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A Strategic Approach to Climate Philanthropy

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Abstract

The chapter looks at how, over the course of the 1990s and in response to a shifting political context, a group of prominent climate funders adopted a more focused and strategic approach to grantmaking. While staying true to the core principles of liberal philanthropy, this new approach combined collaborative, proactive, outcome-oriented and evaluation-driven grantmaking methods with a pro-business, market-centred and bottom-up understanding of social change. By the mid-2000s, its core elements came to form the basis of a new approach to international climate philanthropy, bolstering foundation involvement in the international climate arena in the process. On the back of the Design to Win report (2007), a group of large liberal foundations proceeded to align their strategies and pool resources through common initiatives and projects, and most notable the creation of the ClimateWorks Foundation.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Foundations associated with the ClimateWorks Foundation funders table include: Bloomberg Philanthropies, CIFF, ClimateWorks Foundation, Hewlett Foundation, McKnight Foundation, Oak Foundation, Packard Foundation, Mercator Foundation, Sea Change Foundation, Tilia Fund and Kann Rasmussen Foundation.

  2. 2.

    Skoll Foundation (1999), Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation (2000), Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (2002), Sea Change Foundation (2005), Schmidt Family Foundation (2006), MacCall MacBain Foundation (2007).

  3. 3.

    Hewlett Foundation, Packard Foundation, Sea Change Foundation, Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Skoll Foundation, Schmidt Family Foundation and as we will see in this chapter, the Energy Foundation and ClimateWorks Foundation.

  4. 4.

    The Hewlett Foundation had a long history of environmental grantmaking, especially in the field of environmental policy.

  5. 5.

    Current Energy Foundation funders include the ClimateWorks Foundation, the CIFF, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the Grantham Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, the Lakeshore Foundation, the McKnight Foundation, the Oak Foundation, the Pisces Foundation, the Robertson Foundation, the Tilia Fund, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and Yellow Chair Foundation.

  6. 6.

    The approach developed in the report largely echoes the seminal research by a group of Princeton University academics on “wedges” for CO2 reduction (commonly referred to as the Princeton wedges) (Socolow et al. 2004).

  7. 7.

    Hal Harvey went on to join the Hewlett Foundation as Environment Program Director in 2002.

  8. 8.

    To graphically present their analysis, ClimateWorks Foundation, and in particular Hal Harvey, developed a “ClimateWorks Sudoku.”

  9. 9.

    http://pdfs.citizenaudit.org/2014_12_EO/26-2303250_990_201312.pdf (accessed 4 September 2015).

  10. 10.

    These include the Regulatory Assistance Project (RAP), the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT), the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP), the Collaborative Labelling and Appliance Standards Project (CLASP), the Institute for Industrial Productivity (IIP), the Buildings Performance Institute Europe and the Global Buildings Performance Network (GBPN) (ClimateWorks 2012).

  11. 11.

    These include vehicle performance standards, fuel and vehicle levies, energy efficiency standards and labels, clean energy supply policies, utility-scale energy efficiency programmes, industrial energy efficiency programmes, building codes, economic incentives, smart urban design, support for R&D and innovation. For a detailed analysis of these policy options, see the report Polices that work: How to build a low-emissions economy (Harvey and Segafredo 2011).

  12. 12.

    LARCI, for instance, receives core funding from the ClimateWorks Foundation—which, as we have seen, is itself a regranter—, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Oak Foundation, and the CIFF. Energy Foundation China’s current core funders are the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the ClimateWorks Foundation, CIFF, the Oak Foundation and the Stiftung Mercator Foundation. Both examples illustrate that some or all of the foundations that support the ClimateWorks Foundation also provide core or project funding to the organizations in the regional network.

  13. 13.

    Interview with author.

  14. 14.

    In 2010, the ClimateWorks Foundation alone awarded grants totalling more than USD 120.5 million (2009: USD 92.7 million; 2011: USD 128 million).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. ULIP and CNRS-LADYSS, Paris, France

    Edouard Morena

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Morena, E. (2016). A Strategic Approach to Climate Philanthropy. In: The Price of Climate Action. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-42484-2_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-42484-2_3

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