I've listened to NPR daily during the pandemic.

I believe in the healing power of psychedelics.

This group is believed by Founders Pledge to have had a huge impact on reducing emissions through REDD+. The group also played a big role in securing an agreement on forestry in the Paris agreement.

This is their world to inherit, let's protect it and follow their lead.

Climate change is the biggest existential risk facing our generation

The Bay Area's NPR and PBS stations. Where facts matter, stories empower and bold conversations begin.

We are here for everyone who wants to be more. Our television, radio, digital media and educational services change lives for the better and help individuals and communities achieve their full potential.

We celebrate diversity, embrace innovation, value lifelong learning and partner with those who share our passion for public service.

KQED

Supporting highly-impactful, evidence-based solutions to the triple challenge of climate change, air pollution and energy poverty.

## The Founders Pledge Perspective

Climate change is one part of a triple challenge surrounding energy production. Not only does most current energy production lead to damaging carbon emissions, the effects of which are devastating ecosystems and changing our planet beyond recognition, it also pollutes the air and leaves many of the world’s poor without sufficient energy. This adds up to an environmental and humanitarian crisis.

Thus, we face a triple challenge: we not only need to drive down carbon emissions to near zero by mid-century, and drastically reduce air pollution, but we need to do so while supporting work to reduce global poverty that will often be accompanied, or even driven, by increased energy consumption.

We aim to take a holistic approach that recognizes the global nature of this challenge, as well as the fact that, despite its urgency, we are still in the early days of climate action. This means that the solutions that we focus on will not only reduce emissions now, but will do so in a way that avoids future emissions, while also creating opportunities for the world’s poor and eventually ending energy poverty entirely.

We aim to do this in three ways:

- **Audacious advocacy**: By focusing our grantmaking on organizations leveraging large amounts of money through policy advocacy. There are highly effective organizations with budgets in the millions of dollars which have influenced government innovation budgets, orders of magnitude larger than their costs. By looking for opportunities with leverage like this, we can have an outsize impact.
- **Accelerating low-carbon innovation**: By finding and funding advocacy opportunities that strengthen the energy innovation eco-system or promote particularly neglected technologies. As the success of solar has shown for electricity, the availability of cheap, low carbon alternatives to our current energy sources can make a very significant difference. Efficient, low-cost technology can spread around the world without inter-governmental cooperation or expensive policies to spread around the world, making it a more robust strategy in a world where climate action will often not be the first priority of policy makers and the public.
- **Focusing on blindspots and bottlenecks**: By focusing on areas neglected by other stakeholders, we can ensure that fund dollars make as much difference as possible. While some technologies, such as solar, enjoy widespread popularity and significant policy support, this is not similarly true for other approaches, resulting in a huge imbalance in resource allocation. By finding and funding advocates for overlooked solutions, such as carbon capture and storage technology, we can ensure we are making the most of every tool available to us in the fight against climate change.

Managed by two members of the Founders Pledge Research team, the Climate Change Fund identifies and supports sustainable, evidence-based solutions to the “triple challenge” of carbon emissions, air pollution, and energy poverty.

## Our Approach to Grantmaking

When evaluating potential grants, we consider several key points:

- **Counterfactual impact**. Our grants are designed to create a meaningful outcome that would not otherwise have happened. In particular, we aim to make grants that otherwise wouldn’t have been made, rather than those which just take the place of other philanthropists’ donations. This means that you can rely on the Funds to create meaningful, real change, rather than just maintaining the status quo.
- **Impact-driven philanthropy**. The goal of this fund is maximal positive impact, irrespective of this impact being “sexy” or visible. This means we will focus on opportunities that others focused on clear attribution of their work or shiny outcomes might neglect. For example, we are very comfortable funding organizations to increase their general capacity and strategy when we perceive this as their bottleneck to higher impact, rather than being tied to specific outcomes or deliverables.
- **The organization’s funding gap**. Not all organizations are set up to scale up their programming and many can’t productively absorb large amounts of unsolicited funding. We evaluate all potential grantees’ capacity for growth and consider how much money they could put to good use.
- **Organizational strength**. Particularly with unrestricted funding, it’s important to have trust in the leadership and capacity of the organizations we support. We look at their track record of success and their transparency about failures as well as successes, and we only support those organizations which are exceptionally well run.
- **Time-critical opportunities and funding certainty**. While Founders Pledge members give to our top climate charities regularly, sometimes there are time-critical opportunities which require fast decisions. Or there are needs for certainty of funding streams to allow new hires and start new campaigns and programs. We will use the Fund to make grants that enable such short-term opportunities and stability for high-impact funding opportunities thereby increasing the impact compared to individual giving to specific organizations.
- **Portfolio approach**. Because most climate damage comes from particular severe outcomes – with a world of 4 degrees of warming being much worse than twice as bad as a world with 2 degrees – and because every particular strategy – such as energy innovation – might underdeliver, we pursue a portfolio approach to maximize positive impact. This means we will diversify our bets in ways that, when one approach fails (such as energy innovation), the others we promote (such as carbon removal) can be expected to be particularly important and still available. This maximizes the expected impact of your donation in a world characterized by huge uncertainty about the success of different high-impact solutions.

## Frequently-Asked Questions

**Can charities apply for money from the Fund?**

The Funds do not generally accept applications from charities. If the Fund Managers choose to open up an application round, this will be publicized. Charities are requested not to send unsolicited applications for funding.

**How frequently will you make grants from the Fund?**

Fund Managers will review grant-making decisions on a quarterly basis. Decisions will be made based on the value of Funds and the available options for high-impact grant-making. We may sometimes delay grant-making if we believe that waiting for more promising opportunities will be more impactful. Conversely, we may disburse funds outside of our quarterly review dates if we become aware of a particularly promising and time-sensitive funding opportunity.

**How will my contribution be used?**

All funds are granted out. The Fund is not an investment vehicle. The Fund does not use any percentage of contributions to cover staff time or other overhead costs. Every dollar contributed to the Fund will be used to make grants directly to end-user organizations creating a real difference.

## More Questions?

To learn more about the Founders Pledge Climate Change Fund, please visit [founderspledge.com](https://founderspledge.com/funds/climate-change-fund) or email the Fund Managers at [funds@founderspledge.com](mailto:funds@founderspledge.com).

Founders Pledge: Climate Change Fund

Supports highly-impactful, evidence-based solutions to the challenges of global poverty and inequality.

## The Founders Pledge Perspective 

Despite substantial progress in recent decades on development goals, nearly half the world lives on less than $2.50 per day. This poverty leads to a huge amount of hardship and unnecessary loss of life. In 2019, more than five million children under five years old died, mostly from preventable causes like diarrhea, malaria, and respiratory infections. 

 
Poverty is also associated with hunger, exposure to conflict, and limited access to education and other opportunities. We believe that all individuals, regardless of where they were born, deserve the chance to live happy, healthy, and prosperous lives.

 
Global inequality in mortality, health, poverty and more is a tragic, but not unsolvable, problem. Researchers, advocates, and organizations around the world are working to scale up solutions to these problems. By taking a thoughtful, evidence-based approach to philanthropy that accelerates the best of these solutions, we can do immense good.

Managed by two members of the Founders Pledge Research team, the Global Health and Development Fund identifies and supports highly-impactful and neglected development initiatives. By pooling donations and collaborating with other funding and research organizations, the Fund allows individuals to make contributions when and where they will have the largest impact. 


## Our Approach to Grantmaking 

When evaluating potential grants, we consider several key points:

*   **Counterfactual impact**. Our grants are designed to create a meaningful outcome that would not otherwise have happened. In particular, we aim to make grants that otherwise wouldn’t have been made, rather than those which just take the place of other philanthropists’ donations. This means that you can rely on the Funds to create meaningful, real change, rather than just maintaining the status quo.
*   **The grant’s potential outcomes**. We focus on outcomes (e.g. how many lives were saved), rather than outputs (e.g. how many products were delivered). We review all the available evidence and take into account cost-effectiveness to assess whether the grant money could produce more good if donated elsewhere.
*   **The organization’s funding gap**. Not all organizations are set up to scale up their programming and many can’t productively absorb large amounts of unsolicited funding. We evaluate all potential grantees’ capacity for growth and consider how much money they could put to good use. 
*   **Organizational strength**. Particularly with unrestricted funding, it’s important to have trust in the leadership and capacity of the organizations we support. We look at their track record of success and their transparency about failures as well as successes, and we only support those organizations which are exceptionally well run. We also look for organizations that demonstrate a strong commitment to measuring outcomes and evaluating the impact of their programs.
*   **Time-sensitive opportunities**. In many cases, highly competent organizations identify time-critical opportunities for impact that require funding on a shorter timeline than traditional funders can support. In addition to considering these quick-turnaround opportunities in a timely manner, we plan to provide unrestricted funding streams to enable organizations to make new hires, start new campaigns and programs, and act on opportunities that come their way. 

## Frequently-Asked Questions


**Can charities apply for money from the Fund?**

The Funds do not generally accept applications from charities. If the Fund Managers choose to open up an application round, this will be publicized. Charities are requested not to send unsolicited applications for funding.


**How frequently will you make grants from the Fund?**

Fund Managers will review grant-making decisions on a quarterly basis. Decisions will be made based on the value of Funds and the available options for high-impact grant-making. We may sometimes delay grant-making if we believe that waiting for more promising opportunities will be more impactful. Conversely, we may disburse funds outside of our quarterly review dates if we become aware of a particularly promising and time-sensitive funding opportunity.

**How will my contribution be used?**

All funds are granted out. The Fund is not an investment vehicle. The Fund does not use any percentage of contributions to cover staff time or other overhead costs. Every dollar contributed to the Fund will be used to make grants directly to end-user organizations creating a real difference. 

## More Questions?

To learn more about the Founders Pledge Global Health and Development Fund, please visit [founderspledge.com](https://founderspledge.com/funds/global-health-and-development-fund) or email the Fund Managers at [funds@founderspledge.com](mailto:funds@founderspledge.com).

Founders Pledge: Global Health & Development Fund

On a mission to create a more informed public. Every day, NPR connects with millions of Americans.

Independent, nonprofit media organization that was founded on a mission to create a more informed public. Connection people on the air, online, and in person to explore the news, ideas, and what it means to be human.

National Public Radio

The Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies supports psychedelic and cannabis research, education and policy reform.

Founded in 1986, the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) is a visionary 501(c)(3) non-profit organization ushering the safe and ethical use of psychedelics as tools for healing and growth on individual, familial, societal, and planetary levels.

MAPS’ top priority is ethically introducing global access to MDMA-assisted therapy as a treatment for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) through regulatory approvals and training certification for therapy providers, as well as public education, policy reform, and building community support networks.

How Your Donation Will Help

While the MDMA drug development program is the main priority of MAPS, the organization's programs include research into other psychedelic compounds and provide critical resources for researchers around the world interested in studying psychedelics. These resources include assistance with protocol development and regulatory guidance, in addition to providing study drug and training for investigators. As part of its commitment to open science and open praxis, MAPS publishes its research protocols, treatment manual for MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD, published articles, and investigator's brochure on its website for free download, and actively collaborates with third-party researchers and institutions. Researchers and institutions around the world are building on the body of research that MAPS has produced.

MAPS operates a global network of intersectional education and research programs focused on the careful study of the risks and benefits of psychedelics. The education programs include: harm reduction and peer support through the Zendo Project; policy and advocacy efforts focused on community organizing and reducing barriers to research; a conflict resolution initiative for peace-building; and an active fiscal sponsorship program for fledgling mission-aligned organizations. MAPS also produces myriad educational materials, training workshops, and conferences, both physical and virtual. MAPS builds its global community of support through: outreach at events worldwide; a robust social media presence; and interviews and publications in various global media outlets. All of this work is supported by MAPS’ general operating fund. 

MAPS aims to transcend geopolitical and social boundaries and intentionally cultivates interactions with thought leaders in a broad range of interest areas and outlets that demonstrate the broad applications of the healing potential of psychedelics, and to proactively build trust and common ground with those most likely to have resistance to psychedelics.  

A Tipping Point for Psychedelic Medicine

MDMA-assisted therapy is poised to be a true breakthrough for psychedelic medicine and is the first psychedelic therapy to enter a Phase 3 clinical trial. This trial recently cleared a critical interim evaluation, with analysis confirming a 90% or greater likelihood that the final results will show significant effectiveness in treating PTSD. Achieving FDA approval for this treatment could be the tipping point to shifting psychedelics into the medical mainstream. This shift has the potential to unlock previously unavailable resources for the investigation of psychedelic-assisted treatments applied to our most critical mental health challenges: trauma, depression, addiction, anxiety, and more.

When administered in a clinical setting with trained therapy providers, MDMA has proven to be a powerful adjunct to therapy, which assists individuals in processing traumatic experiences in a deep and profound manner, leading to the alleviation of suffering. Clinical research indicates that MDMA may catalyze therapeutic processing by allowing participants to stay emotionally engaged when revisiting traumatic experiences, without feeling overwhelmed by anxiety or other painful emotions.

FDA approval of MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD could help millions of people who are suffering from trauma. A long-term follow-up study published in June 2020 demonstrated that 67% of the study volunteers (N=91) who had PTSD for an average duration of 17.8 years were still in remission and no longer qualified for a PTSD diagnosis at least 12-months following the completion of their treatment. 

While MAPS is the engine that powers this research, passionate supporters are the fuel that feeds our fire. We are inspired to press on towards the finish line of this 35-year marathon.

If you have any questions, please email us at giving@maps.org.

MAPS

The mission of Coalition for Rainforest Nations (www.cfrn.org) is to slow, stop and reverse global deforestation.

The Coalition for Rainforest Nations (CfRN) is a 501c3 nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering rainforest countries to assume a leadership role in the fight against climate change. Through policy support, capacity building, and direct finance, CfRN incentivizes developing countries to slow, stop, and reverse deforestation through the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD+) mechanism. REDD+ is now universally recognized as one of the most immediate mitigation actions that preserves the planet’s rainforests and directly addresses the climate emergency.

CfRN’s Origins and the Promise of REDD+
Inspired by the call of Papua New Guinea’s former Prime Minister, Grand Chief Sir Michael Somare, to equitably preserve the planet’s rainforests, CfRN’s Executive Director, Kevin Conrad, who grew up in Papua New Guinea, and Managing Director Federica’s Bietta, who is from Italy, lead the Coalition for Rainforest Nations. By advancing REDD+, their aim was to give rainforest nations a voice within international climate negotiations and define rainforests as worth more alive than dead. 

REDD+ was introduced in 2005 at the Eleventh Conference of the Parties (COP) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) by the newly formed Coalition for Rainforest Nations. Founding nations, Costa Rica and Papua New Guinea, envisioned REDD+ as a way to assign a financial value to forests for the role they play in removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and not just as a source of logged timber, agriculture, or grazing lands.  REDD+ (Forestry) is the only sector to enjoy a unique article in the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement (Article 5).  Furthermore, REDD+ preserves forests at the scale and speed needed to keep 1.5 alive – the goal prescribed under the Paris Agreement of limiting temperature rise to 1.5°Celsius. 

The REDD+ mechanism was developed over the years at successive COP meetings, as shown in the timeline below. As a result of CfRN’s leadership, rainforests are now recognized as a critical climate solution under the UNFCCC.  

What We Do
CfRN’s work encompasses three key areas: policy support; capacity building; and direct finance. The collective goal of these programs is to effectively reward countries for the work they do to preserve their forests. The Coalition provides direct policy support during all UNFCCC negotiating sessions and works in-country to help develop conservation policies, laws, and national forest protection plans. CfRN also trains countries’ experts to build the expertise needed to gather data required by the UNFCCC to report forest conservation results. CfRN works to ensure that rainforest countries are compensated for verified emission reductions under REDD+, as promised under the Paris Agreement. 

Policy Support
As a UNFCCC-recognized Negotiating Group, CfRN establishes and advances positions on behalf of its countries – over fifty rainforest nations —at all UNFCCC sessions. In this capacity, CfRN strives to advance the REDD+ mechanism and ensure that climate finance is allocated equitably to rainforest nations. Currently, CfRN is working to ensure that REDD+ is fully represented in the rulebook of the Paris Agreement. 

Technical Training & Capacity Building 
Countries’ results are eligible for financial compensation through REDD+ only after rigorous measurement, reporting and verification data are submitted, reviewed, and deemed to conform to UNFCCC guidelines. REDD+ results are then registered on the UNFCCC REDD+ Information Hub and made available to the public to review in detail. In its capacity building role, CfRN helps countries develop national technical expertise to take stock of their forest resources, create national plans to preserve them, and submit their data to the REDD+ registry at the UNFCCC in a consistent manner with their climate pledges, known as Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) to the Paris Agreement. 

Direct Finance
To date, rainforest countries have not been compensated for the majority of their REDD+ emissions reductions, as promised. Though certain governments including Norway, the U.K., and Germany, have paid bilaterally for some results, this is far from sufficient. CfRN’s finance work helps rainforest nations raise debt funding and receive performance-based compensation. The sale and trading of REDD+ Paris Agreement-compliant carbon credits is a growing source of climate finance. These credits are available for purchase through CfRN’s REDD.plus platform. Over the next few years, our member countries will bring a pipeline of sovereign carbon credits to market representing Paris Agreement-compliant emissions reductions, resulting from member country efforts to keep their rainforests standing. 

Coalition for Rainforest Nations

Supporting young people to make climate change an urgent priority, and exposing corruption of the fossil fuel industry.

The Sunrise Movement is a youth movement to stop climate change and create millions of good jobs in the process. We’re building an army of young people to make climate change an urgent priority across America, end the corrupting influence of fossil fuel executives on our politics, and elect leaders who stand up for the health and wellbeing of all people.

We call ourselves Sunrise because we know this dark hour in America, when fossil fuel executives and climate deniers run our government, cannot last. The sun will rise again.  We have a 4-year plan to make climate action an urgent priority in every corner of the country, expose the fossil fuel executives who have purchased politicians and blocked progress, and lift up champions who will work for the people at every level of government.

Sunrise Movement Education Fund

Founders Pledge is a global nonprofit empowering entrepreneurs to do the most good possible with their charitable giving. 

We equip members with everything needed to maximize their impact, from evidence-led research and advice on the world’s most pressing problems, to comprehensive infrastructure for global grant-making, alongside opportunities to learn and connect. We’re grateful to be funded by our members and other generous donors. 