EDF delivers bold game-changing climate solutions to build a vital Earth, for everyone, with flourishing ecosystems and clean air.

Environmental Defense Fund is dedicated to protecting the environmental rights of all people, including future generations. Among these rights are access to clean air and water, healthy and nourishing food, and flourishing ecosystems.  

Guided by science, Environmental Defense Fund evaluates environmental problems and works to create and advocate solutions that win lasting political, economic and social support because they are nonpartisan, cost-efficient and fair.

Environmental Defense Fund

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

Prevention, control and treatment of malaria and other communicable diseases  among vulnerable populations.

Our mission is to improve lives in Africa and Asia through sustainable, evidence-based programs  that combat targeted diseases and promote child and maternal health. 

We will accomplish this together with partners and all levels of government, by:

designing and implementing cutting edge research, surveillance and monitoring and evaluation;
selectively scaling up and delivering sustainable evidence-based health programmes;
providing technical assistance and consulting services that shape and strengthen national and international health policies, strategies and systems and build local capacity;
seeking to ensure that our experience, thought leadership, practical findings and research results are effectively communicated and contribute to the coordinated improvement of access to and quality of healthcare. 
Our areas of expertise include: 
disease prevention, diagnosis and treatment
disease control and elimination
health systems strengthening
research, monitoring and evaluation leading to best practice
behavior  change communication
national and international advocacy, and policy development


Malaria Consortium

Developing the roadmap for a sustainable, secure, and just global protein supply 🧫🌱


Check out what your support makes possible at gfi.org/your-impact. 

The Good Food Institute (GFI) is a global network of nonprofit organizations developing the roadmap for a sustainable, secure, and just protein supply. Industry alone will not meet this challenge at the scale or speed we need. GFI is accelerating the transformation of the food system by identifying solutions and mobilizing resources to make alternative proteins the default way meat is made.

GFI is a network of nonprofits around the world strategically based in the most critical economies for alternative protein advancement. In Asia, Europe, Brazil, India, Israel, and the U.S., GFI’s teams are mobilizing the international community to use markets and technology to replace harmful practices with ones that are better for the climate and biodiversity, for food security, and for global health.

GFI’s Focus
As a nonprofit, GFI is uniquely positioned to accelerate the transition to alternative proteins by focusing on three programmatic priorities:

-Cultivating a strong scientific ecosystem | GFI’s science and technology teams map out the most neglected areas that will allow alternative proteins to compete on taste and price. GFI meets these challenges by developing open-access research and resources, educating and connecting the next generation of scientists and entrepreneurs, and funding research that benefits alternative protein development across the sector. 

-Influencing policy and securing government funding | GFI’s policy teams ensure that alternative proteins are a part of the policy discussion around climate change mitigation and global health. In every region where GFI has a presence, teams advocate for government funding and incentives to transition to alternative proteins and are paving the way for the approval of novel proteins such as cultivated meat.

-Ensuring industry prioritizes alternative proteins | GFI’s corporate teams are creating a transformation of our global meat supply. GFI works to replicate past market transformations by showing companies of all sizes, from startups to multinational corporations, how alternatives to animal products can be profitable while meeting environmental, social, and governance goals.

Reimagining meat
The very real threats of climate change, global food insecurity, antibiotic resistance, and pandemics require us to imagine a different future of food. Alternative proteins are the solution that will securely and sustainably feed the world.

GFI’s global community of scientists, policy experts, and corporate specialists are creating a world where alternative proteins are no longer alternative.



The Good Food Institute

To create quality mentoring relationships for youth who need them most.

We provide mentors to youth and train mentoring programs in safe and effective practices.

Friends for Youth

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

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. 

Founders Pledge

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founder @ camp.org, expa.com, uber.com & mix.com

Co-founder & Head of Product @ Every.org. Especially excited by small nonprofits doing big things for underprivileged people and our planet.

Engineering @ Every.org. I believe we can all do good together.

 
Climate Change needs to be addressed now!
That being said, it can be difficult to know which organizations to donate to. That’s why I’m donating to the Climate Change Fund by Founders Pledge. They do incredible research on the efficacy of different climate change organizations, so I can trust that my gift will go to the best methods of tackling the issue. 


I trust Founders Pledge's research and decision-making on how best to spend my donation to support high-impact solutions for climate change.

They are consistently making many people's lives better.

Eating well while keeping the environment healthy and not abusing animals is super important

Let’s continue supporting efforts towards ending systemic racism! 