Climate Donors Are Quietly Filling the Funding Void — For Now

This story is part of a Heatmap series on the “green freeze” under Trump.

By now I’ve come to expect the responses. “We’re continuing to assess the situation and aren’t able to speak on it at this time.” “We are not able to provide comment on this matter.” Oftentimes, all I’ll receive is a Gmail prompt to an unanswered email: Sent 9 days ago. Follow up?

This week, my colleagues and I are covering the “green freeze,” an economy-wide trend of canceled clean energy projects, a retreat from climate tech investments, and a tightening of purse strings perhaps best epitomized by Breakthrough Energy’s pullback from grantmaking and policy advocacy. I aimed to look more closely at how nonprofits are navigating the new political and economic landscape — with climate no longer a key policy focus of the White House, would related causes lose their appeal to donors? Or would the opposite be true: Given the federal funding gap, would philanthropy surge to fill the vacuum? Would it even be prudent to do so?

“In my experience, when the government takes a step back from a particular impact area — and climate is no different — often philanthropists end up leaning in,” Amy Duffuor, a co-founder and partner at Azolla Ventures, told me. Azolla invests in climate tech start-ups using both traditional venture capital and catalytic capital, the latter of which comes primarily from philanthropists. But for many organizations, especially at the grassroots level or in the environmental justice space, it might not be that simple.

Talking about donors is always delicate and awkward, but I was still surprised by how closed-lipped local and national nonprofits became when I started asking these questions. Many groups that have spoken candidly with Heatmap News in the past declined to talk to me on the topic, even on background. One media relations manager for a conservation organization that receives federal grants delicately implied, while turning down my request for comment, that no one wants to stick their neck out when there’s a climate witch-hunt going on.

“Nonprofits have to be really conscious of where their support comes from and how they protect that,” Cyrus Wadia, the CEO of Activate, a nonprofit that offers fellowship support for early-stage science entrepreneurs looking to launch climate start-ups, told me when I explained what I was seeing.

He’s right that the wariness is understandable. The Trump administration is attempting to claw back some $20 billion in funds awarded to climate nonprofits under President Joe Biden, including hundreds of grants from the Environmental Protection Agency, many of which were earmarked for local environmental justice nonprofits. A number of these nonprofits are, as a result, facing unexpected funding shortfalls, forcing them to consider cuts to staff and programs in the weeks and months ahead. “If this lasts much longer … then we’re going to start seeing more organizations saying this program and that program have to shut down, they’re having to reduce capacity because they can’t make payroll, or they’re closing their doors,” Rick Cohen, the chief communications officer for the National Council of Nonprofits, recently told The Chronicle of Philanthropy.

There is a sense among some in the nonprofit space that the hesitation among donors might be more of a reassessment than an actual freeze. “There is definitely a ‘pause and wait and see and figure out our strategy and maybe start over’ moment that I think a couple of these foundations are having,” Lara Pierpoint, the managing director of Trellis Climate — a 501(c)(3) that helps philanthropists, donors, and foundations invest in climate opportunities that wouldn’t go forward without philanthropic support — told me. A policy director for a national policymaking and advocacy group similarly suggested to me that the election of Trump caught some of their donors flat-footed, adding that they “didn’t have strategies ready to go.”

That doesn’t necessarily indicate a broader trend. “The good news is that we aren’t seeing a huge amount of change just yet among our donor set,” she told me. “I think our donor set tends to be folks who are already very focused on climate,” she went on. “They are not only not afraid of the word ‘climate,’ but I think they really see the need to focus on it, particularly given what’s going on.”

She did note, however, that it’s still early, and that there are two main headwinds she and her peers are facing. “Some of the donors that we’ve spoken to have said, ‘Hey, we can’t really talk right now or commit to anything because we’re doing a wholesale reevaluation of our portfolio and how we approach giving,’” she said. Additionally, philanthropists who think of themselves more as investors might have questions about how viable their investments will be, given what’s happening with both federal priorities and the gyrating economy.

As my colleague Katie Brigham has reported, climate tech investment had already started to slow down from the frothy days of the early Biden administration; some companies had started to pivot away from promoting the clean, green climate perks of their business models even before Trump took office. (Bloomberg has labeled this semantic game “greenhushing”; the general wisdom is, “it’s still a great time to start a climate startup. Just don’t call it a climate startup.”) Anxieties about the economy can, as a rule, also impact the giving patterns of donors.

“At the end of the day, for very good reasons, philanthropists want to invest in projects and ideas that are likely to be successful and go forward and do the things they are meant to do,” Pierpoint said. “And all of that is under threat right now because climate tech is hard, it’s expensive, it’s competing with fossil fuels, and counting out government support and tax credits, the picture is daunting.”

Others were similarly cautiously optimistic about the days ahead. “There’s a gap, and philanthropy is often well-suited to close gaps,” said Duffuor, the partner at Azolla Ventures. (Both Azolla Ventures and Trellis Climate are part of Prime Coalition, a nonprofit focused on climate financing.)

Like Pierpoint, Duffuor expects to see a “doubling down” by philanthropists who are motivated by climate. Donors who were more on the cusp to begin with — who saw climate investment as en vogue, or were more driven by financial returns — might back away, she agreed. But it seems unlikely that people who genuinely believe in climate causes will be dissuaded by who’s in the White House. “I think people are waiting to see where the gaps are most effective,” she said.

Wadia, the CEO of the venture capital firm Activate, who spoke with me from the CERAWeek energy conference in Houston, agreed that while the language around giving may change, he is still seeing a “momentum for innovation.”

“If we all just step back, what are we really trying to do?” he said, speaking of nonprofits, philanthropists, and start-ups alike. “Everybody might have a different version of how we do it, but we’re all working towards trying to make the planet a better place for people — for all species on this planet. There’s a general consensus that’s a good thing.”

The nonprofit sector is large and diverse, and the impacts of the political and economic moment will not be felt equally. Local environmental justice nonprofits that relied on federal grants will undoubtedly be worse off than the better-insulated climate financing organizations like Activate, although the turbulence at Breakthrough suggests that even the deepest of pockets can still close to climate causes. (Tellingly, companies funded by Breakthrough’s investment arm, Breakthrough Ventures, do not appear to be affected.) The tension and anxiety aren’t likely to break soon; uncertainty and fear remain pervasive.

If anything can be counted on, though, it’s that climate causes — whether local, national, community-focused, or innovation-related — will need their donors more than ever. The people I spoke with expect them to step up. But is that even a good thing?

“It’s not just the immediate impact — the question mark around grant funding and things like that,” Pierpoint of Trellis Climate told me. “It’s also the question of, is this, in the long term, going to reduce trust in the federal government in a way that lowers investment when folks are trying to leverage dollars?” She paused. “I think it would be bluntly catastrophic for climate development if we get into that world.”

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect the fact that Activate is a nonprofit, not a venture capital firm.