“Philanthropy generally, we consider as contributing private money for public good or community good. And climate philanthropy is simply when we are making those private contributions in ways that are going to address the climate crisis that our country and that the world is facing today,” Heather Grady, Vice President of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors (RPA) told me.
Most of us think about philanthropy as financial contributions of various forms from wealthy individuals or foundations. Clearly, the Rockefeller family is renowned for its fortune and largess, as the name adorns many buildings and organizations, including the famed Rockefeller Foundation.
Philanthropy can also play an advisory and catalytic role in addressing the world’s most pressing challenges. Grady says that climate philanthropy can serve a particularly valuable role as a resource beyond funding to systems and connections that help scale the impact of their dollars, and other resources, including government funding and incentives. She says they can help communities become more resilient to the physical, economic and social effects of climate change, and help expedite solutions, including serving to de-risk innovations to attract private capital.
The irony of J.D. Rockefeller money for climate
The irony of the RPA’s aggressive focus on climate philanthropy (though not only on this) is that the original builder of the fortune the Rockefeller-related entities now leverage, J.D. Rockefeller, earned that fortune by building Standard Oil Company, now known as ExxonMobil (after many splits and mergers). For perspective, the Library of Congress characterizes his wealth this way: “According to Forbes, (J.D.) Rockefeller’s total assets in 1937 equaled 1.5% of America’s total economic output for that same year, making him one of the wealthiest people in the world to this day (in comparison, Bill Gates’ wealth in 2018 would be 0.45% of 2018 GDP).”
The RPA website describes the organization this way: “Founded in 2002, RPA has grown into one of the world’s largest philanthropic service organizations and has facilitated more than $4 billion in grantmaking to more than 70 countries. RPA currently advises on and manages more than $500 million in annual giving by individuals, families, foundations, and corporations. RPA also serves as a fiscal sponsor for more than 100 projects, providing governance, management, and operational infrastructure to support their charitable purposes.”
Here are key points about climate philanthropy’s niche from my exclusive interview with Grady on Electric Ladies Podcast:
Cross-sector approach to climate adaptation and mitigation
The projects they support depend upon what the community needs, but, “it always has to be for a charitable purpose,” Grady said.
They are big fans of cross-sector collaboration, which is leverage at its core, so their projects focus on how their funding and expertise can be combined with other partners to catalyze a much larger impact. It’s especially important in climate-related philanthropy, Grady insists, because climate intersects with the entire economy, including health, food, fashion and energy.
“At Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, we are hosting more than 30 different projects that are focused on climate, or climate and nature, philanthropy. And there’s all kinds of models and, and approaches,” Grady continued. “In some cases, it is work where the philanthropy is sort of the wedge, or the leading edge, of de-risking something or innovating with new ways to do things. And we certainly expect that, once there’s a proof of concept and things are off the ground, that that can then be taken up either by private sector return-seeking capital, or indeed, by government funding.”
Adaptation, Grady defined as, “helping people in the world cope with the effects of climate change and successfully adapt to the changing environment.” Mitigation, she said is, “trying to actually reduce greenhouse gas emissions and in other ways reduce…the growth of climate change impacts.”
Examples of climate philanthropy projects
Examples of RPA’s climate philanthropy include supporting the Just Transition Fund, which is working to help the people in coal communities develop new economic models, jobs and skills for the clean energy transition. (I had their Founder and CEO, Heidi Binko, on Electric Ladies Podcast a few years ago, when the show was called Green Connections Radio.) RPA also has supported “public awareness campaigns about the problem of climate change and solutions and how we can each play a part,” regenerative agriculture and renewable energy projects, she added. Sometimes it’s about helping communities advocate for their needs.
She also talked about the Science-Based Targets Network they are working on with the Global Commons Alliance. Grady described it as “a companion to Science-Based Targets initiative, which is setting targets for climate for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. In both of these, the idea is, globally we need to be aware of global targets.” The Network is working, for example, on targets for biodiversity, oceans, freshwater use and land use, according to Grady.
The cross-sector approach in this case is they are partnering with companies on developing these targets, because companies are the ones that will be held accountable for meeting these targets. It’s not just RPA. “This is a coalition of many, many, non-profits and environmental organizations, several of whom are household words. It’s the staff of these NGOs, non-governmental organizations, that are doing the work, determining, ‘how do we define the science-based targets? ‘How do we set them and how do we validate them?’“
Climate philanthropy can help communities leverage the Inflation Reduction Act and Infrastructure Investment Act
Grady praised the Inflation Reduction Act in particular, passed by the last Congress (under Democrats, with President Biden) and its ~$369 billion for climate and energy-related initiatives, on top of the billion in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, to upgrade community infrastructures and increase their resilience.
But, she cautioned, communities need to know about them and many don’t, especially underserved communities. Climate philanthropy can help inform communities about the availability of government funds and initiatives, and how to apply for them. Then, it can help the community with the systems to comply with the government’s reporting requirements.
It’s about each of us doing our part to address climate change, though, Grady emphasized. “It’s also about behavioral change. It encourages all of us to think about our role as consumers, to think about our role as users of energy.”
Listen to the full interview with Heather Grady on Electric Ladies Podcast here.
