This year has been nothing short of momentous, marked by major shifts and transformations. 

As an organization, we nearly doubled in size and officially spun off to become our own entity, Giving Green Research Group, Inc.

As a movement, climate action looks drastically different from what it did a year ago, due in large part to new leadership in the White House. 

We have spent the past year making sense of what these changes mean for the future of our planet and for donors—both in the U.S. and globally—who want to keep meaningful climate progress moving under these new circumstances.

Today, we are excited to release the product of this past year’s research, with three new strategy reports and an updated list of 2025-2026 Top Climate Nonprofits, all strategically compiled with the context of our rapidly shifting world in mind. 

It has always been our mission to demystify the complexities of climate change. This year, we have seen and heard that our ecosystem is craving clarity and direction now, more than ever. 

We hope that this year’s research and recommendations can empower our community with the confidence and understanding to take action, and the optimism that a decarbonized future is within reach. 

Thanks to the generous vote of trust from our Giving Green Fund donors, we are also thrilled to announce $26 million in grants to high-impact climate nonprofits—the largest grantmaking cycle in our fund’s history.

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The funding will be disbursed across a selection of nonprofits that are working on the strategies outlined in our three newest strategy reports, as well as organizations working on five other prioritized philanthropic strategies that were not updated this year. The full list of prioritized philanthropic strategies includes: 

• Unleashing Clean Energy in the U.S. (new)
• Reducing Aviation Emissions (updated)
• Reducing Maritime Shipping Emissions (updated)
• Decarbonizing Heavy Industry
• Reducing Food Systems Emissions
• Advancing the Energy Transition in Low and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs)
• Scaling Demand for Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR)
• Advancing Solar Radiation Management (SRM) Governance

Now that we’ve built the infrastructure and autonomy of an independent nonprofit and strengthened our research and grantmaking capacity, this announcement marks the beginning of a new phase of faster, flexible, and frequent grantmaking. 

Going forward, we plan to make grants at a steadier cadence and release new and updated research across our prioritized climate giving strategies. Additional grants will be announced before the end of 2025 and throughout the coming year. 

With that, let us walk you through the latest research, recommendations, and Giving Green Fund grantees. 

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New Research on High-Impact Philanthropic Strategies for 2025 and Beyond

New Strategy Report: Unleashing Clean Energy in the U.S. 

Energy demand is rising, and our power grid risks becoming unstable and strained. The current grid capacity must nearly double by 2050 to meet demand driven largely by electrification and AI data centers. Meeting this demand will be an extremely challenging feat to overcome, even if the U.S. were to continue relying on traditional fossil fuel resources. This is because the current grid infrastructure is aging and inadequate, and outdated energy regulations and policies prevent the quick deployment of cheap power.

Meanwhile, with the new U.S. administration and legislation like the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), the clean energy transition—particularly the deployment of wind and solar—has been slowed, further politicized, and suffered massive funding cuts.

Despite the polarized rhetoric surrounding clean energy, it is a critical piece of building the cheap, reliable, and abundant power that policymakers of all political stripes agree is necessary. This presents a viable path for action that the current administration can get behind.

Our research found that philanthropy can make a significant impact on advancing clean, cheap, and abundant energy in the U.S. by focusing on: 

1. Deploying and commercializing clean firm power (e.g., nuclear energy, geothermal energy, etc.). Philanthropy can de-risk early-stage clean firm technologies, push for markets to reward reliability, and help policymakers develop a stronger understanding of clean firm power’s critical role on the grid.
2. Addressing barriers to clean energy deployment (e.g., federal permitting delays, local permitting and siting roadblocks, and long interconnection roadblocks). The 119th Congress has indicated it may be receptive to passing federal transmission reforms, and philanthropy can help by supporting policy research and education to boost chances of success. It can also help address local siting and interconnection challenges by supporting policy research and education, and thought leadership.

We recommend funding Giving Green’s Top Climate Nonprofits, Clean Air Task Force and Project InnerSpace, for their work on clean firm power. Additionally, the Giving Green Fund will be making grants to Innovation Initiative, Clean Tomorrow, Evergreen Collaborative, Third Way Institute, World Resources Institute, Niskanen Center, Federation of American Scientists, International Geothermal Association, Center for Public Enterprise, and Nuclear Innovation Alliance.

To learn more, read the full strategy report. 

Updated Strategy Report: Reducing Aviation Emissions

Aviation currently contributes to 2.5% of global CO₂ emissions, and is on track to account for over 20% of CO₂ emissions in 2050. These emissions are technologically ‘hard-to-abate’ and have historically been poorly regulated because they do not fall under any one country’s jurisdiction.

Non-CO₂ emissions, mainly from contrails, are at least as large and detrimental to planetary warming. Contrails have the potential to be mitigated at low cost, but are almost completely unregulated, except for one policy in the EU that monitors non-CO₂ aircraft emissions. Currently, efforts to mitigate non-CO₂ emissions receive little philanthropic funding, at less than $5 million per year.

Supporting research and advocacy to mitigate contrail emissions is the strategy with the greatest potential for impact. To put this into perspective, we could cut 80% of contrail emissions by rerouting roughly 10% of flights. This strategy is also the most cost-effective, with the potential to reduce aviation emissions for as little as <$1/tCO₂e.

Additionally, we identified other high-impact funding opportunities to reduce the sector’s emissions, including: 

• Advocacy for market-based policy measures that make those responsible for emissions accountable
• Funding R&D for zero-emission aircraft
• Prioritizing the availability of raw materials for cleantech so they are available for hard-to-decarbonize sectors like aviation

We recommend funding Giving Green’s Top Climate Nonprofits, Future Cleantech Architects, Opportunity Green, and Clean Air Task Force, for their work on these strategies. Additionally, the Giving Green fund will be making a grant to the Aviation Impact Accelerator.

To learn more, read the full strategy report. 

Updated Strategy Report: Decarbonizing Maritime Shipping

Emissions from maritime shipping currently account for about 3% of global emissions, but could grow substantially under a business-as-usual scenario. The main source of shipping emissions is CO₂ released from burning fossil fuels for ship propulsion and operation. Most fuels currently used in shipping vessels are made from crude oil, but there are several alternative fuel pathways applicable to the sector.

Our research found that the bulk of emissions reductions can be achieved through the transition to e-fuels. As a result, we recommend that funders prioritize advocacy for national governments to incentivize low-carbon innovation. 

We also favorably consider sub-strategies advocating for the International Maritime Organization (IMO) to regulate shipping emissions, conducting technical analysis to identify critical technical and market gaps, and mounting legal pressure on institutions to strengthen climate action. 

We recommend funding Giving Green’s Top Climate Nonprofits, Opportunity Green and Clean Air Task Force. The Giving Green Fund will also be making a grant to Solutions for Our Climate. 

To learn more, read the full strategy report.

A Breakdown of our 2025-2026 Top Climate Nonprofits and Grantees

The following tables provide an overview of each Top Climate Nonprofit and grantee, which philanthropic strategies each addresses, and how much the Giving Green Fund plans to grant to each of them this Giving Season. In the last column, you can click to view write-ups detailing our research on each of them. 

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Giving Green’s 2025-2026 Top Climate Nonprofits

TOP NONPROFIT	PHILANTHROPIC STRATEGY	GRANT AMOUNT	LINK
	Reducing aviation emissions Decarbonizing maritime shipping Unleashing clean energy in the U.S.	$4,000,000 over two years	Click to view spotlight
	Decarbonizing heavy industry Reducing aviation emissions	$2,000,000 over two years	Click to view spotlight
	Reducing food system emissions	$4,000,000	Click to view spotlight
	Reducing aviation emissions Decarbonizing maritime shipping	$1,600,000 over two years	Click to view spotlight
	Unleashing clean energy in the U.S.	$2,800,000 over two years	Click to view spotlight

Other Giving Green Fund Grantees

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How You Can Make an Impact

Feeling compelled to act on our findings? Here are a few ways you can support effective climate action this Giving Season: 

Learn more at our Giving Tuesday webinar

We will be hosting our annual Giving Season webinar in early December. This year, we’ll dive deep into our Unleashing Clean Energy strategy report. 

Register for the webinar here. 

Donate to the Giving Green Fund

If you want to give based on Giving Green’s recommendations but can’t choose just one organization, a donation to the Giving Green Fund supports all of our Top Climate Nonprofits—in one easy step and with no management fees.

Donating to our fund also fuels additional high-impact opportunities identified by our research team throughout the year. That might mean additional grants to current grantees or funding to new, timely opportunities as they arise throughout 2026. Either way, your donation will diversify and amplify your climate impact.

Donate to our Top Climate Nonprofits

Alternatively, you can donate directly to any of our recommended nonprofits for 2025-2026.

Support Giving Green’s research

Every year, the Giving Green team dedicates thousands of hours to identifying and supporting the most effective climate charities. Since we take no portion of the donations made to our recommended organizations, we rely on the generosity of donors to sustain our research and outreach efforts.

A donation to our research is a donation to multiplying climate impact—for every dollar donated, we unlock another $21 to power effective climate strategies. Support our work to be a climate impact multiplier.

As always, we welcome you to reach out with questions, feedback, requests for personalized climate giving support, collaboration inquiries, etc. Whatever it may be and wherever you are in your climate journey, we want to hear from you! Contact us here. 

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