Center for Public Enterprise: Grantee Spotlight

Overview

The Giving Green Fund plans to award a grant to Center for Public Enterprise (CPE) to support its Mountain West Geothermal Consortium. This initiative will bring together key players to coordinate and grow the geothermal industry. CPE is a US-based nonprofit think tank that produces research, develops policy ideas, and works with public agencies to run financing and development programs.

CPE’s work falls within our philanthropic strategy of unleashing clean energy in the U.S. Please see Giving Green’s strategy report for more information, including recommended sub-strategies, theory of change, and key uncertainties.

Last updated: October 2025

What is Center for Public Enterprise?

Founded in 2021, CPE focuses on broadening the public sector’s capacity to deliver economic development. Under its Energy focus area, it works with implementers within the government structure—such as public power providers, state agencies, and local governments—to provide them with the tools and knowledge to increase investment in clean energy, manufacturing, buildings, and infrastructure. CPE also works as a think tank, publishing original research and policy reports.

What are we funding, and how could it help reduce greenhouse gas emissions?

We are funding CPE’s Mountain West Geothermal Consortium, a multi-state effort to accelerate next-generation geothermal projects across the Mountain West by 2029. Its goal is to accelerate the adoption of clean, reliable, always-on geothermal energy as an alternative to fossil-fuel-based power generation.

The Consortium will be composed of leadership from State Energy Offices with additional key players from industry, investment, and regulatory sectors. It will focus on two main areas:

1. Policy and regulatory alignment: The Consortium will develop nonpartisan state-specific policy recommendations and socialize them in at least six target states. Streamlining and aligning policies and permitting processes could help reduce barriers and delays for geothermal project development, which currently has a development timeline of 7 to 10 years.
2. Enabling geothermal project finance through de-risking drilling. The Consortium will also design financing tools and frameworks to reduce the financial risks of drilling, which is a major upfront cost before developers can generate revenue.

Cutting across these areas, CPE will also host convenings for state legislators, developers, investors, and other stakeholders to educate them on proposed interventions and establish buy-in from them. CPE will also co-develop advocacy and outreach plans to ensure the Consortium has a lasting impact and transitions smoothly to state leadership. These plans will identify key players, set timelines, and provide technical support as needed.

Giving Green's funding will cover staff salaries, event costs, consortium operating support, and convening design and facilitation.

Why do we think CPE will use this funding well?

In our strategy report on unleashing clean Energy in the U.S., we identified opening new sources of financing for clean firm power as highly promising in terms of scale and feasibility. We think reducing financial risks for next-gen geothermal addresses a key bottleneck and could help projects move from first-of-a-kind to scaled projects. We also have a positive impression of addressing permitting and siting challenges for clean firm power, which can speed up deployment and de-risk technologies by reducing costs and making project timelines more predictable. We believe that CPE’s proposed work is well-aligned with our strategy.

The Consortium is new and does not have a track record yet. However, we think CPE is well-positioned for success due to its strong public sector relationships and relevant expertise. For example, it has experience designing complex financial models, such as its work on statewide solar investment with the Minnesota Climate Innovation Finance Authority. While next-gen geothermal is new to CPE, it has brought on specialized talent, including a full-time geothermal expert from DOE to lead the Consortium.

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Giving Green believes that additional climate donations are likely to be most impactful when directed to our top nonprofits. For several reasons, we may choose to recommend grants to other organizations for work that we believe is at least as impactful as grants to our top recommendations. We are highlighting this grant to offer transparency to donors to the Giving Green Fund as well as to provide a resource for donors who are particularly interested in this impact strategy. This is a nonpartisan analysis (study or research) and is provided for educational purposes.