Case Study: Effektiv Spenden
Testimonial

“Giving Green’s review helped us expand and solidify our perspective both on the forestry space and the specific charity, allowing us to more confidently engage and advise our donors on high-impact giving opportunities at the nexus of climate and nature.”
- Sebastian Schienle, Director of Research at Effektiv Spenden
The Challenge
Given challenges with the credibility of forestry projects, how can we identify high-impact donation opportunities at the nexus of climate, nature, and biodiversity?
When it comes to supporting climate solutions, many donors root for trees. However, Giving Green’s research found that, while forestry interventions are important, finding high-impact opportunities beyond the usual options is challenging due to complicated systems and relative funding saturation.
For example, efforts to halt deforestation in one area can inadvertently displace tree loss to another, undermining their effectiveness. Also, forestry projects are generally relatively well-funded. Major foundations like the Bezos Earth Foundation have committed $5 billion to protect and conserve 30 percent of Earth, including forests. As a result, Giving Green determined that most forestry projects do not offer the highest return on investment for climate-focused donors.
However, many donors would like to include forestry projects in their giving portfolio. Effektiv Spenden, a philanthropic advisory organization serving donors in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, echoed this sentiment: some of their clients expressed a strong interest in supporting high-quality forestry initiatives.
To bridge this gap, Effektiv Spenden enlisted Giving Green to help identify high-impact donation opportunities spanning climate change mitigation, nature conservation, and biodiversity protection. Giving Green met this demand by sharing the conclusions of our forestry report, and then conducting due diligence on a specific organization identified by Effektiv Spenden as potentially high impact, which worked on a forestry protection strategy highlighted in our report as promising.
The Giving Green Approach
We extended our team’s expertise in nature-based climate solutions to dig deep into one nonprofit.
In our forestry report, we analyzed the tractability and neglectedness of 17 forestry interventions, such as discouraging illegal logging, increasing crop productivity, and setting up protected areas. We found that initiatives that reduce the underlying demand that is driving forest destruction provide promising opportunities, since they can work at large scale, and eliminate the problem of just shifting around deforestation.
This research pathway resulted in Giving Green’s recommendation of the Good Food Institute, since we think their work on alternative proteins has the potential to decrease demand for livestock, which are a large driver of deforestation. However, there are other potentially impactful pathways that Giving Green hadn’t explored in our core research.
We worked with Effektiv Spenden to explore other approaches to reducing demand for products that drive deforestation, specifically focusing on the work of one nonprofit that Effektiv Spenden was considering as a recommendation for some of its donors.
Over several weeks, we carried out a high-level assessment of the plausibility and expected impact of the charity’s work. Guided by Giving Green’s proven research framework, our process included:
 
- Desk research to gather and consider evidence resources.
 - Engagement with the charity.
 - Interviews with other players, such as donors, academics, and policy experts.
 - Report writeup.
 
The Results
A deep due diligence report tailored to our client’s goals meant they could move forward in their giving with confidence.
The project resulted in a report which outlined:
- An overview of the charity’s work.
 - The charity’s theory of change and our assessment of how the team executes on this theory.
 - Uncertainties.
 - Conclusion and our recommendations.
 
The report we delivered to Effektiv Spenden bridged the gap between our research findings and popular demand. It supported Effektiv Spenden’s philanthropic advisory work on high-impact giving opportunities at the nexus of climate and nature.
Furthermore, our extensive interactions with the charity during and after the consultancy provided direct value, as it helped the organization think through its theory of change and how to present its work to different stakeholders.
At Giving Green, we champion strategic philanthropy and evidence-based giving. However, humility is one of our organizational values; we consider different perspectives and acknowledge our own limitations. We are keen to work with donors and clients to extend our current research and meet you where you are.
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