Funding Climate Action: a Pangea workshop

presentation cover slide

On Thursday afternoon, about 25 Pangea members, friends and staff from several local nonprofit organizations addressing climate issues came together for the latest Pangea event.

Elan Wong, Pangea’s research intern, kicked off the activity with a presentation on her research of the last few months. Elan’s presentation highlighted some of the major trends in climate-focused philanthropy today.

These trends include:

  • the major need for greater climate-focused giving (currently less than 2% of philanthropic giving is going towards climate action)
  • the tendency for large funders to fund climate adaptation projects, that is projects that focus on reducing emissions and stabilizing greenhouse gas production
  • the focus of smaller funders on projects related to climate adaptation or climate justice

In highlighting three of the smaller philanthropic funders she studied in her research (Mize Family Foundation, Thousand Currents, Laird Norton Foundation), Elan pointed out that climate action projects by small funders address topics of (1) human rights and advocacy, (2) community development, (3) women-led initiatives, and (4) food sovereignty.

In closing her presentation, Elan emphasized the value of partnerships in increasing the impact of small funders and addressing some of the issues of climate change.

presenter in front of a group

After this presentation, event participants engaged in discussions focused on addressing the two central questions of the event:

(1) what role do small funders play in climate action?
(2) how can small funders most effectively support climate action and support the organizations they fund?

A few of the outcomes of these discussions were:

  • supporting projects that interface between government and civil society like Raven Trust or Pa’o Youth Organization (PYO)
  • providing more clarity of the focuses of Pangea and similar funders and a clearer understanding of how we see the intersections of our funding
  • continuing to focus on operation grants and think about how we measure success for these kinds of grants
  • think about partnerships with established organizations and connecting them with the organizations and communities we support (like ELAW)
  • and thinking about how we can move funding from community scale projects to movement scale projects

Funding Climate Action Slideshow – PDF
Funding Climate Action Key Terms – PDF
Funding Climate Action Discussion Guide – PDF

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