Charitable giving to fight climate change rises 25% to $7.5B

Charitable giving to organizations that work to slow climate change have increased in the past year, and many more groups are receiving funds than just a few years ago. But despite the increases, giving from individuals and foundations to climate-related causes remains a stubbornly small percentage of overall charitable giving according, to a new report by the ClimateWorks Foundation.

The jump in giving was significant — 25% over 2020 — and it outpaced the growth of giving overall. Yet contributions to climate philanthropy accounted for just 1 to 1.5% of all giving, according to the report — just $7.5 billion to $12.5 billion out of the $810 billion given to all causes in 2021.

Donors should be recognized for increasing their support, says Helen Mountford, CEO of ClimateWorks. But the global costs for transitioning to a carbon-neutral economy will be in the trillions of dollars. Philanthropy’s few billion dollars are a start but still fall short. “This is nowhere near fast enough,” she says. “We need to do a lot more.”

Giving by foundations increased even more, jumping 40% from 2020 to 2021, reaching $3.1 billion. Much of that was due to new big donors like the Bezos Earth Fund, which gave $519.2 million in 2021.

Mountford says that a number of new foundations are donating to climate-related causes, perhaps inspired in part by Bezos but also by the increasingly dire effects of drought, extreme weather, and sea-level rise around the world.

Young wealthy donors have also been drawn to the issue and account for some of the increased support, says Jennifer Kitt, president of the Climate Leadership Initiative, which advises donors on climate-giving strategies. She says younger members of wealthy families are pushing for increased climate funding because it’s an issue that...