-youth-led-climate-initiatives/
- Simon M. Why Is The Climate Movement Failing? The Donors Of Color Network Has Some Fresh Ideas For Funders. Forbes. Published June 10, 2021. Accessed August 5, 2023. https://www.forbes.com/sites/morgansimon/2021/06/10/why-is-the-climate-movement-failing-the-donors-of-color-network-has-some-fresh-ideas-for-funders/
- Mountford H. COP27: Four key storylines that will shape the climate agenda in 2023. ClimateWorks Foundation. Published 2022. Accessed May 23, 2023. https://www.climateworks.org/blog/cop27-four-key-storylines-that-will-shape-the-climate-agenda-in-2023/
- HERO. HERO launches first subscription platform to provide a stable monthly income to 10,000 climate campaigners. HERO. Published August 2, 2023. Accessed August 4, 2023. https://landing.herocircle.app/hero-stories/survey
Figure 41: Sources of funding of environmental organisations. Source: Stanford Social Innovation Review.
Figure 40: Estimated cost-effectiveness of tonnes of carbon dioxide removed per pound spent. Source: Stanford Social Innovation Review.
Greta Thunberg, Tori Tsui, Daphne Frias, Dominique Palmer & Viviam Villafaña on Aiding Activists - Source: The Conduit
Source: Climate One
In the early stages of coordinated climate philanthropy, directly educating and influencing policymakers could drive reductions in carbon emissions across various sectors — but today's climate policy changes require extensive public support from a diverse array of engaged stakeholders. The future of climate solutions heavily depends on the public's grasp of how these initiatives benefit them, and their active role in championing these causes. Effective communication is vital in mobilizing this support, helping individuals recognize the value of these efforts, and empowering them to actively contribute to community-specific solutions.1
Over the next decade, international collaboration will play a pivotal role in curbing emissions — avoiding wide-spread human suffering, economic decline, and mass-scale species extinction. This monumental task demands transformative strategies across industries, businesses, and governments, which all rely on robust public engagement and corresponding investment.
The role of communication has never been more critical in achieving public backing — influencing both individual and corporate behaviors, and addressing societal challenges. As emphasized by the Hewlett Foundation's study, the philanthropic arena must shift from targeting elite policies to garnering broad public endorsement1 For new funders entering this space, an opportunity exists in combating digital disinformation — which remains underfunded — exerting pressure on digital platforms to step up their efforts in regulating misinformation.
Margaret Klein Salamon
Philanthropy Needs to Step Up
Philanthropic endeavors have played a tremendous role in shaping societies globally, whether by championing health or education initiatives, alleviating poverty, or enhancing culture with performing arts. But in the face of the climate emergency, we need transformative change ultra-fast, and there is a shocking shortfall in the funding of the grassroots climate movement — particularly groups that engage in disruptive protest, which has been virtually unfunded. These groups are powered by volunteer activists — but they need some compensated full-time staff, as well as resources for travel, room rental, food for activists, and action supplies.
From historical precedents and social science, it is clear that disruptive activism — such as sit-ins, road-blocks, hunger strikes, and other high-visibility actions — has the power to reshape public opinion and initiate policy change. From the Women’s Suffrage movement to the Civil Rights era, the world has consistently been remodeled by brave souls daring to challenge the status quo.
In the last few years, we have seen disruptive climate activists push policy forward — whether it is Extinction Rebellion forcing the UK Government to become the first global economy to commit to a legally binding net-zero target, the Sunrise Movement and other protestors making the Inflation Reduction Act possible, or Futuro Vegetal pushing the Spanish government to ban new large-scale cattle farms. We are seeing over and over that disruptive protest works.
And yet this form of protest is grossly underfunded. Extinction Rebellion, for example, has a budget 450 times less than the World Wildlife Fund.2 New activist groups — which are springing up all the time — have an incredibly difficult time finding any funding at all. Climate philanthropy should be funneling resources towards these activist movements as quickly as possible.
Climate activists, unlike established charitable organizations, might not possess sophisticated fundraising know-how. They are often unschooled in donor liaisons or financial planning, which, rather than being deterrents, underscore the purity of their cause. These are individuals from diverse backgrounds, driven by commitment, risking personal liberties for the collective good. Intermediaries like the Climate Emergency Fund, Equation Campaign, and Global Green Grants can be key in facilitating relationships between philanthropy and activists, as well as shielding donors from potential legal or reputational risks.
Even as disruptive climate activism has risen to public attention, gotten billions of media hits, and won legislation, philanthropy passes it over in favor of less “risky” or “controversial” approaches that work within the system. Disruptive activism might be an inconvenience, but it is also an essential. Activists are fighting the good fight. It's high time philanthropy stepped up — not out of mere obligation but an inherent duty to future generations. If, as Bill McKibben states, "Winning slowly is the same as losing," then the time for swift and decisive support is now.
The rise of youth-led climate initiatives significantly influenced global climate policy and the broader movement. Yet, there is an urgent need for greater financial support for these groups, particularly through philanthropy. Research by Climateworks Foundation shows that youth-led initiatives receive less than 1% of climate mitigation funding from the world's largest climate foundations. This lack of financial backing inhibits their ability to drive change, especially as youth movements often rely on volunteers and grassroots mobilization — making them vulnerable to burnout, security risks, and lack of diversity.3
Philanthropic practices often overlook smaller, newer groups due to their unconventional structures. Philanthropic bodies should rethink their grantmaking approaches, adopting more youth-friendly practices such as flexible, low-administration grants which would help facilitate youth-led initiatives advocate for urgent, intersectional, justice-focused climate action. Foundations have an important opportunity and responsibility to leverage their resources to amplify the work of these campaigners — especially in underfunded areas in the Global South.3
Rajiv Shah
Social Change Starts With Activism
Large-scale change requires large-scale understanding of the problem, and large scale enthusiasm for being part of the solution. Experts, advocates and activists have led the charge for many years — and then all of a sudden, everyone else joins the effort. You can go through so many different examples — from the Civil Rights Movement to when LGBTQ rights became more enshrined in American law over the last decade. We need the activist to be on the front line, and we have to have faith that at some point, we'll hit that tipping point. And people will begin to believe that in fact, they can make a difference. It's when we hit that tipping point that we really start to accelerate change.
Young people have been the loudest voices, and most great social change starts with their activism. So we need young people to be incredibly confident and to hold everybody else to account, including themselves. The parts of the youth movement I'm most impressed with are those young people I see at global meetings, who know the data and understand the shallowness of some of the big corporate and global commitments around net zero by 2050. And that all these things happen too slowly, too far into the future. I want to encourage young activists to be confident, well-informed, and hold larger institutions to account — because there is too much broad commitment to change way into the future, and not enough action today.
Youth-led groups are not the only ones that remain critically underfunded: Despite the significant impact that BIPOC-led climate organizations — such as the Climate Justice alliance and Indigenous Environmental Network — have made in promoting renewable energy policies and addressing community impacts of the climate crisis, research shows that these organizations receive a mere 1.3% of total climate funding. The Donors of Color Network is campaigning to direct at least 30% of all US climate funding to BIPOC-led groups — the conversation around donor priorities extends beyond climate justice into voter rights and political engagement, highlighting the need to fund BIPOC-led organizations adequately. As the US government shifts its funding focus towards BIPOC entrepreneurs for climate innovation, it's time for philanthropy to follow suit.4
Nyombi Morris
On Being a Young Climate Activist in Uganda
My mission is to be a spokesperson and mobilize young people to take action. My contribution to the movement has been to bring young people together and equip them with climate and campaigning knowledge through school strikes and climate education projects. Since 2020, I have worked with more than 20 schools and planted trees, both with school children and local communities.
In Uganda, being a climate activist requires more than bravery — you must also be willing to spend money. We are not supported by local organizations, as they perceive us to be against the government; the police sometimes arrest us simply for protesting.
Securing funding for our activities is a struggle. Many organizations in the global north are willing to support you if you want to carry out protests or demonstrations, but running educational projects aimed at young people receive a lot less support. As a result, sometimes we need to use our own money — which we do out of passion, but we shouldn’t have to.
Protest movements have become increasingly popular in recent years, with the number of movements tripling from 2006 to 2020. Still, many of these movements are underfunded, under-resourced, and ignored by philanthropists. Historically, protest movements have instigated large scale social change but receive dramatically less funding compared to charities and NGOs working on similar issues. For example, Extinction Rebellion (XR)’s annual income sits at £750,000 — compared to Greenpeace International at about £75 million, a hundred times larger but not nearly as cost-efficient in terms of carbon reduction.2
Analysis by Social Change Lab found that climate-focused movements such as Extinction Rebellion (XR) perform better than even the most successful charities in terms of carbon emissions averted per dollar spent on advocacy. What’s more, funding activist groups can achieve a hundred times the amount of CO2 reduction compared to carbon offsetting. While these analyses aren’t fully conclusive, these stark trends cannot be ignored.
Protests can drive social change in a number of ways — such as changing public opinion, shifting public discourse, influencing policy, and affecting voting behavior. After a period of mass protest by Extinction Rebellion in the UK, public concern for the climate increased significantly. Protests can also directly influence the way the media, politicians, or the public talks about certain issues — in particular through movements’ proliferation on social media.
The role of the philanthropic sector in social change is not to be underestimated, and in fact it has a responsibility to help catalyze climate action by supercharging investment in solutions.5 Research by HERO, a subscription platform which raises funds for activists, conducted a survey which found that 83% of activists are unable to focus their time solely on their advocacy for financial reasons — whilst often putting in full-time hours into their campaigning work.6
Kumi Naidoo
Appetite for Change
In recent years, and even through the COVID-19 pandemic, social movements have seen unprecedented growth. Since 2015, social movements such as Black Lives Matter, Extinction Rebellion, Me Too and Fridays For Future have seen a dramatic rise in the participation and sway that they have on the general public.
There is an important distinction that needs to be understood when examining these more recent formations of civil society and what has come before it. These new movements seem to have set their sights not only on the symptoms of the various ailments in our society, but they are taking aim at the structural and systemic causes of the current failing system.
What we have seen more evidently after the global economic recessions of the 2008 financial collapse and the COVID-19 pandemic is that the appetite for structural and systemic change is at an all-time high and is felt in all corners of civil society movements, including the climate movement. Young people have been showing up in greater and greater numbers to push those in power to act decisively. That is not to say that this tendency constitutes a critical mass or a majority, but it is a much more visible and growing body of opinion and practice.
Funding activist groups is a highly effective way to create positive change, and can happen either directly or through an umbrella organization which delivers grants to groups. James Ozden, founder of the Social Change Lab, suggests five factors that can help philanthropic organizations and individuals identify groups with potential to bring about fast-tracked policy change:2
- A clear purpose and shared values
- A strategic theory of change
- A clear governance and process especially on difficult issues such as compensation and internal conflict
- Ambitions to scale through a focus on recruitment
- Diversity in participation and unity in messaging and group coherence
The important role of activism has become undeniable in recent years, as a number of key policy wins demonstrate. But much of their progress is slowed down — or even hindered — by a persistent lack of funding, despite grassroots and youth-led groups operating at the frontlines of social change. Philanthropy has been historically instrumental in shaping societal trajectories, and now has a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to shape the course of history beyond traditional paradigms. Rectifying this lack of funding is not just a matter of equity, but of efficiency — giving the philanthropic sector a chance to make lasting impact through tangible climate solutions. We call on philanthropy to step up to the challenge and amplify some of the most powerful communicators and changemakers we could hope for.
Figure 41: Sources of funding of environmental organisations. Source: Stanford Social Innovation Review.
Figure 40: Estimated cost-effectiveness of tonnes of carbon dioxide removed per pound spent. Source: Stanford Social Innovation Review.
Greta Thunberg, Tori Tsui, Daphne Frias, Dominique Palmer & Viviam Villafaña on Aiding Activists - Source: The Conduit
Source: Climate One
Our Brain and Climate Change
Climate change presents the most pressing challenge of our time, demanding urgent and coordinated action from governments, businesses, and individuals alike. Addressing this complex issue requires an understanding of not only scientific and technological aspects, but also the human behaviors and psychological factors that drive our responses to the crisis.
Keep reading- Hewlett Foundation. Climate Communications Opportunity Strategy: 2019-2022. Published online January 2020. https://www.hewlett.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Climate-Communications-Opportunity-Strategy-and-field-assessment-FINAL.pdf
- Ozden J. Protest Movements Could Be More Effective Than the Best Charities. Stanford Social Innovation Review. Published 2022. Accessed May 23, 2023. https://ssir.org/articles/entry/protest_movements_could_be_more_effective_than_the_best_charities
- Cracknell J, Williams H, Méténier N, Desanlis H. The case for funding youth-led climate initiatives. ClimateWorks Foundation. Published February 17, 2023. Accessed August 5, 2023. https://www.climateworks.org/blog/the-case-for-funding-youth-led-climate-initiatives/
- Simon M. Why Is The Climate Movement Failing? The Donors Of Color Network Has Some Fresh Ideas For Funders. Forbes. Published June 10, 2021. Accessed August 5, 2023. https://www.forbes.com/sites/morgansimon/2021/06/10/why-is-the-climate-movement-failing-the-donors-of-color-network-has-some-fresh-ideas-for-funders/
- Mountford H. COP27: Four key storylines that will shape the climate agenda in 2023. ClimateWorks Foundation. Published 2022. Accessed May 23, 2023. https://www.climateworks.org/blog/cop27-four-key-storylines-that-will-shape-the-climate-agenda-in-2023/
- HERO. HERO launches first subscription platform to provide a stable monthly income to 10,000 climate campaigners. HERO. Published August 2, 2023. Accessed August 4, 2023. https://landing.herocircle.app/hero-stories/survey
