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High-impact climate nonprofits for climate donors
Giving Green is your guide to effective climate giving.
We have poured thousands of hours into curating a list of deeply researched, carefully vetted climate nonprofits that punch above their weight. When you donate to these highly effective climate nonprofits, you can be confident that every dollar will be strongly felt by the organizations and the planet.
Our approach to top recommendations
Solving the climate crisis requires systemic change: changing the laws, norms, and systems that make greenhouse gas emissions part of everyday life. In practice, this means advocating for strong climate policy and advancing climate technology. These are areas where climate donors can have an outsized impact by connecting their individual action with systemic change.
That’s why we believe the highest-impact giving opportunities for climate donors is to donate to climate nonprofits that work directly on policy advocacy and technology advancement. We estimate that top giving opportunities in policy and technology are an order of magnitude more effective than the best direct emissions reductions projects, such as carbon offsets.
Following a broad sweep of potential climate solutions across geographies, technologies, and sectors, we have decided to recommend climate nonprofits in the following areas (listed in no particular order): climate policy implementation, livestock emissions reduction, industrial decarbonization, and advanced nuclear power.
We partner with Giving What We Can to facilitate donations to our top recommendations. To make it easier to maximize the impact of your donations, together we've created the Giving Green Fund, which includes a portfolio of high-impact giving opportunities. We update the portfolio dynamically as new evidence emerges, and we recommend strategic grants from the fund based on organizations’ funding needs and opportunities.
You can give to any of our top recommendations, to the Giving Green Fund, or to us below:
Our recommended organizations
Clean Air Task Force
Government policies in the US and abroad represent high-leverage opportunities to establish and support new norms at a scale that nonprofits and the private sector could never achieve alone. Clean Air Task Force has an impressive track record shaping and ensuring the passage of large-scale policies and agreements such as the Inflation Reduction Act and Global Methane Pledge, as well as continually supporting the global scale-up of emerging technologies such as carbon capture and zero-carbon liquid fuels.
*Clean Air Task Force is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization in the United States. CATF has partnered with other organizations to accept tax-deductible donations from Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and the UK, and non-tax-deductible donations in Sweden. Please see their website for detailed information. We are only offering an opinion on CATF, and not on CATF Action.
Evergreen Collaborative
The Inflation Reduction Act includes $369 billion in climate provisions, an enormous sum whose impact depends on the details of implementation. Evergreen Collaborative successfully advocated for many pieces of the IRA and is now shifting focus to making sure that corporations, states, and the Biden Administration take full advantage of new policy provisions. We think Evergreen’s nimble makeup, connections to governors’ offices, and targeted focus on specific states could result in big impacts in the years ahead. For more information, see our Evergreen Collaborative recommendation summary.
*Evergreen Collaborative is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization in the United States. As Giving Green is part of IDinsight, which is itself a charitable, tax-exempt organization, we are only offering an opinion on the charitable activities of Evergreen Collaborative, and not on Evergreen Action.
Good Energy Collective
Wind and solar power are now competitive pieces of the green electricity puzzle, but they can’t do it alone. A new era of low-carbon “advanced” nuclear reactors promises a safer, cheaper, and more scalable complement to renewable energy than traditional nuclear power. Good Energy Collective engages with US communities and politicians to ensure there’s broad support for advanced nuclear power.
*Good Energy Collective is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization in the United States.
Good Food Institute
Livestock production is responsible for at least 10% of global emissions – livestock belch methane, require substantial (often deforested) grazing land, and contribute to general supply chain emissions. Despite this large footprint, there has been relatively little government effort to meaningfully reduce agricultural emissions. The Good Food Institute seeks to make alternative proteins (e.g., plant-based burgers) competitive with conventional proteins (e.g., beef), which we believe could reduce livestock consumption. We think the Good Food Institute’s thoughtful approach to scientific research, industry partnerships, and government advocacy increases the likelihood of alternative proteins going mainstream.
*The Good Food Institute is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization in the United States. GFI has partnered with organizations in Canada, Germany, the UK, the Netherlands, and Switzerland to provide tax-beneficial donation options. Giving Green is only offering an opinion on the charitable activities of GFI's 501(c)(3) entity.
Industrious Labs
Heavy industries like steel and cement are the literal building blocks of the global economy. They also account for one-third of greenhouse gas emissions, but have received very little attention from government or philanthropy. Industrious Labs is a new organization dedicated to helping global heavy industry go green. In collaboration with partner organizations, Industrious Labs advocates to corporations to make low-carbon commitments, and applies legal and political pressure to governments to ensure there’s regulation and public funding to speed up the transition.
*Support for Industrious Labs' charitable climate advocacy runs through a Single Entity Fund of Tides Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.