For some of us, it feels as if the year has only just started, but many countries around the world have already used more natural resources in these first few months than our planet is able to regenerate in the entire year. As a painful reminder of just how quickly time is going by and how little progress is being made, Earth Overshoot Day’s comparison of the use of resources by the world’s countries shows that, if everyone in the world lived like the average EU resident, we would need about three planets to meet our needs.
Right now, we are in the critical decade for action – and time is running out. Only if we manage to halve worldwide emissions by 2030 and bring them to zero by 2050 will we still have a chance to fix the climate crisis.
Climate funding is slow to gather momentum
The foundation sector and individual philanthropists increasingly recognise the need to add a climate perspective to their funding strategies, but the journey from awareness to implementation takes too long: in 2019, less than 2 per cent of global philanthropic funding went to climate protection, and there is still no sign of a major turnaround. As the European Foundation Centre’s (EFC) latest edition of “Environmental funding by European foundations” shows, there is still far too little EU-wide grantmaking activity when it comes to environmental funding, and only a very small share of foundations are “really trying to disrupt and transform the status quo”.
Equipping funders and foundations with the necessary information and tools to unleash their potential to bring about change is at the heart of Active Philanthropy’s mission. In recent years, we have observed that many are willing and committed to accelerate climate action, but that the amount of information and the scale and complexity of climate change can be overwhelming. Funders are also discouraged from engaging in such activities by the lack of access to cost-effective support structures and peer-to-peer-exchanges.
Make the most of your climate funding
It is for these reasons that we have developed a digital platform that enables rapid and targeted action against the climate crisis. “Get Active – The Climate Solutions Hub” gives you the know-how of the world’s most experienced climate funders in an accessible form and enables you to tackle the climate crisis without having to spend time on research or building networks in the sector.
“Get Active” will provide information on climate change, its causes and consequences, and will showcase impactful projects responding to the crisis that we have selected from the portfolios of the world’s major climate funders. The platform will give you a broad range of choices to help you make a difference, but we don’t want to overwhelm users with the sheer number of projects – so you can expect no more than 25–30 high quality projects on the platform at any given time. All the projects are either endorsed and funded by major climate funders that have been at the forefront of the fight against the climate crisis in the last decades or are projects that Active Philanthropy knows from its own work. We will host a number of events with experts and local leaders that will give you a behind-the-scenes look at climate action, and highlight challenges, success stories and important milestones on the path to Net Zero.
Exclusive launch of the Climate Solutions Hub in spring 2022*
We will launch the Climate Solutions Hub next spring* for an exclusive group of funders that are ready to spend €100,000+ per year on climate action. The platform will support them individually and as a community to find the best funding match(es) for them, with personal guidance along the way whenever needed. Funders can invest in as many projects as they want. We are going to make sure to present as broad a range of projects as possible to cater for a variety of needs and interests.
We decided to develop a service for this specific target group because we identified a gap in existing funding opportunities for climate action. There are already many platforms that enable smaller donations, which is great for the respective target group – and a much-needed service. There are also many large donors that either have a foundation staffed with experts or choose to invest in a grant-making consultancy to build a funding portfolio tailored to their needs. But what about those who fall in-between these two? Those, who want to build their own portfolio in climate funding, engage with experts and keep track of their impact, but who do not want to spend the extra time and money involved in starting from scratch? The initial starting point for our hub – combined with our mission to scale up climate philanthropy – was the recognition that there was no cost-effective service meeting the needs of this group of donors.
Would you like to join? Please get in touch!
If you would like to be among the first users with access to the Climate Solutions Hub, or if you have any more questions about it, please get in touch with us. Together, we can prove that philanthropy can unlock the momentum for real change. And there are a lot of amazing organisations out there ready to ramp up action with your support.
*Please note that we updated the timeframe to spring 2022 after the initial publication of this blog post.