We're growing a greener future with millions of trees in the ground and planting projects underway worldwide. 

#TEAMTREES

Where are these millions of trees being planted? All over the world! Get the latest info on our current projects at teamtrees.org, or check out our social media for regular updates. 



#teamtrees

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

TerraPraxis designs and implements strategies that leverage science, technology and energy innovation for a prosperous planet

We co-founded TerraPraxis to design and implement strategies that leverage science, technology and energy innovation for a prosperous planet. 

Our special focus is on enabling high-impact rapid transitions for neglected parts of the decarbonization challenge. 

We work with an extensive global network to define, incubate and initiate scalable strategies that fulfil the twin missions of prosperity and decarbonization. 

TerraPraxis

Creative Commons (CC) stewards a universally accessible infrastructure for open knowledge, culture, and collaboration. 

Creative Commons is the global nonprofit organization behind the CC licenses and public domain tools, enabling the free and open distribution of otherwise copyrighted work. We give every person and organization in the world a simple and standardized way to grant copyright permissions for images, music, research, journal articles, educational resources, and cultural artifacts; ensure proper attribution; and allow others to copy, distribute, and make use of those works.

We've come a long way since we first got started in 2001. When Creative Commons was  founded, the internet was a budding universe with high potential, and platforms widely used today like Wikipedia and Google were only just taking off. CC’s founders were keen to ensure that, as the internet continued to grow, safeguards to knowledge, culture, and creativity were firmly in place, and the Creative Commons license suite was born.

Now more than ever, CC recognizes the urgent need for these licenses in advancing Better Sharing, key to preserving our global commons. As we look toward the next 20 years, CC seeks to fearlessly advocate for Open Knowledge to address the many challenges our global community faces today from the Climate Crisis and educational inequalities to the spread of "fake news" and barriers in access to cultural heritage.

Creative Commons

The Fungi Foundation is a global organization that works for the Fungi, their habitats, and the people who depend on them.

Launched in 2012, the Fungi Foundation is the first NGO dedicated to the fungi kingdom. Since its inception, it has achieved numerous milestones while dedicating itself to exploring the fungi world in view of increasing knowledge of their diversity, educating about their applications, and recommending public policy for their conservation. As part of our ongoing 3F initiative, the foundation played a key role in enabling Chile to become the first country in the world to include protection of fungi in its environmental legislation. More recently, the foundation proudly announced the Fantastic Fungi Education Curriculum, the world's first mycological set of courses designed for schools.

In short, the Fungi Foundation envisions a healthy planet in which Fungi are recognized, protected, and embraced as the interconnectors of nature; a mission that would be impossible without the essential support of our kind, engaged donors.

Fungi Foundation

We are a think tank dedicated to figuring out the best ways to make the world a better place.

Rethink Priorities is a research organization that conducts critical research to inform policymakers and major foundations about how to best help people and nonhuman animals in both the present and the long-term future.

Our research spans everything from animal welfare to the threat of nuclear war. We explore neglected but promising areas to improve the world and try to further build the community of researchers working on understanding how to do this most effectively.

Rethink Priorities

Our mission is to catalyze a global solution to the climate crisis by making urgent action a necessity across every level of society.

The Earth is facing a climate crisis, driven by fossil fuels.

At Climate Reality, we’re here to make urgent action a necessity. In politics. In business. In every aspect of our lives. Everywhere.

Urgent action to cut greenhouse gas emissions and speed the global shift to renewables. Urgent action to halt the Trump Administration’s radical fossil fuel agenda. Urgent action to make world leaders strengthen and honor their Paris Agreement commitments.

Led by former US Vice President Al Gore and CEO and President Ken Berlin, we do it by empowering everyday people to become activists, equipped with the tools, training, and network to fight for solutions and drive change planet-wide.

The result is over 20,000 Climate Reality Leaders mobilizing communities in over 150 countries. Branches in 10 critical nations and regions around the Earth. 100 activists chapters (and growing) pushing for practical clean energy policies across the US.

Together, they add up to a powerful movement growing by the day. One by the people. Of the people. For the planet. Join us.

Climate Reality

Catalyzing resilient solutions, scaled to meet the climate challenge.

CATF is a nonprofit organization dedicated to reducing atmospheric pollution through research, advocacy, and private sector collaboration.

Clean Air Task Force

We advocate for a new, Creative format of society, where Human life and Human well-being are the highest values.

Our mission is to help Humanity evolve to a Creative format of society in which human life is the main value. Life of any Human has to be protected as one's own. The goal of society is to ensure and guarantee the value of each Human's life. There is not and never can there be anything else more valuable than a Human's life. If one Human is valuable, then all People are valuable!

The framework of the Creative Society is based on the 8 Foundations:
https://creativesociety.com/8-foundations-of-a-creative-society

Creative Society USA

A new breed of climate-focused NGO working to build a world that removes more carbon than it emits.

Reducing emissions is not enough.

We envision a world where climate change has been halted and economic prosperity is driven by innovative farmers, foresters, and businesses pulling carbon from the sky.

By partnering with experts and change-makers across industries, we elevate three essential pillars of economic transformation: accelerated research, smart business practices, and effective policies.

With so many solutions at our fingertips and so little time, we’re committed to motivating change widely — and fast. We work alongside people of diverse perspectives and backgrounds to build broad momentum for carbon removal.

Carbon180

TREES combats hunger, poverty and land degradation by training farmers in sustainable land use.

Around the world, modern and industrialized farming practices are destroying the environment—and, at the same time, failing to provide reliable income and nourishment for the farmers we all depend on to survive. At Trees for the Future (TREES), we recognize that unsustainable land use is the root cause of our most pressing challenges. We confront these challenges by serving the people at the heart of our global food systems: farmers and their families. As a global leader in agroforestry training for over 30 years, TREES provides hands-on, immersive education, skill building, and support, encouraging farmers to work with nature, not against it. 

Our signature methodology, the Forest Garden Approach, helps farmers transform their land with thousands of fast-growing, ecologically appropriate trees and dozens of other crops, creating new possibilities for themselves and their communities. By embracing sustainable land practices, farmers are reclaiming their agency, breaking the cycles of climate change and generational poverty, and rebuilding our food systems from the ground up.

Trees for the Future

Protecting land, restoring habitat, and connecting people to nature in southern Indiana since 1990.

Sycamore Land Trust is a 501c3 nonprofit conservation organization founded in 1990 to preserve the beauty, health, and diversity of southern Indiana’s natural landscape through strategic land conservation and environmental education.

Sycamore protects 10,319 acres of land on 121 properties by owning and caring for nature preserves and by holding conservation easements that protect privately owned properties. Stewardship of our nature preserves includes restoration projects to improve natural habitat for wildlife, planting over 85,000 trees since 1990, and building and maintaining over 30 miles of trails for free public use. We also operate an Environmental Education Program that connects people of all ages to nature and reaches more than 6,000 students a year.

Sycamore Land Trust envisions a future in which southern Indiana has diverse and abundant habitat for native plants and animals, as well as clean air and water, and people who embrace the connection between a healthy environment and our quality of life.

We are accredited and uphold the highest standards. In 2019, Sycamore became an accredited land trust through the Land Trust Accreditation Commission. Accreditation acknowledges the highest level of achievement in transparency, accountability, and longevity for land trusts across North America. We are also a Guidestar Gold nonprofit.

Sycamore Land Trust

Cultivating a resilient and inclusive Pacific Northwest community.

We are a philanthropic incubator (fiscal sponsor) for grassroots, community centered projects. We provide tools, guidance and services so that all Cascadians can develop and deliver solutions that meet the needs of their communities at all scales. We envision positive, place based action for an inclusive and unified Pacific Northwest with a recognizable culture of bioregional sustainability.

Since 2015 we have served over 40 grassroots project in every state in Cascadia! We currently have almost 20 projects focused on
● Arts & Culture - Cascadian artists spreading joy through art!)
● Community Connectedness  - Inclusive Cascadia in action!
● Education - Learning for Cascadian adults and youth.
● Health & Wellness - For the healthiest Cascadia and beyond!
● Stewardship - Actively caring for our bioregion and beyond.
● Bioregionalism - Celebrating Cascadia!

Your charitable gift cultivates grassroots projects across the bioregion. Our projects are lead by hundreds of volunteers who put in thousands of hours a year to make Cascadia and the world a better place. Donations can be made to CascadiaNow! to help us support our projects or your gift can be designated to any of our projects directly (please email projects@cascadianow.org to help us account for your donation directly to a project properly.)


CascadiaNow

We accelerate the success of local, regenerative communities that exist in harmony with the lands & waters that sustain us.

“Come into this canoe to explore a supreme, unknown journey that we
are going to take together. I am sure it will be beautiful, because we will
begin to understand one another.” —Wa’xaid, Cecil Paul

At times of great crisis it is stories that help us prevail. Stories of hope, stories of connection, stories about what works. It is stories that can transform how we see the world, and how we engage with it and each other.

Magic Canoe’s mission is to build a bioregional movement across Salmon Nation through storytelling. From the North Slope of Alaska to the shores of California, our interconnected story initiatives work to accelerate the success of local, regenerative communities that exist in harmony with the lands and waters that sustain us.

At the heart of this movement are people at the edges—in places often far removed from centers of power: rural and Indigenous communities whose importance is typically undervalued. But edges are innovative and diverse, holding profound stocks of human and natural capital resources which can lead a bioregional shift towards regenerative practices. After all, it is in the edges where myriad innovations began— off-grid solar, permaculture, microcredit, mobile payments, the Internet, and health breakthroughs to name just a few. Shifting resources and attention to the edges is an essential step in addressing climate change and cascading systems failure.

Magic Canoe supports edge communities in sharing ideas of importance to them. We provide resources to discover stories for and by neighbors connected through purpose and place. Amplifying traditionally under-shared stories and storytellers from the
edge reshapes the dominant narrative in our bioregion towards a future of reciprocity, celebration and local solutions.

Our name and inspiration comes from Wa’xaid, Cecil Paul, a Haisla and Xenaksiala elder who—against enormous odds, and with many partners—forever protected the Kitlope from logging. During this quest, Wa’xaid imagined a “magic canoe,” a metaphysical vessel with room for everyone who wanted to join his journey. Wa’Xaid asked the founders of Magic Canoe, our organization, to keep this idea alive, even after he left on another great journey after his time on Earth.

Magic Canoe

We work to end hunger & poverty in partnership with the communities we serve. Our programs create lasting change around the world.

Heifer's programs and success begin with a seed investment of livestock or agriculture, followed by mentorship to help project participants build a business, and ultimately to gain access to supply chains and markets.

These families are able to earn a living income and continuously lift up their communities as they train the next generation of leaders.

By supporting and training the world's farmers, ranchers, and female business owners, we're investing in a new breed of success. Our community development model focuses on building social capital by increasing income and assets within farming families, improving their food security and nutrition, and protecting the environment - with women's empowerment and connected communities at the very center.

Heifer Project International

Advancing excellence in education, research, exhibition and conservation of desert plants of the world.

In 1939, a small group of passionate local citizens saw the need to conserve the beautiful desert environment. One was Swedish botanist Gustaf Starck, who found like-minded residents by posting a sign that read “Save the Desert.”

With the support of social influencers of the time such as Gertrude Divine Webster, the Garden’s presence grew. Nearly eight decades later, thanks to leadership and investments from many individuals, Desert Botanical Garden has blossomed from a dream into a living museum.

The Garden’s vision is to be the premier center in the world for the exhibition, research and conservation of desert plants. The Garden strives to be an indispensable resource for learning about cactus, agave and other desert plants of the Sonoran Desert and the world. Every element of the Garden reflects excellence, beauty and inspiration to transform the guest experience into one of discovery. The Garden is here to help everyone enjoy the beauty of the desert and to help them care about protecting and sustaining the natural world for the benefit of future generations.

Desert Botanical Garden

We raise awareness and funding for critical, unknown and underfinanced conservation projects around the 🌍.

Our vision is a world in which people, animals and nature coexist on a sustainable balance. A future that is worthy of our children and the generations to come. There is no Planet B.

With your donation we can fund and create awareness to conservation projects that are: 
 
• Critical - due to a biodiverse and rich ecosystem, water importance, CO2 relevance or the severity of its threats.

• Unknown - with poor media coverage and lacking of effective safeguards.

• Underfinanced - running budgets that barely allow for the subsistence of the project.

Our current main mission is supporting Upemba National Park in DRC. This is one of the oldest and largest African wilderness at 13.000 KM2 (1.3 M ha) with an outstanding biodiversity that has lived in harmony for millions of years, until now. 

The park is facing some critical challenges:

• The DRC Government launched a oil and gas exploration rights auction in August 2022 (https://wapo.st/3zV59Bw) that covers most of the park! Check the "Upemba" block here: https://bit.ly/oilblocks. This activity would undoubtedly destroy its ecosystem and pollute the waters of the lufira basin (https://bit.ly/lufirabasin) an internationally recognized wetland and river with endemic species that supply water to most DRC and Africa! 

• The DRC Government approved in July 2022 a project for the construction of the Sombwe Dam (https://bit.ly/articledam) in the park itself. This also constitutes a major threat to the park's ecosystem.

• Predatory poaching, illegal mining and lodging. These activities are carried out by multiple actors that include armed militias, local communities for subsistence and organized mafias from abroad. Their goal is to finance their criminal activities obtaining ivory from the elephants, coltan (that mineral on your phone), Copper, Tin and many other minerals.

• Generalised corruption from the political class further difficult the labor done on the field.

Our plans include:

• Launch and fund regenerative finance (ReFi) communities and projects based on web3 that provide a sustainable income for the stedwards of nature.

• Run awareness campaigns that involve the international, national and local communities and advocate from the top (diplomacy) and the bottom (grassroots movements).

• Run sustainable development projects that allow supporting the local communities that live in poverty.

• Fund to a proper level all the conservation activities that are already taking place.

• Provide a decent income to the hundreds of rangers that protect the park and risk their lives for nature.

For them, for us and for the planet: donate today.

The Board,
International Conservation Fund

International Conservation Fund

We want to make life better for wild animals.

We are dedicated to finding evidence-backed ways to improve the lives of animals in the wild.

We depend on individual donors to help us make life better for wild animals. To a small nonprofit working hard on a big problem, your support is more crucial now than ever!

Wild Animal Initiative

Seeking economic justice for the family-scale farming community. Through research, advocacy, and economic development our goal is to empower farmers - partnered with consumers - in support of ecologically produced local, organic and authentic food.

The Cornucopia Institute

405 First St. SE, Little Falls, MN  56345 (320) 632-9255 ifound.org

To empower people throughout central Minnesota to build a thriving economy, vibrant communities and a lasting culture of generosity.

Initiative Foundation

Evergreen is leading the fight to put bold climate action at the top of America's agenda.

Evergreen is leading the fight to put bold climate action at the top of America's agenda, implement an all-out mobilization to defeat climate change and create millions of jobs in a clean energy economy. We empower climate and community leaders, and advocate for policymakers to adopt the urgent climate policies that science demands.

The Evergreen Action Plan is a comprehensive roadmap for this national mobilization: investing in building a thriving clean-energy economy that strengthens communities, and building a future rooted in justice and economic inclusion. Read the Evergreen Action Plan: https://collaborative.evergreenaction.com/policy-hub/plan

We won’t defeat today’s urgent climate crisis with yesterday’s climate politics. The next decade will determine whether America rises to the opportunity of rescuing our future, or shrinks from the challenge of this crisis. We need bold solutions now.

Evergreen Collaborative

COTAP mitigates your CO2 footprint with life-changing and certified forestry projects in least-developed countries.

When donating, please specify one of the following three options: 1) Offset To All Projects, 2) Offset: (Choose Nicaragua, Uganda, India, Fiji, Indonesia, or Mexico), or 3) 100% to COTAP’s Operations & Expansion. For more information, please see https://COTAP.org/Crypto.

Founded in 2011, COTAP empowers individuals and organizations in developed countries to simultaneously fight both global poverty and climate change. COTAP connects your carbon footprint with forestry projects in least-developed countries which create life-changing income for the world's poorest people. 

All COTAP projects are certified by the Plan Vivo Foundation Carbon Standard, the world's oldest forest carbon standard and the only standard which requires that projects share 60%+ of carbon revenues with participating communities. Combined with COTAP's transparent, modest, and consistent margin of 10%, ensures that you are creating $8.10+ per tonne in income for some of the world's poorest communities.

Our Mission

The mission of Carbon Offsets To Alleviate Poverty (COTAP) is to empower individuals and organizations in developed countries to address both climate change and global poverty. COTAP counteracts your carbon emissions through certified forestry projects in least-developed regions which create transparent, accountable, and life-changing earnings for rural farming communities where income levels are less than $2 per day.

The Problem

In developing regions around the world, hundreds of millions of people live in rural areas on less than $2 per day. This level of poverty forces communities to make hard choices between food, health care, and education. It is the poverty level where an estimated 11 million children die every year. Many of these communities are not fits for traditional microfinance, which tends to be primarily urban, and significant portions of their land are not suitable for agriculture.

While there are many promising technical innovations and development programs which can increase crop yields, there remains a geographic limitation on markets where such increased yields can be sold.

The result is that there are farming communities all over the world who could be made much less economically vulnerable if there were a way to generate significant supplemental income from non-crop land usage which did not rely on physical distribution.

The proven potential of small-scale forestry carbon projects

Small-scale afforestation, reforestation, and agro-forestry programs have a proven track record of reaching such communities and for creating direct, significant, verifiable and lasting economic benefits for them. One of the most compelling ways to finance such activities is through the sale of carbon credits.

Such projects have faced a combination of serious challenges in selling their carbon credits. Many would-be customers and/or project investors dispassionately view carbon credits as a single-dimension environmental commodity, of which they are only able to technically value and pay for the environmental component. Relative to other project types, carbon credits from community-focused tree planting projects credits are issued in smaller quantities, they are issued more slowly, and they entail a variety of unique risks, albeit highly manageable ones.

Further, carbon projects entail significant startup, certification, and ongoing management costs. In order to cover their costs and maximize returns, project investors rationally prefer larger projects and shy away from geographically-fragmented, small-scale ones where return/profit potential opportunities do not pool in large amounts in any one place. This, in turn, means that more carbon market volume is transacted under carbon standards which favor large projects, and that in turn puts more momentum behind the market acceptance of such standards, tilting the playing field away from quality, community-focused standards like Plan Vivo.

The small-scale forestry carbon financing gap

The above set of factors has created a financing gap for community-focused forestry carbon projects, whereby project organizers are able often able to obtain a fair per-tonne price, at an early stage, and at volume – but rarely, if ever, are they able to attain all of these factors at the same time.  If this problem were solved, then the proven and multifaceted solution of small-scale forestry could rapidly expand, thereby lifting the poorest out of poverty, mitigating climate change, enhancing food security, and restoring landscapes at a much larger scale.

COTAP is founded on the belief that this financing gap, though understandable, is an unacceptable market failure – and a humanitarian injustice – given forestry carbon projects’ proven ability to reach and empower the world’s most vulnerable populations.  Who does COTAP believe can fill this gap? Individuals and organizations in developed countries.  Virtually all individuals in developed countries have unavoidable carbon footprints, and most are highly concerned about global warming, global poverty, or both.

The need for a crowdfunding intermediary

Every year, small-scale forestry projects plant trees which will result in the projected sequestration and long-term storage of tens of thousands of tonnes of CO2; however, the average annual individual CO2 footprint is relatively very small in comparison, CO2 footprints vary among individuals, and individuals have different preferences and budgets pertaining to how much of their footprint they wish to address.

COTAP is the critical intermediary which fills the gap between individuals and these poverty-alleviating projects by pooling together offset donations from many individuals and organizations and then working with projects to ensure that commensurate quantities of the offset they’ve generated will be retired, which means they cannot be re-sold.

The net effect is that, through COTAP, you’re indirectly employing the poorest people in the world to plant and maintain trees which counteract the emissions which you have not yet been able to eliminate.  This empowers you to fight both climate change and poverty with one tax-deductible donation, and it empowers our participating farmers by connecting them with funding that’s at an early stage in the planting cycle, at a fair price, and at significant volume.

COTAP’s Solution

COTAP makes individuals in developed countries, primarily the U.S., aware of the poverty-alleviating power of forestry carbon projects, and COTAP makes forestry carbon credits accessible to individuals in small amounts and as a tax-deductible donation.

COTAP sources carbon offset funds from those who care about both climate change and poverty alleviation, pools those funds, and transparently matches those funds with our partners’ forestry projects in order to fill the forestry carbon finance gap, restore landscapes, and create direct, significant, verifiable, and lasting benefits for the most economically vulnerable people in the world.

All of COTAP’s current portfolio projects are registered under the Edinburgh, Scotland-based Plan Vivo carbon accounting standard. With roots stretching back to a research project in Chiapas, Mexico in 1994, Plan Vivo is the longest-standing and most established forestry carbon accounting standard in the world. Plan Vivo is also the only carbon accounting standard which always requires projects to have detailed plans for direct payments to smallholders and community groups. Plan Vivo-accredited projects are projected to sequester over 1.3 million tonnes of carbon dioxide.

Addressing more financing gaps by being “vintage agnostic”

COTAP not only seeks to support upcoming planting seasons at an early stage, but also supports projects’ unsold credits from prior planting seasons or “vintages.” In our view, unsold Plan Vivo credits are a societal injustice just the same as the fact that these projects’ credits aren’t pre-sold in larger quantities and at earlier stages. COTAP is thus “vintage agnostic,” so as to pursue all of our projects’ funding opportunities and thereby fulfill our mission to the fullest possible extent. As COTAP scales, the issue of older vintages will become a moot point as we will have been instrumental as the buyer which ensured those credits were sold. For more on vintages and COTAP’s transparency, please see COTAP.org/transparency.

More Accountable, Market-Based Philanthropy

COTAP’s dual mission, crowdfunding model, and tax-deductible status, together with Plan Vivo’s reach, accountability, and transparency, forms a new category of microfinance and a new category of high-performance philanthropy.

In pursuing its mission, COTAP doubles the number of reasons for individuals to take action on climate change and it greatly expands the climate change issue beyond that of a disempowering and single-dimension environmental problem.

COTAP’s Vision

On an annual basis, COTAP aims to eventually catalyze millions of tonnes of validated carbon sequestration, millions of planted trees, and tens of millions of dollars in wages to hundreds of smallholder farmers who live on less than $2 per day. Unlike “crowdsourced” philanthropic models which involve loans, grants, matched savings, or guarantees, COTAP involves wages.

COTAP creates a new system whereby the world’s most vulnerable perform the tangible service of counteracting the unavoidable carbon footprint of individuals in developed countries.

This will not be simple, easy, or quick, but this is one of the many things that is worth doing despite all of the challenges.  It requires a movement, and we invite you to join us in our movement to make tomorrow brighter.


Carbon Offsets To Alleviate Poverty (COTAP)

A "home for meditation in nature" featuring low-cost retreats in a stunning wilderness setting just 30 min west of Boulder, CO.

Rocky Mountain Ecodharma Retreat Center

Training and supporting regenerative ocean farmers in the era of climate change.


GreenWave’s polyculture farming system grows a mix of seaweeds and shellfish that require zero inputs—making it the most sustainable form of food production on the planet—while sequestering carbon and rebuilding reef ecosystems. Since our farms sit vertically below the surface, they produce high yields with a small footprint. With a low barrier to entry, anyone with 20 acres, a boat, and $20-50K can start their own farm. 

GreenWave

We are New Harvest, the cellular agriculture nonprofit. We’re growing meat, milk & eggs from cells instead of animals.

New Harvest was founded in 2004 to support the development of cultured meat (AKA “lab-grown meat”) and other cell culture-based foods. 

Our mission is to ensure cellular agriculture delivers on its promises to create a more equitable & sustainable food system by ending our dependence on animal agriculture. 

We fund public research and industry-wide initiatives to accelerate scientific breakthroughs and steward this tech toward making the world a better place. 

New Harvest

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

Sentient Media is a nonprofit journalism organization that is creating transparency around the use of animals in our daily lives.

In the last 12 months, we’ve continued to bring the truth about our food system’s impact on all sentient beings and our environment to global audiences.

We’ve published over 300 articles focused on our food system and how it impacts humans, nonhuman animals, and our environment. We've served over 4.2 million dedicated readers, and our content has reached over 52 million on Google and Apple News. We've trained over 100 individuals in 12 different countries through our Social Media Fellowship, and served over 300 members in 30 different countries through our Writers' Collective. 

We also launched our inaugural Sentient Media Journalism Fund, funded by Timi and John Sobrato and Stray Dog Institute, in which 18 applicants who are underrepresented in animal rights and/or journalism will receive specialized training and stipends to help them complete courses and tell their stories.

Sentient Media

Drawdown is the world's most comprehensive plan to reverse global warming. Project Drawdown describes when and how humanity can reach drawdown, the point at which greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere begin to decline.

Project Drawdown is a broad coalition of researchers, scientists, graduate students, PhDs, post-docs, policy makers, business leaders, and activists who have come together to map, measure, and model the best available solutions that can cumulatively reverse global warming within the next thirty years.

Project Drawdown

Halting rainforest destruction and its impact on climate change by working alongside rainforest communities.

Cool Earth shares the most effective conservation methods around the world and invests in those with the potential for best outcomes for people and rainforest. 

Innovation is the key to scaling up rapid rainforest protection and the lessons learned in one partnership can often be applied to benefit another. 

We work with communities who want to protect their forest. From setting up an in-country team to working directly with communities and local NGOs to develop their capacity, our partnerships are community-led and adaptable to each location.

Cool Earth

Outward Bound California changes lives through challenge and discovery, for youth, adults and veterans.

Outward Bound California is a character development school that uses high-impact activities in a wilderness setting to teach human skills: compassion, confidence, teamwork, leadership, resilience and self-awareness.  We lead our students -- teens, adults and veterans -- on character-building expeditions in the High Sierra, Joshua Tree, the Coast Range of Central California, and on one-day experiences on our ropes challenge course in San Francisco.  

Outward Bound California experiences are available to the general public, through group programming for schools and youth service nonprofits, and to veterans.  Over two-thirds of our students receive scholarship support.  

Outward Bound California engages in equity work with the goal of ensuring high-quality outcomes for students and staff across identities (race, socioeconomic status, gender identity, immigration status, and more).
www.outwardboundcalifornia.org/about/equity-work/

Outward Bound California

Dedicated to preserving biodiversity through grass-roots conservation programs.

The Rare Species Conservatory Foundation is dedicated to preserving biodiversity through grass-roots conservation programs rooted in sound science.  RSCF employs the "Flagship Species" concept to identify and conserve high-profile, priority species in order to leverage protection for the ecosystems they represent.

RSCF's South Florida facility houses critically endangered species. We specialize in creating breeding and recovery strategies for some of the world's most vulnerable species and ecosystems. From captive breeding and reintroduction to land management and environmental policy, RSCF's teams of biologists, students and animal care specialists create targeted strategies and solutions to protect and preserve wildlife and wild places. Extinction is not an option.

Rare Species Conservatory Foundation

Pelican Harbor Seabird Station is dedicated to the rescue, rehabilitation & release of sick, injured or orphaned native wildlife.

Mission: Pelican Harbor Seabird Station is dedicated to the rescue, rehabilitation and release of sick, injured or orphaned brown pelicans, seabirds and other native wildlife; and the preservation and protection of these species through educational and scientific means.

Vision: As a trusted wildlife rehab center, Pelican Harbor Seabird Station embodies professionalism, compassion, and integrity. Through innovation, education, and outreach, we provide the highest quality of patient care while promoting the importance of conservation in the community.

Pelican Harbor Seabird Station

Students come to HMI for life-changing experiences from our campus high in the Rocky Mountains to the wilds of Patagonia. 

The High Mountain Institute engages students with the natural world. Our school boldly unites rigorous intellectual inquiry, experiential learning, wilderness expeditions, and shared responsibility in a strong community. Our students realize their potential—as leaders, independent thinkers, and thoughtful citizens.

High Mountain Institute


Sociocracy For All promotes effective, egalitarian governance (decision-making, organization structure, and feedback processes).

Everyone should leave a meeting feeling more connected and more refreshed!
If that’s not true for your meetings, maybe it’s time to use some tools that are new and very old at the same time - for example rounds!
If you’re curious about more tools to improve your collaboration and make sure all voices are heard and work can flow, check out #sociocracy! A good way to learn is http://www.sociocracyforall.org/content

Sociocracy For All is a membership organization with more than 200 members worldwide. We're member-run and decentralized, which means that those members are decision-makers in their domains. 

What we offer:
- free and accessible resources to learn - in a growing number of languages
- training and coaching for implementation of sociocracy
- networking and communities of practice

We reach thousands of people every month who care about effective governance that includes all voices. 

Your donation supports our different impact areas:
- affordability: allowing affordable access to training
- localization: translating our resources so people can learn in their first language
- sector support: networking and continuous learning of people who are in similar sectors and can give each other meaningful support, for example eductors in sociocratic schools, activists in climate action, humans in sociocratic communities or coops, facilitators and leaders. 

Read our social justice statement: https://www.sociocracyforall.org/sociocracy-for-all-social-justice-statement/
Read about our members and impact: http://sociocracyforall.org/sofa

Institute For Peaceable Communities Inc

We advance human dignity and protect the planet through our work on transformative issues critical to humanity’s shared future. We strive to defend progress already made and unlock the collective promise of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) across interconnected issues, including climate, health, gender equality, human rights, data and technology, peace, and humanitarian response.

As a strategic partner of the United Nations, we bring together fresh thinking and diverse voices around innovative ideas to drive progress and tackle problems. We build communities of support and nurture initiatives to advance the dignity and well-being of people and planet.

Sometimes we work behind-the-scenes, shaping negotiations and connecting experts, advocates, and decision-makers. Other times we drive public awareness and involvement through communications, campaigns, and events. Always we work to build collective action through the UN, the only place where everyone on earth can have a voice.

United Nations Foundation

Permanently ending food waste/hunger by enabling America's 62 million gardeners to donate surplus harvests to a local food pantry.

“AmpleHarvest.org is the answer to the classic ‘excess supply not reaching the demand’ dilemma that has up to now resulted in vast amounts of food wasted in millions of gardens across America, while the needy in the community remained malnourished and hungry” Gary Oppenheimer, Nov 2010

AmpleHarvest.org is a one of a kind nationwide nonprofit that is eliminating the waste of locally grown fresh food, the outcome being a reduction in hunger and malnutrition along with an improved environment. It is accomplished by educating America's 62 million home/community gardeners that, despite the food drive "jars, cans, boxes" mantra, they can actually donate their surplus harvest, and they by providing a specialized food pantry search engine that enables them to make the donation to one of 8,000 AmpleHarvest.org local food pantries spread across all 50 states. These food pantries help nourish the one out of six Americans (including a quarter of all kids under six ) that rely on these pantries.

AmpleHarvest.org guides the gardener to donate just hours before the hungry families come in to get the food - meaning the food pantry does not need costly refrigeration or storage, and the families get to take home food that was harvested only hours earlier.

We work with the entire Feeding America food bank network, the Master Gardener program, and other partner nonprofits with the goal of helping to assure that food donated reaches a hungry family in the community - quite possibly - right next door.

AmpleHarvest.org has been highlighted on CNN Heroes, it won Points of Light, and was nominated for the World Food Prize.

Because we're addressing a misinformation as well as a missing information problem, this information based solution is both sustainable and sustained.  

You can visit www.AmpleHarvest.org/impact to understand the impact of your donation - this year and for the next 20 years.

Learn more here:
CNN Hero - www.AmpleHarvest.org/CNN
TEDx talk - www.AmpleHarvest.org/TED
Points of Light - www.AmpleHarvest.org/POL
PBS's Growing A Green World - www.AmpleHarvest.org/PBS
Defining The Difference - www.AmpleHarvest.org/definingthedifference


AmpleHarvest.org

The world's-first funding vehicle to collectively grow our resources to support the long-term flourishing of humanity. 


This Project focuses on how we can collectively grow our resources to support the long-term flourishing of humanity. It addresses a crucial gap: as a society, we spend much too little on safeguarding and benefiting future generations. In fact, we spend more money on ice cream each year than we do on preventing our own extinction. However, people in the future - who do not have a voice in their future survival or environment - matter. Lots of them may yet come into existence and we have the ability to positively affect their lives now, if only by making sure we avoid major catastrophes that could destroy our common future.

Housed within the Project is the Patient Philanthropy Fund, a philanthropic co-funding vehicle which invests to give and ensures capital is at the ready when extraordinary opportunities to safeguard and improve the long-term future arise.

The Fund’s patient approach means that we aim to identify the point in time when the highest-impact opportunities are available, which may be years, decades, or even centuries ahead.

Here’s how it works:  

- Donors contribute to the Fund to create a shared pool of capital
- Capital is invested for long-term gains, initially in a low-fee Global Stock Index Fund
- While the fund grows, more research is conducted into future-focused funding opportunities and optimal timing of giving
- When an extraordinary time, need or opportunity arises, the Fund steps in 

This is very much a long-term project that will be nurtured and developed as the Fund grows. We have several milestones in place, including an investment strategy update when the Fund hits $10m. And when the Fund reaches $100m, or after 10 years (with a minimum $10m AUM), it will spin out and become an independent entity.

Get involved

We’ve already secured $1m in seed funding from our generous Founding Partners and Supporters, including Jaan Tallinn (Co-founder of Skype), Ignaz Forstmeier (Co-founder of Personio), Austin Che (Founder of Ginkgo Bioworks), and Andrew White (Founder of FundApps), among others. 

The Fund is managed by a committee of experts, all with a strong network and expertise on how well-timed grantmaking can safeguard the future:

- Philip Trammell (Research Associate at Oxford’s Global Priorities Institute)
- Luke Ding (Board Member at Founders Pledge and advisor to the Effective Altruism Infrastructure Fund)
- Sjir Hoeijmakers (Senior Researcher at Founders Pledge)
- Max Daniel (Chief of Staff at the Forethought Foundation for Global Priorities Research and Chair of the Effective Altruism Infrastructure Fund)



Founders Pledge Patient Philanthropy Fund

Iwokrama Friends - USA supports the rainforest conservation work of the Iwokrama International Centre in Guyana, South America.

Iwokrama Friends USA is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization founded in 2004 in the USA to help protect the Iwokrama rainforest. We partner with individuals, foundations, and businesses to help support the Iwokrama International Centre in Guyana, South America – one of the four remaining intact rain forests in the world. 

The Iwokrama Forest is a unique reserve of 371,680 hectares (almost 1 million acres) of protected rainforest located in the center of Guyana in South America. It is one of the four remaining intact rainforests in the world. It is home to remarkable biodiversity, mitigates droughts and floods, and supports climate stabilization. The forest also provides food, shelter, timber, and materials for handicrafts and medicines. 

The Iwokrama International Centre for Rain Forest Conservation and Development was established in 1996 by a joint agreement between the Government of Guyana and the Commonwealth Secretariat to manage the Iwokrama Forest, a unique reserve of 371,680 hectares of rainforest. Its mission is to promote the conservation and equitable use of tropical rainforests in a manner that will lead to lasting ecological, economic and social benefits to the people of Guyana and to the world in general, by undertaking research, training, and the development and dissemination of technologies.

SPONSOR A HECTARE

What could be more important than the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the land that sustains us?

Donations to Iwokrama Friends USA protects one of the last remaining intact rain forests, saves endangered species. and combats climate change.

By sponsoring a hectare (2.5 acres), you contribute to the research and conservation of an endangered tropical rain forest and all its biological diversity. You support the ancestral rights, livelihoods and traditional ways of life of indigenous peoples. And you promote a model of sustainable forest development.

Your donation of:
$50 - supports community development activities with local indigenous populations.
$100 - supports essential monitoring of forest use
$500 - supports the protection of 1/2 a hectare of Iwokrama rainforest
$1000 - fully supports the protection and monitoring of 1 hectare of Iwokrama rainforest. 

There are 371,000 hectares of intact rainforest that need our protection and stewardship. Iwokrama's respectful study and use of the forest, and all its biological diversity, is a model for the world's dwindling forests.

Please consider becoming a friend of the Iwokrama rainforest through a donation to Iwokrama Friends USA. These unprecedented times challenge the Iwokrama International Center in Guyana, particularly causing loss of revenues normally raised through tourism and sustainable forestry. Support from friends like you is more important than ever. 

Your Donation Will Support the Following Work: 

Biodiversity - Protection of vital plant and wildlife
 
Vital Scientific Research - Research that connects biodiversity, conservation and sustainable use with cultural heritage, collaborative management and social innovation.

Indigenous Communities - Expand the relationship between Iwokrama and its indigenous partners, fostering respect and leadership of those who live in and use the Iwokrama Forest.  

Sustainable Forestry - Support the responsible management of this unique global asset and demonstrate the wise use forest resources.

Eco-Tourism - Connect responsible tourism with unique educational opportunities that, in turn, supports rainforest preservation.

Forest Monitoring - Measure and track changes in key physical and biological components of the rainforest, and surveillance of illegal encroachment.

Combat Climate Change - Stem the tide of deforestation. Could anything be more important?

The Mission of Iwokrama Friends USA is to provide financial support and recognition for the Iwokrama International Centre for Rain Forest Conservation and Development in Guyana, South America through developing partnerships and fundraising campaigns. As a volunteer-led nonprofit, we keep our expenses low and send all donations directly to Iwokrama operations in Guyana.  


Iwokrama Friends - USA

WMEAC is a nonprofit environmental organization based in West Michigan.  It received its nonprofit status in 1971.

WMEAC’s mission is to work collaboratively alongside our diverse community to educate, engage, and advocate for environmental values, environmental and climate justice, and a healthy and resilient community for all. Our service area includes the eight-county West Michigan region: Allegan, Barry, Ionia, Kent, Montcalm, Muskegon, Newaygo and Ottawa, with primary emphasis on the Grand Rapids, Holland and Muskegon metropolitan areas.

WMEAC's solutions lie in student and community environmental education - particularly around water, zero waste and energy; helping community members and municipalities achieve more sustainable practices around energy and water; engaging communities in climate education and action; and in supporting clean water for all.

Water is particularly important in the Great Lakes State. We are stewards of 20% of the earth's surface fresh water.  WMEAC works to minimize stormwater pollution (the biggest single factor in water pollution), advocate for the identification and cleanup of PFAs and other water pollutants, and work with environmental organizations from across the Great Lakes Basin to work to close down oil pipelines, such as Line 5 and to stop water theft by large bottling companies.

WMEAC also acknowledges that the environmental movement has traditionally been an exclusive movement that has caused harm to people of color. Our goals is to build a diverse, inclusive, and robust community prepared to tackle current environmental issues that resonate with all of our community. This includes WMEAC’s work with water protection and climate resilience, which intersect directly with environmental justice.




West Michigan Environmental Action Council Education Foundation

We need an all-out mobilization of our economy and society to protect humanity and restore a safe climate.

We are already experiencing catastrophic climate impacts, and they are accelerating. Our climate politics have not kept up with the ever-worsening scientific reports and demonstrated reality. We don’t have 30 years to decarbonize.  We need to reach zero emissions and to reverse the 6th mass extinction through a just transition as quickly as humanly possible.

Climate Emergency Fund has been turbo-charging the climate movement by supporting its most brave and adamant activists since our founding in 2019. We support the people who tell the truth, demand transformation at emergency speed, and put everything on the line to protect humanity and the living world.

Climate Emergency Fund

Conservation from Ridge to Reef  --- Conservación de los Altos hasta los Arrecifes

We aim to restore and protect the endangered dry tropical forest and coastal ecosystems of Mesoamerica's Pacific Slope.

Our innovative approach protects biodiversity where people already live. By working with local communities, landowners, and partner organizations, we restore and protect the habitats that form building blocks for wildlife corridors.

We began developing our first corridor in 2005 in Nicaragua’s Paso del Istmo Biological Corridor. In 2018, we began working in El Salvador as well. By strengthening the Paso del Istmo and other corridors across a region-wide network, we will reconnect people and wildlife across western Mesoamerica — with your support.

Paso Pacifico

Health In Harmony's mission is reversing tropical rainforest deforestation to halt the nature and climate crisis.

WE ARE A CLIMATE SOLUTION.
Health In Harmony is an international nonprofit dedicated to reversing global heating, understanding that rainforests are essential for the survival of humanity. Using the innovative process of Radical Listening, we collaborate with the experts – rainforest communities – to create the change the planet needs. We do not wait for others to act but hold ourselves accountable for the planet’s future. Humanity must halve atmospheric carbon by 2030, and we are committed to making a significant impact on this drawdown. In order to scale, our work is deeply rooted in monitoring, data, and evaluation. A study on our innovative model was published by The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Health In Harmony

We are Palo Altans who care deeply about the future of Palo Alto. We fight for a more affordable, sustainable, and equitable city.

Ready for a new Palo Alto? We aim to end homelessness, promote racial and economic diversity, and amplify the voices of those impacted by our affordability crisis while prioritizing environmental sustainability. We believe Palo Alto can be a bike-able, walkable community where families, businesses, young professionals at all income levels thrive.

Palo Alto Forward

We connect communities to land, food and opportunity.



Alchemist CDC is a mission-driven organization that connects Sacramento area communities to land, food, and opportunity toward a vision in which all neighborhoods are vibrant, equitable, healthy, and diverse.

We are best known for enhancing the quality of life in under-resourced communities by improving access to nutritious foods, implementing community-supported public green spaces, and fostering economic self-sufficiency through business entrepreneurship.

Recognizing that residents often have the best ideas for improving their neighborhoods and city, we see ourselves as providing a sort of community laboratory. We are committed to creativity and are constantly experimenting with new projects and ideas. Those projects that prove impactful and sustainable may go on to grow into mature programs, whereas others become valuable learning experiences. In every case, we serve as a catalyst for change.

Alchemist Community Development Corporation

Creating a healthier, more equitable, and environmentally sustainable community.

The Climate Solutions Accelerator’s mission is to build a healthier, more equitable, and environmentally sustainable community by catalyzing local efforts to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions and address the impacts of climate change.

Given the urgency and complexity of climate change, the Accelerator firmly believes that everyone has a role to play in addressing climate change. The Accelerator’s constituents, therefore, include any person or organization in the nine-county Genesee-Finger Lakes Region who is willing to work toward solving climate change, regardless of socioeconomic status, race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, age, physical ability, and language. Furthermore, we are committed to centering equity in our work and prioritize climate solutions that accelerate emissions reductions while also addressing other key community concerns (e.g., health disparities, access to jobs, affordable housing). We are firmly committed to ensuring that ALL members of our community have opportunities to benefit from, and participate in, climate action at the local level. Building a powerfully diverse climate movement across the Genesee-Finger Lakes Region that bridges political, economic, geographic, and racial divides is therefore a critical goal of our work. 

One of the Accelerator’s primary roles in the community is to facilitate collaboration between entities that are working to address climate change and related concerns. By coordinating and aligning the efforts of many local organizations, the Accelerator increases the effectiveness and efficiency of our regional climate movement by bringing together cross-sector stakeholders to work toward equitable, intersectional climate solutions.

A Collective Impact Initiative brings together a wide and diverse group of stakeholders to tackle an urgent, yet complex problem (like climate change) that cannot be solved with a single solution or from within a single organization or sector, e.g., non-profit or government. The Accelerator has convened a steering committee for this initiative, made up of key decision-makers from a wide range of sectors, including government, business, health, housing, transportation, and agriculture. This steering committee is working with consultants from the Stockholm Environment Institute to develop a climate action plan for the nine-county Genesee Finger Lakes region, and a shared measurement system to assess progress toward achieving the plan’s goals. The Collective Impact steering committee and issue-based working groups will coordinate mutually reinforcing activities to reduce redundancies, break down silos, and maximize the efficient use of resources.

The Collective Impact process will allow our region to move quickly towards carbon neutrality, through coordinated, collaborative action to end our dependence on fossil fuels.​​These efforts to implement systems-level climate solutions will enhance the quality of life for our region’s residents in a variety of ways, such as improved public health, energy affordability, opportunities for green job development, sustainable transportation options, access to public greenspace, neighborhood stability/resilience, and home comfort.

Beyond the Accelerator’s primary collective impact initiative, other current programs include:

- Amped: a collaboration with nearly 20 prominent local institutions to promote beneficial electrification (the use of cleanly-generated electricity to meet energy needs) and encourage organizational leaders to electrify their buildings and vehicle fleets.

- Color Your Community Green: a volunteer-driven initiative that connects and organizes concerned individuals, by municipality or neighborhood, to form a network of climate-focused citizen action teams that (1) identify locally-relevant, high-impact climate solutions and develop implementation strategies using the CYCG “Toolkit,” and (2) advocate for environmental justice and equitable climate solutions to be implemented at the municipal level and in schools.

- HeatSmart Monroe: an initiative that educates, encourages, and incentivizes homeowners to transition from gas and oil heating systems to cleaner, greener heat pump heating and cooling systems.

- Connected Communities Resident Ambassador Program: outreach and education initiative in partnership with Connected Communities to help tenants, landlords and homeowners in the City of Rochester’s EMMA and Beechwood neighborhoods reduce their energy usage—and energy bills—by making weatherization improvements using NY State home energy efficiency grants.

Climate Solutions Accelerator

Accelerates the development of sustainable animal-free materials for the fashion, automotive, and home goods industries.


From your car seat to the clothes on your back, the materials we interact with every day have a profound impact on the environment. Animal-based materials are linked to climate change, chemical waste, and resource depletion, and many current animal-product replacements are made from petroleum and don’t meet consumers’ needs. Consumers and companies alike are searching for sustainable solutions that are functional, fashionable, and cost-effective, but today’s options are few and far between.
The Material Innovation Initiative accelerates the development of sustainable materials for the fashion, automotive, and home goods industries, with a focus on replacing animal-based materials.

Material Innovation Initiative

We believe every child deserves a quality education. We transform lives in Zambian communities through education and innovation

We believe every child deserves a quality education. We transform lives in rural Zambian communities through education and innovation, at a fraction of the cost of other alternatives.
Over the last decade, thousands of schools have been built in Africa with the goal of providing universal access to education. However, without trained teachers, strong management, and high-quality learning materials, many of these schools are failing to produce quality results.   
Our focus is beyond the build. One of our key programs, the eSchool 360, is a holistic education program centered on empowering teachers with tablets, activity-based lessons, support and weekly coaching. We developed the eSchool 360 model as a way to sustain high-quality education for less than $5 a month per student. We serve over 6,000 students across 43 schools, covering early childhood through seventh grade.   
Our work also extends beyond the lines of traditional education, towards a shared mission of improving the overall lives of rural children in Zambia.  We design and implement a variety of projects that aim to help all of our students, including early childhood education, financial literacy, child protection, girls and women empowerment, environmental sustainability, and life skills and sexuality. With the school as a starting point, we are able to make broad changes across families and communities to improve not only their educational outcomes, but also their overall wellbeing.
Currently, we are part of a large-scale randomized controlled trial evaluation across 30 schools and 3 districts, conducted by American Institutes for Research. The initial results after one year of our program show impressive results in literacy and math – compared to a control group, our schools increased math achievement by 55% and literacy achievement by 103%. At the end of grade 1, our students were 12 months ahead on numeracy and 22 months ahead on literacy. 


Impact Network

The Dauphin Island Sea Lab Foundation assists in developing resources that ensure the long-term growth of the DISL. 

Dauphin Island Sea Lab Foundation Mission 
The Dauphin Island Sea Lab Foundation supports the Dauphin Island Sea Lab in its mission, “to provide wise stewardship of the marine environment through education and research”. 
 The foundation provides funds to sustain the activities of the DI Sea Lab and promotes 
 awareness of the DI Sea Lab and environmental issues. 
 The Foundation is also building an endowment for the Dauphin Island Sea Lab.

The Dauphin Island Sea Lab Overview

The Dauphin Island Sea Lab (DISL) is the state of Alabama’s marine research and education center. DISL was founded in 1971 by the Alabama Legislature, to maximize the state's marine sciences capabilities and minimize program duplication at Alabama colleges and universities.  Four historically black colleges and universities, both public and private, are among the twenty-two Alabama colleges and universities served by DISL. DISL was recently named the Restore Act-funded Alabama Center for Excellence by the Alabama Gulf Coast Recovery Council.

The DISL University Programs include both graduate and undergraduate courses taught throughout the academic year. This provides about two dozen courses and 1,700 credit hours for upwards of 200 students from the member institutions. DISL does not grant degrees, however, more than 250 graduate degrees have been awarded to DISL based students over the past 25 years.
The DISL Discovery Hall Programs offers a K-12 program that serves students from the entire state of Alabama. It engages classroom teachers and students in the study of marine science throughout the year resulting in more than 55,000 contact hours with over 17,000 students. Opportunities include internships, field trips, service learning, mentoring programs, camps, professional workshops, and more. The traveling BayMobile takes marine science to children in under-served schools reaching over 8000 students.
Public education is offered on campus through the public aquarium, recently named the official Aquarium of Alabama. The Alabama Aquarium focuses on the Mobile watershed, Mobile Bay, and the Gulf of Mexico introducing visitors to marine habitat and marine life through live exhibits and hands-on experiences.

The Role of the Dauphin Island Sea Lab Foundation
The Dauphin Island Sea Lab Foundation was established in 2002 to assist in developing new resources that ensure the long-term growth of the DISL. The founding trustees recognized that the availability of the State to aid the Lab in achieving its full potential is limited, and the Sea Lab must continue its role as a national leader in research, science education, and coastal policy development.



Dauphin Island Sea Lab Foundation

350.org is a grassroots global movement working to unite the world around solutions to the climate crisis—the solutions that science & justice demand. 350 is you, and the thousands of people like you who take it upon themselves to inspire your communities to action.

350.org

Ensuring access to safe water, sanitation, and hygiene since 2007. 

We envision a better world, where all have access to living conditions that allow empowerment and development. Together, we aim to ensure sustainable access to safe water and sanitation for the most vulnerable communities through innovative partnerships, creativity and the power of art.

One Drop Foundation

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.