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).

Climate Change Fund

We inspire girls to be joyful, healthy and confident using a fun, experience-based curriculum which creatively integrates running.

Girls on the Run International

A hot plate of food when it’s needed most. For people fighting or fleeing disasters, we are here. 

Ten years ago, my wife Patricia and I had a big dream to start World Central Kitchen. We envisioned an organization that would create smart solutions to hunger and poverty, and for many years we saw an amazing impact through our clean cookstoves initiative, culinary training programs, and social enterprise ventures that empower communities and strengthen economies. But we had no idea we would one day be answering the call in Puerto Rico and around the world – “Food First Responders” serving millions of meals each year. In the process, we learned that a small NGO can change the world through the power of food.

Last year, WCK activated in response to dozens of disasters — some of them natural, and some man-made. From serving children in the shelters on our border with Mexico to making deliveries by lamplight to those keeping watch over beaches in Indonesia, our fight to feed the hungry has taken us to more places than we ever expected.

At the same time, WCK continues planting roots in the communities where we work. Our Plow to Plate program is helping to create food resiliency in the face of future disasters. In Haiti, aspiring chefs are obtaining the skills and confidence they need to elevate their careers and the country’s tourism sector.

With your help, we have shown that there is no place too far or disaster too great for our chefs to be there with a hot plate of food when it’s needed most.

I hope you’ll dream with us as we envision a world where there is always a warm meal, an encouraging word, and a helping hand in hard times. Thank you for taking this journey with us.

Join me in fulfilling the inspiring words of John Steinbeck: Wherever there’s a fight so hungry people may eat, we will be there.

We must be there.
- Jose Andres, founder

World Central Kitchen

Working with government to help more girls stay in school to improve learning outcomes for marginalised children in rural India.

We leverage existing community and government resources to ensure that all girls are in school and learning well. Our goal is to improve access and quality of education for around 16 million children cumulatively by 2024.

Educate Girls

Delivering unconditional cash directly to the world's poorest households via secure mobile transfers. 

Since 2009, GiveDirectly has delivered more than $580 million in unconditional cash transfers to families in need. These one-time cash transfers allow recipients to invest in what they need most and have been shown to improve their earnings, children’s school attendance, health, nutrition, and mental well-being.
 
GiveDirectly uses government data to target villages where most or all residents are living in extreme poverty, defined by the World Bank as earning under $2.15/day. In-country GiveDirectly staff enroll one member of each household in the entire village to receive a one-time transfer of about $1,000 USD sent in two installments using mobile money. Recipients can then withdraw the mobile funds as cash with local agents and use the funds to invest in what they need – whether it’s on starting a business, education, making their home safer/sturdier, healthcare, or livestock.
 
GiveDirectly uses rigorous experimental research (randomized controlled trials) to measure the impact of their unconditional cash programs and answer public policy questions, generating evidence on key design and implementation questions across varied contexts. You can find over 300 studies on the positive impacts of cash transfers in GiveDirectly’s Cash Research Explorer.

GiveDirectly

QuestBridge creates programs for talented low-income students to access exceptional educational and life opportunities.

QuestBridge has successfully shaped the lives of the most promising, low-income students in the nation and has helped them unlock billions in scholarships.

Every year, there are over 30,000 outstanding high school students from low-income backgrounds who are academically qualified to attend the nation’s top colleges. Over 80% of them do not apply to even ONE selective college and they remain highly under-represented on leading college campuses.

Many of these promising students assume they can’t afford an education at a top college. Others lack the education about what it takes to apply to a selective college, or simply assume they can’t be admitted.

When low-income students miss the opportunity to apply to and attend great colleges, this has a profound effect on their futures. Many end up reaching below their actual academic potential, or they don't attend college at all. Of those who attend college, most don't graduate.

This vast amount of untapped talent equates to a staggering loss in human potential. As America strives to remain competitive in our global society, promising students from across the economic spectrum are vital to the wealth and future of our nation-at-large.

Using innovative data methods to target and reach thousands of high-achieving, low-income students, we provide programs that help students reach their fullest potential, which could include attending a top-tier college on a full scholarship. We also provide these students with ongoing resources and a supportive community of Scholars to help them thrive in college and beyond.

QuestBridge

EJI is committed to ending mass incarceration in the US and challenging racial and economic injustice.

Founded in 1989 by Bryan Stevenson, a widely acclaimed public interest lawyer and bestselling author of Just Mercy, EJI is a private, 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that provides legal representation to people who have been illegally convicted, unfairly sentenced, or abused in state jails and prisons. We challenge the death penalty and excessive punishment and we provide re-entry assistance to formerly incarcerated people.

EJI works with communities that have been marginalized by poverty and discouraged by unequal treatment. We are committed to changing the narrative about race in America. EJI produces groundbreaking reports, an award-winning wall calendar, and short films that explore our nation’s history of racial injustice, and we recently launched an ambitious national effort to create new spaces, markers, and memorials that address the legacy of slavery, lynching, and racial segregation, which shapes many issues today.

EJI provides research and recommendations to assist advocates and policymakers in the critically important work of criminal justice reform. We publish reports, discussion guides, and other educational materials, and our staff conduct educational tours and presentations for thousands of students, teachers, faith leaders, professional associations, community groups, and international visitors every year.

Equal Justice Initiative

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Advisor, co-founder & ex-COO of Every.org. We're all connected in this world and nonprofits help with healing.

I believe in gratitude+action and that together we can build a better world. Have the best job as Cofounder at Every.org :)

Food safety is so important. My family was helped by food banks when I was growing up, and I appreciate the work that WCK does to put food in people's hands when it's needed most.

Direct cash transfers are one of the most effective ways to eliminate extreme poverty, and giving people choice is empowering. I also respect their 12-year research on basic income through RCTs across 290 Kenyan villages.

QuestBridge seriously changed my life. I had to opportunity to attend Stanford University through the National College Match program, and knew that I was accepted before many of my peers, allowing me to focus on my part-time jobs at the time. They do a great job with an expanded network of support throughout college years, too.

EJI is doing extraordinary work in criminal justice reform to make the US more equal and just, and creating museums/memorials to confront/recognize the nation's history and ongoing problem with racism. #blacklivesmatter