Billionaires now dominate the summit of environmental philanthropy, as I covered in a piece yesterday on the top 25 U.S. green grantmakers. But you might say that legacy foundations still control the slopes.
A medley of regional funders, second-generation family funders and smaller national grantmakers — and some operations that fit more than one of these labels — make up the next tier of American philanthropists looking to save the planet. The following is a list of funders ranking between 26th and 50th in the nation based on environmental grantmaking in 2021, the latest year for which data is available.
By chance, membership in this club appears to have a minimum commitment of more than $10 million. Call it the eight-figure club.
There are many fewer billionaire-backed philanthropies in this group than among the top 25, but there are some. Examples include financier George Soros’ Open Society Foundations and hedge fund billionaire Jim Simons’ eponymous foundation, among others. But for every philanthropy of the ridiculously rich on this list, there are other types, such as regional grantmakers. That segment includes the Boston-based Barr Foundation, the Midwest-oriented McKnight Foundation, and the Georgia-focused Robert W. Woodruff Foundation.
Heirs, too, are almost as common on this list as their wealthy parents or grandparents. Examples include Rockefeller Brothers Fund, run by a mix of family descendants and outsiders; and Mark Heising and Liz Simons’ Heising-Simons Foundation, which actually outranks her father’s operation in terms of green giving.
The group also showcases the many types of philanthropies active at this elevation of environmental grantmaking. It includes several well-known national funders, such as the Kresge Foundation, which has a community-centric environmental program, and Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, a conservation stalwart. For those grantmakers, environmental programs are one among many. Yet there are also much smaller institutions that qualify because they dedicate all their funding to environmental issues, like the Pisces Foundation or the Keith Campbell Foundation for the Environment.
Still others on this list have no environmental program at all, but have grants across their portfolios that qualify. Case in point: the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the New Jersey-based national health grantmaker that has incorporated more environmental and climate considerations into its portfolio in recent years.
The relatively arbitrary decision to stop at 50 excludes some notable environmental grantmakers that are on the cusp, such as NorthLight Foundation ($9.4 million). There are also grantmakers that are well short of that amount, but are still well-known in the field, such as Wallace Global Fund ($6 million), whose work and executive director, Ellen Dorsey, have been critical to the divest-invest movement.
That said, do not confuse influence with monetary might. Add all these middleweight portfolios together ($556 million) and it comes out to less than the amount the field’s largest funder, the Bezos Earth Fund, gave out last year ($586 million).
This list is also, unavoidably, a point-in-time snapshot of a fluctuating field. Arnold Ventures’ environmental commitments totalled $13.5 million in 2019, good enough to qualify for this list, but the operation was well short of the cutoff based on last year’s green pledges ($5.3 million). Others did not qualify based on 2021 giving, but will likely make the cut next year, such as the Cynthia and George Mitchell Foundation, whose environmental grantmaking rose to roughly $15 million in 2022.
Like the top 25 list, it is an imperfect ranking, and may accidentally omit some foundations that should be included. It is also similarly limited to U.S. foundations and omits community and corporate foundations. I also left out other DAF managers that Candid counts as top funders, such as Amalgamated Foundation, since, like community foundations, they function largely as pass-throughs for multiple donors.
Once again, most figures represent self-reported amounts posted online or shared via email. A couple philanthropies declined to participate (Skoll and Kendeda Fund), so I’ve made educated guesses based on Candid data and their recent grantmaking, and indicated that below. For a couple others, I’ve relied on Candid figures with their blessing (Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and Simons Foundation), as they could not put together more accurate figures by press time. And one philanthropy, Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, said their program’s total includes some non-environmental grants.
26. Barr Foundation, Climate — $34.9 Million
27. Robertson Foundation, Environment — $34 Million
28. William Penn Foundation, Watershed Protection — $33 Million
29. Marisla Foundation, Environment — $30.5 million
30. Open Society Foundations — $27 million
31. Robert W. Woodruff Foundation, Environment — $25.7 million
32. Heising-Simons Foundation, Climate and Clean Energy — $25.3 Million
33. McKnight Foundation, Midwest Climate & Energy — $25 Million
34. Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, Safe Water — $24.9 Million
35. Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Sustainable Development Program, Democratic Practice: Global Challenges, etc. — $24.3 million
36. Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, Environment — $23.5 Million
37. Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Environment — $22.5 million
38. Robert Wood Johnson Foundation — $22.4 million (Candid)
39. Pisces Foundation — $20 Million*
40. Skoll, Foundation and Fund — $19 million (estimate)
41. Kendeda Fund — $19 million (estimate)
42. Kresge Foundation, Environment — $18.0 million
43. Colcom Foundation, Environment — $17.0 million*
44. Wilburforce Foundation — $15.7 million
45. Sandler Foundation — $15 million
46. Keith Campbell Foundation for the Environment — $14.6 million
47. Arcus Foundation, Great Apes and Gibbons — $14.4 million
48. Simons Foundation — $12.4 million (Candid)
49. The Heinz Endowments, Climate, Environment and Health — $12.3 million
50. Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Energy and Environment — $11.6 million
*Asterisks indicate that the total is for the foundation’s fiscal year (July 1, 2020 to June 30, 2021), not the calendar year.
Did I omit your foundation, or one of your peers or partners? Let me know.
Correction: An earlier version of this story used an incorrect name for the Keith Campbell Foundation for the Environment.