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In November 2022, we launched the Giving Green Fund (GGF) which has since granted $1.8 million USD to support the work of our top climate nonprofits. From its conception, we envisioned expanding the scope of our grants beyond our top nonprofits, since we believed that a fund model would open up additional high-impact donation options. A recent anonymous donation of $10 million has presented us with this opportunity. In particular, it has prompted us to evaluate if and how our strategy should evolve to maximize impact given this new magnitude of funding, specifically if this means supporting work not housed in our top nonprofits when we believe it to be equally or more catalytic.
Contributing to our top recommendations will remain the fund's core function, and we will continue to recommend the majority of funds to these organizations. However, we will also begin exploring ways to expand the types of opportunities we support through specialty growth grants or ecosystem grants.
How would this be distinct from our top recommendations?
Each November, Giving Green releases a list of highly effective climate nonprofits and encourages donations to them. Our primary metric for selecting top nonprofits is that we think they are incredibly effective in reducing emissions per dollar spent. However, due to the nature of public recommendations, there are some additional constraints on the type of organizations we can support. A few additional requirements for our top nonprofits are:
They have a strong and public track record such that we can transparently make the case for effectiveness.
They have the ability to absorb at least $1 million productively, since our recommendations historically have received large donations due to our influence.
We believe that unrestricted donations will go towards work that we believe is highly impactful, since it is difficult for many readers of Giving Green to make restricted donations.
To decrease decision fatigue among our readers, we aim to have a small number (<10) of top nonprofits every year. Therefore, top nonprofits are suited to situations where there are 1-2 organizations within a philanthropic strategy that we think are especially deserving of support compared to others working on similar problems.
During our research process, we sometimes identify high-impact funding opportunities that do not meet the above criteria. Going forward, we will consider recommending them for growth grants or ecosystem grants from the Giving Green Fund.
What types of opportunities would we consider for a growth grant?
Young and promising organizations
We may consider growth grants to emerging organizations – young organizations that are preparing to launch or have existed for such a short period of time that they have a limited track record and therefore would not qualify to be a top recommendation. This would most likely be organizations working on a topic area that we have deemed to be high-priority, but where there are few or no organizations working in the space. In the case of a very new organization with inherently limited or no track record, we would closely assess the experience and qualification of leadership and the proposed theory of change.
Similarly, growth grants would be appropriate for newer or small organizations that we think can only productively absorb a limited amount of funding, at least in the short run. We think this signals an opportunity to maximize the impact of the marginal dollar, especially in the case where Giving Green is an organization’s first institutional funder, and these organizations might not be in the position to productively absorb the magnitude of funding directed toward our top recommendations.[1]
Supporting promising new organizations can strengthen civil society engagement by increasing the number and diversity of members in the ecosystem and filling critical gaps that may currently exist.
Existing, highly effective organizations open to expansion in specific areas
We would also consider established organizations, with strong track records, theories of change, networks, and influence, that are open to restricted grants directed at creating or expanding a specified work stream or launching a new project within a specific impact area. We think this can strengthen the ecosystem of nonprofits by expanding the capacity of effective, established nonprofits. We think the risk of our grant causing funding to be redirected to other areas can be minimized if these grants support new work streams or projects that did not exist before and for which funding would be additional.
Funding specific research projects, analyses, and convenings
We may also consider recommending funding to entities such as academic groups to perform technical analysis, develop public goods, or serve as conveners for key stakeholders. For example, we think there are political contexts in which traditional nonprofits are not well-positioned to influence policy and for which the route to influence policymakers may be through generating evidence-based reports or field building to influence the policy landscape over a longer period of time. We also envision instances in which more basic research is needed to bolster or inform nonprofit advocacy work.
What types of opportunities would we consider for ecosystem grants?
Giving Green’s research process involves first identifying high-impact philanthropic strategies, and then identifying top organizations working on these strategies. When selecting top nonprofits, we have tried to find the strongest 1-2 organizations working on a particular strategy. However, we may encounter cases where we are excited about a philanthropic approach, but there are a number of key organizations working on this approach that we feel are highly cost-effective. In this case, rather than have our list of top nonprofits dominated by a specific type of organization, we may instead decide to recommend a number of smaller grants that support the ecosystem as a whole.
Mechanics of growth and ecosystem grants
Growth and ecosystem grants considered outside of our top nonprofits would be single disbursements with no expectation for renewal.
Growth and ecosystem grants will not be accompanied by the usual in-depth material that Giving Green publishes for priority impact areas and top nonprofits. Instead, these grants will be supported through deep dives on the relevant philanthropic strategy, and shorter write-ups of the activities of grantees.
In addition, we plan to allocate these grants on a rolling basis as opportunities arise instead of adhering to the cycle of our top nonprofits, which are released annually in November.
Is this framework subject to change?
We think that expanding the types of opportunities we consider enables the fund to be more dynamic, responsive, and catalytic, reflecting the rhythm of policy, technology, and social change. We plan to continually assess the impact of our recommended disbursements, and we expect to iterate on the functions and frameworks of our fund to reflect our learnings. As always, we will continue to prioritize transparency and share the evolution of our products and processes with you.
Grant areas of focus
We intend to recommend grants of at least $10 million from the Giving Green Fund during the rest of 2024; we intend for these recommendations to be a mix of grants to our top nonprofits and growth and ecosystem grants.
Endnotes
[1] “In 2023, Giving Green influenced an estimated $11.2 million towards our recommendations.” https://www.givinggreen.earth/post/2023-annual-report#viewer-yga1y142
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