Over the past six months, I’ve sent climate funders a lot of emails. Sometimes, I’ve actually received answers. And a few brave and admirable souls — mostly regrantors — have even been willing to talk on the record.
But for the most part, reporting on climate philanthropy has lately been a bit like reading runes or tea leaves, largely consisting of cobbling together enough anonymous sources to warrant publishing an unattributed opinion. More than one person has, after a long conversation, decided they would actually rather everything be completely off the record.
Over that time, a few themes have emerged again and again: fear, USAID, the IRA, climate justice, and narrative, narrative, narrative. Many of these themes have come to the fore as a reaction to what Trump has done, or cunningly threatened, since taking office. Others are rooted more broadly in the Republican electoral sweep of 2024.
Yet some trace their roots to before Trump 2.0, and arguably all of them are linked to long-standing tendencies and trends in philanthropy. Old favorites, you might say.
Without further ado, here are seven themes that I’m seeing today.
Climate philanthropists are running scared
If there’s one word I heard more than any other in conversations over the past months with climate funders and intermediaries, it is “fear.”
With the Trump administration threatening to revoke climate groups’ nonprofit status, freeze IRA funding and defund American universities, there’s no shortage of justification for that.
Yet I have not found a single philanthropy whose actions since Trump’s election have resulted in them being targeted, despite contacting more than a dozen philanthropies. (Acknowledging that some favorite targets of the right, like Ford, OSF and Tides, either declined to comment or did not respond.)
One big scare bomb was when living donors like Gates, Wyss and Bloomberg, as well as the Ford Foundation, were named in Trump’s rumored Earth Day executive orders, which many feared would attempt to revoke climate groups’ tax status en masse. So far, those orders have not materialized. But most legal experts say the threats do not hold water. And it’s notable that they came despite virtually all the named funders — i.e., Gates, Wyss and Bloomberg — remaining virtually silent on Trump, at least up until that point.
“It’s basically given this kind of false narrative that it’s actually mostly private philanthropy that’s in the crosshairs,” said one person, who requested anonymity to speak frankly. “They were already targeted before they did anything.”
For those at nonprofits, that tunnel vision is infuriating.
“I think they don’t realize that the ones under attack are front-line organizations, not them,” said another person, who has worked in major climate philanthropies and nonprofits, who asked for anonymity to avoid harming relationships.
Legacy funders with lots of money are the most fearful
Strangely, some of the most frightened funders in this moment are legacy grantmakers with billions in potential assets to tap for their legal defense. Relatively few have even issued statements, and multiple people told me the action they see from many big foundations behind the scenes has focused more on protecting their interests than on supporting others.
“A lot of the large legacy foundations are freaking out,” said one leader at a regrantor, who requested anonymity to speak candidly. “There’s a very disheartening amount of ‘how do we survive this?’ rather than ‘how do we show up for our grantees?’”
“What I notice from my conversations is that they actually think they’re doing something,” said the source with high-level nonprofit and philanthropy experience. “But doing something, as far as I can tell, is holding webinars and making public statements of support. Not money.”
The source added that one funder said his institution was spending more money outside its guidelines, but when asked explicitly what it was supporting, the funder said it was “to protect the sector, the philanthropic sector.”
In short, many legacy funders and most other climate philanthropists seem to think mice, not lions, will survive the Trumpocene. Most philanthropies did not say much after Trump started dismantling the government. Climate philanthropy seemed to have stayed even quieter. My reporting has found that there’s been no visible repercussions for those who have spoken up. Yet six months in, most remain mum.
Nonprofits and regrantors have repeatedly told me they are wondering where their funders stand. “When the foundations and the funders with the least to lose are silent, it does have a chilling effect,” said Emily Teitsworth of the Honnold Foundation, an intermediary started by climber Alex Honnold.
I wish neither to denigrate the mouse nor, uh, lionize the lion. A healthy ecosystem needs creatures great and small. But when the biggest, baddest bankrolls on the savannah start acting like frightened rodents, there’s something amiss — and it just might disrupt the whole food chain.
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For billionaires, climate justice is yesterday’s buffet caviar
Billionaires thought climate justice was a good idea when George Floyd’s last words were still ringing in their ears, but these days, it seems the approach is just not as compelling.
Take Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan, whose early climate grantmaking had a distinct equity and justice thread. After Trump’s election, they quickly net-zeroed their organization’s diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. (Not to mention hired a new climate chief who told me multiple times that CZI could not effectively spend $1 billion on climate philanthropy.)
Not that this is wholly a Trump-era phenomenon. Before the election, Jeff Bezos neither renewed the trio of historic $43 million grants his philanthropy made to climate justice intermediaries, nor made similar outlays to other front-line groups. Lukas Walton, too, cancelled his highly respected climate justice program with little warning.
And while she is in a class of her own, has anyone noticed that MacKenzie Scott — whose climate grantmaking supported front-line groups around the globe — has been mighty quiet lately?
For some, even a whiff of climate philanthropy — like day-old caviar — now turns them off. Bill Gates told everyone in May he’s going to spend all his money in the next two decades. But recently, he abruptly ended a relatively new climate funding program. Apparently, his spend-down money will go elsewhere, though the Gates Foundation’s agricultural spending will reportedly continue. Yet by my math, he’s going to have to spend much, much more than he has said to actually reach zero.
There are notable exceptions, like Laurene Powell Jobs, who has emerged as one of the most progressive climate megafunders. Based on publicly announced giving and the accounts I hear, her Waverley Street Foundation continues to back climate justice of all sorts.
It is also possible that these billionaires are taking full advantage of one of the many confidential channels for donations, such as donor-advised funds, to keep more of their climate support secret. But even if it were true, that would say something in itself.
U.S. climate philanthropy wants to reach new audiences
After a defeat that left the presidency and Congress in the hands of a party that has only barely given up full-on climate denialism, some in climate philanthropy want to expand the tent. Past Republican electoral wins have been paired with more funding for the eco-right and other uncommon allies, and my limited sources suggest that’s happening again. This is, after all, how the pendulum swings.
Note that the main eco-right climate regrantor, DeployUS, has reported a modest recent increase in funder interest. When the climate plans of most GOP leaders range from “the market will take care of it” to Trump’s absurdist take that sea level rise will create “a little more beachfront property,” courting such votes might seem like whispering into the wind. Yet major climate legislation — even after all those heat waves, floods and fires! — still relies on relatively rare Democratic control in Washington. Given the political reality, perhaps climate advocates’ best path forward is to change that calculus by continuing to broaden the movement’s support.
There is also a comparable rural push: Rural Climate Partnership also reports seeing interest tick up since the election. While rural America is more diverse than most realize, it does run more conservative than the country’s cities and suburbs. But this is bigger than a bigger tent. The nation’s wide-open spaces are vital ground in the race to decarbonize and modernize our nation’s electrical grid. Then there’s the need to remake our farms and ranches to advance climate solutions.
A parting caveat: I assume these are only two of many such “new” audiences climate philanthropists have in mind.
Climate philanthropy thinks it needs better stories
It feels like everyone in philanthropy wants to talk about narrative, not least in climate philanthropy. I see and hear more references to narrative each month. But can talking about the need for better narrative actually manifest in stories that work for the world? The efforts are varied and appear to remain more in the ideation stage than the grantmaking stage, or certainly the going live stage. (Or maybe massive bets are being placed silently? Let me know.)
Philanthropy has a tall order here, and I personally wonder how it can win out over the (now AI-intensified) abundance of misinformation from sources that many people now trust over, well, more accurate sources. But I do hope (or I wouldn’t be in this business) that the truth has an advantage. I look forward to seeing and hearing more.
Implementing the IRA ain’t over yet
For as much as Trump has cut, frozen and attempted to claw back federal funding, there are still IRA grantees with money in their accounts and projects underway. Not to mention climate-adjacent funds from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the CHIPS Act. When I speak to funders working with those awardees, inevitably they mention — usually in a voice that suggests others seem to have forgotten — that there are still grants to be made and work to be done.
The demise of USAID is affecting everyone
If you cut a federal department that drops $40-some-billion around the world annually (reminder: that’s just 0.6% of the U.S. government’s yearly budget), it won’t just be major international NGO recipients who suffer. Myriad small organizations who work with those groups as contractors and grantees are also seeing funding dry up, including across climate philanthropy.
Meanwhile, there are multiple ultra-rich individuals who have promised to give away sums even larger than that one before they die, and thus could — simply by following their own promises — cover that entire sum. And there are literally hundreds of people who could cover a not-insignificant portion of that amount, such as by providing life-sustaining aid or backing critical climate work. And imagine what all these people, who literally pay whole offices of staff to manage their finances and philanthropy, could do if they worked together. But so far, commitments have been scarce. Stay tuned.
Michael Kavate covers climate philanthropy and billionaire donors. Want to talk about one of these themes? Get in touch. He welcomes feedback, tips and suggestions.
