Lil BUB is a one of a kind space cat. Since landing on Earth, she's raised over $1,000,000 for homeless pets nationwide.

Lil BUB’s Big Fund exists to advocate for special needs companion animals and build a community that celebrates and fosters the human animal bond. With a focus on animals who are the most difficult to adopt, the most expensive to care for, and who are at a high risk of euthanasia. Lil BUB’s Big Fund provides grants to shelters nationwide and partners with shelters to create special needs foster program initiatives. We visit schools to promote kindness and inclusion. Through our work, we share BUB’s message of overcoming adversity and the knowledge that the things that make us different are worthy of being seen and appreciated.

Lil BUB's Big Fund

We're finding solutions to the world’s most pressing problems through evidence-led and thoughtful approaches to impact.

Founders Pledge is a community of over 1,700 tech entrepreneurs finding and funding solutions to the world’s most pressing problems. Through cutting-edge research, world-class advice, and end-to-end giving infrastructure, we empower members to maximise their philanthropic impact by pledging a meaningful portion of their proceeds to charitable causes. Since 2015, our members have pledged over $7 billion and donated more than $700 million globally. As a non-profit, we are grateful to be community-supported. Together, we are committed to doing immense good.

Founders Pledge

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

Combatting poverty, hunger and climate change by training farmers in regenerative agriculture. Planting trees changes lives!

Trees for the Future's mission is to combat hunger, poverty and the climate crisis by training farmers in regenerative agriculture. 

Agriculture is one of the leading causes of climate change, so by educating farmers in the Forest Garden Approach, we're able to change the way agriculture impacts the planet- benefiting the environment and supporting those most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. 

Our approach:

Through our 4-year Forest Garden Training Program, farmers plant thousands of trees that repair and protect their degraded land while bringing nutrients back to the soil. This allows farmers to cultivate a variety of fruits and vegetables that they can sell on the market and feed their families, providing them with a sustainable source of food and income all year long. 

TREES' Forest Garden Approach is proven to be one of the most effective and sustainable approaches to ending poverty and hunger. This approach is rooted in education and empowerment, providing farmers with the tools and skills they need to be successful far into the future.  

Entire farming families benefit from this approach. The children of Forest Garden farmers are healthier as a result of a reliable and diverse diet. As farmers see an increase in income, they can send their children to school, providing them with educational opportunities of their own.  

How we work:

Trees for the Future is currently working with thousands of farming families across nine countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. So far, we've planted over 200 million trees, restored more than 30,000 acres of land and have changed the lives of over 200,000 farming families.  

By 2030, our goal is to plant 1 billion trees in order to restore our planet's farmland ecosystems and secure the future of our planet.  

Want to learn more about the impact you can make through TREES? Visit our website (trees.org) or email us at giving@trees.org! 

Trees for the Future

Works to educate, inspire, and equip young women with the skills and resources to pursue academic and career opportunities in computing fields.

Girls Who Code is a national nonprofit working to close the gender gap in the technology sector. Its programs work to educate, inspire, and equip high school girls with the skills and resources to pursue opportunities in computing fields.

Girls Who Code

Our mission is to care for those dogs who have nowhere else to go.

Our dogs have come for many, varied reasons.  Some have medical issues, some have behavioral challenges, some are older, senior dogs and some just ran out of time at a shelter and would have been put down if they had not come here. 



Dogs who have challenges that prevent them from being adopted can live out their lives here at the farm in safety and peace, where no one will bother them and they will not be in danger of being put down, just for being who they are.



Some dogs who came here labeled "unadoptable" have been able to have families after spending time with us here at the farm and learning to trust people.



​Many of the dogs who have come here are adoptable. We have an excellent adoption program, and find great families for the dogs who can be adopted. Our goal is to rehome as many of the dogs who came here as possible!

Smiling Dog Farms

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

I love animals and I donate to help them.

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

Every animal has a right to be here and be cared for - the weird and quirky ones especially.
Lots of love and many blessings <3

I would like to honor Bub's time on Planet Earth by supporting the good work her family do on her behalf.

We give 10% of our profits to the Climate Change Fund!

I gave because I believe in Bub's message and Mr Marbles is carrying it on! 

we believe girls who code will change the world!!

I was so happy to see what you do to help these precious animals. thank you so much