Greenlight America: Grantee Spotlight (Q2 2026)

Grantee spotlight: Greenlight America

The Giving Green Fund plans to award a grant to Greenlight America to expand its local campaigns focused on getting utility-scale clean energy projects permitted and approved. Greenlight America is a U.S.-based nonprofit that mobilizes local supporters to advocate for wind, solar, and other clean energy projects to receive the local approvals needed to be built in their communities.

Greenlight America’s work falls within our philanthropic strategy of unleashing clean energy in the U.S. Please see Giving Green’s strategy report for more information, including recommended sub-strategies, theory of change, funding need, and key uncertainties.

Last updated: March 2026

What Is Greenlight America?

Founded in 2023, Greenlight America works to accelerate the deployment of clean energy infrastructure by helping local communities across the U.S. approve wind, solar, and other clean energy projects. Its core objective is to ensure that projects with strong climate benefits and local economic advantages can secure the permits and approvals required to move forward.

The organization focuses on a critical barrier to deploying clean energy: local siting and permitting decisions. In many parts of the U.S., county commissions, zoning boards, or local planning authorities determine whether utility-scale clean energy projects can be built. While national and state policies may support renewable energy deployment, projects can still be delayed or blocked if they fail to obtain local approval.

Greenlight America addresses this challenge by identifying upcoming permitting decisions and helping local communities organize to support projects. Its work includes monitoring project pipelines to identify key opportunities, building networks of local supporters and partner organizations, providing campaign infrastructure and messaging support, and mobilizing advocates to participate in hearings and public comment processes. By helping local advocates show up at critical moments in the permitting process, Greenlight America aims to ensure that clean energy supporters are represented in local decision-making.

What Are We Funding, and How Could It Help Address Climate Change?

As part of our prioritized sub-strategy of addressing local siting and permitting barriers, we are funding Greenlight America to run more local campaigns that help get utility-scale clean energy projects approved.

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act created a time-limited window for developers to secure permits for wind and solar projects before key tax incentives phase out at the end of 2027. Since most projects are built within 12 to 18 months, developers effectively have two to three years to obtain the necessary local approvals. Greenlight America aims to help unlock as many projects as possible during this period.

The grant will support four main activities:

• Building surge campaign capacity through temporary organizers and consultants
• Strengthening Greenlight America’s Early Warning System to identify projects approaching key permitting decisions
• Increasing campaign investments, such as communications and digital organizing
• Expanding operations to additional states where large-scale projects are expected to move forward

By helping communities approve more projects, Greenlight America’s campaigns could accelerate the addition of gigawatts of wind and solar capacity to the grid, reducing emissions from the power sector.

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Why Do We Think Greenlight America Will Use This Funding Well?

Greenlight America is a relatively new organization, but its team brings extensive experience in grassroots organizing, policy advocacy, and clean energy campaigns. Its leadership includes organizers who have worked on major national policy organizations, such as Indivisible, and large-scale advocacy campaigns, providing experience in mobilizing supporters and navigating complex policy environments.

To date, Greenlight America estimates that they have successfully supported the deployment of 30 GW in clean energy projects through its Early Warning System and campaign portfolio. With additional funding, it will be able to spend resources on new campaigns and continue to remove barriers for clean energy projects.

The broader philanthropic ecosystem is increasingly recognizing the importance of siting and permitting in determining the pace of clean energy deployment, but funding for local campaign infrastructure remains relatively limited compared with other climate strategies. Our funding aims to help expand Greenlight America’s campaign capacity during a time-sensitive window for clean energy deployment, increasing the likelihood that projects currently in development can move forward.

Given the urgency created by federal policy timelines and Greenlight America’s focus on a key deployment bottleneck, we believe the organization is well-positioned to use this funding to accelerate clean energy deployment in the U.S.

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Giving Green believes that additional climate donations are likely to be most impactful when directed to our Top Climate Nonprofits. For several reasons, we may choose to recommend grants to other organizations for work that we believe is at least as impactful as grants to our top recommendations. We are highlighting this grant to offer transparency to donors to the Giving Green Fund, as well as to provide a resource for donors who are particularly interested in this impact strategy. This is a nonpartisan analysis (study or research) and is provided for educational purposes.