FUNDER COLLABORATIVE BACKGROUND
The Climate Advocacy Lab was originally incubated as a project of the Skoll Global Threats Fund (SGTF) in 2015. When SGTF sunsetted at the end of 2017, the Lab spun off as an independent program, fiscally-sponsored at the Partnership Project, with the support of an expanded Funder Collaborative committed to building and sustaining climate movement infrastructure.
Over the past 7 years, the Lab’s Funder Collaborative has grown significantly and now includes more than 10 national and regional philanthropic funders, as well as a handful of individual donors. Increased investment has allowed us to both grow and deepen our support for the climate movement, with a focus on climate justice, frontline, and BIPOC leaders. The Lab makes training, research expertise, digital/data consulting, and an extensive online library of resources and tools free and accessible to over 4,000 climate community members. The Lab also serves as an important intermediary funding entity, having re-granted over $1M to climate organizations through our community field research and climate justice microgrants programs.
Read our current 5-year Strategic Plan (2022-2027) to learn more about our theory of change and programmatic offerings, and check out our 2023 Annual Report to see how investments in the Lab have made an outsized impact in the work to meaningfully and equitably address the climate crisis. For more information on how to join the Lab’s Funder Collaborative, you can reach out to the Lab’s Co-Directors, Apollo Gonzales and Carina Barnett-Loro, or schedule time with us for an introductory meeting.
WHY FUND MOVEMENT INFRASTRUCTURE
Members of the Lab’s Funder Collaborative understand that powerful social movements require strong, shared infrastructure. A recent report from The Bridgespan Group explored the importance of “field catalysts” to addressing intractable problems like climate. Organizations, like the Lab, smartly efficiently consolidate many valuable services in one place.
- Strengthening connective tissue across an increasingly large, diverse, and intersectional community of practitioners;
- Building capacity through training, research, and resource-sharing;
- Facilitating coordination and collaboration, such as across region and issue area;
- Supporting collective measurement, learning, and evaluation; and
- Serving as “movement memory” for what has worked and not worked in the past, including during times with high turnover of leadership and staff.
As nonprofit leader, Vu Le, phrased it in this blog, movement support organizations are like “mycelium, which is the rootlike structure of mushrooms. Like mycelium, these orgs are vital to the nonprofit field, as they provide several critical functions, including bringing funding to other nonprofits, connecting orgs to one another, disseminating vital information, fostering communication, and mobilizing orgs for advocacy.”
WHY A FUNDER COLLABORATIVE?
Funder Collaboratives are growing in popularity, especially for large intractable problems like climate. They provide an opportunity for funders to connect, collaborate, and learn from each other. Another recent report from Bridgespan, Winning on Climate Change, identified investing in funder “collaboratives and other kinds of intermediaries” as one of three key ways philanthropy can spur major progress on climate over the next decade. Funder Collaboratives, like the Lab’s, provide institutional and individual philanthropists with the same advantages that mutual funds, private equity, and venture capital provide investors, placing decisions around portfolio diversification in the hands of issue-area experts.
OPPORTUNITIES TO PARTNER WITH THE LAB
All members of the Lab’s Funder Collaborative are invited to join the Lab, and encouraged to share the myriad resources and capacity-building opportunities we offer to their full team and grantee network. We offer additional services to members of the Funder Collaborative, such as regular climate movement insight briefings, 1-on-1 consults with Lab staff, and research round-ups on key topic areas. Finally, we reserve a number of spaces on the Lab’s Advisory Board for Funder Collaborative members who have committed multi-year resources.
Grant-making Opportunities
- General Operating Support: Many members of the Lab’s Funder Collaborative have invested with multi-year, general operating support grants, allowing the Lab to be responsive to emergent movement needs; proactive in building the systems and conducting the research we anticipate climate leaders will need to be successful given a range of future scenarios; and equitable, giving us the flexibility to train, partner with, and re-grant to environmental and climate justice organizations across the US.
- Project-based Support: A number of the Lab’s funders support specific Lab projects or programs, such IRA Data & Insights Hub or our Climate and Health Peer Learning Circle, with single or multi-year grants.
- Grantee capacity-building: Other funders invest in the Lab so our team can, in turn, provide tailored capacity-building opportunities (training, coaching, research, etc.) for their grantees. For example, the Park Foundation made its first grant to the Lab in 2023 to resource our partnership work with one of their long-time grantees, the NY Renews coalition.
Fee-for-service Opportunities
- Research and analysis: Foundations and individuals can also hire the Lab to conduct research and analysis to support their philanthropic efforts as well as make introductions with climate leaders across the movement. For example, the Climate and Energy Equity Fund contracted the Lab team to write up a case study analysis of 100% MN’s recent legislative wins (coming soon!).
- Digital and data support: In January of 2024, the Lab combined forces with the Digital Climate Coalition (another collaborative effort launched in 2020 to help close critical gaps in the climate movement's digital organizing capacity), bringing their digital strategy data analysis expertise to our team. Through our Digital & Data program, the funders can contract with the Lab for a range of services, from new audience research to building out digital/data infrastructure (e.g. CRMs, email programs, etc.) for their grantees.
JOIN THE COLLABORATIVE
The Lab’s work to strengthen the climate movement requires a committed group of funders who recognize the need for long-term investment in a multiracial cross-class climate movement whose work is informed by evidence-based approaches.
For more information on why funding to the Lab may provide one of the best “returns on investment” in the climate advocacy space and how to join our visionary group of funders, you can reach out to the Lab’s Co-Directors, Apollo Gonzales and Carina Barnett-Loro, or schedule time with us for a introductory meeting.
COLLABORATIVE MEMBER TESTIMONIALS
“I’ve been involved with the Lab since its incubation inside the Skoll Global Threats Fund, where various workstreams around evidence-based climate advocacy merged together to become the Lab. It’s been great to watch the organization grow over the last seven years, strengthening its social science, experimentation, and training chops while also actively diversifying the team and deepening its commitment to climate justice. I'm excited for Lab’s next stage, as the organization evolves to support an even larger and more powerful climate movement." - Bruce Lowry (Board Chair; Board Member since 2018)
"I first learned about the Lab when I was working with the Urban Sustainability Directors Network and was looking for similar network organizations working on climate. I became very inspired by the Lab’s work when I discovered it during my search. When I started my current role with the Barr Foundation, I was able to get to know the Lab better through directly collaborating with them as a funder, using Lab resources for my own research and through the positive testimonials from our partners about Lab trainings. Based on these experiences, I was very excited and happy to join the Advisory Board this year!" - Kathryn Wright (Board Member since 2024
CURRENT FUNDER COLLABORATIVE MEMBERS
The Argosy Foundation: The mission of the Argosy Foundation is to support people and programs that make our society a better place to live. We seek to employ creative and entrepreneurial approaches that help people to help themselves, and become self-sustaining whenever possible. Our intention is to solve systemic problems, build teams and communities, create replicable solutions, and inspire others to contribute in their own ways.
Arthur Vining Davis FoundationsThe Foundations are a legacy of Mr. Davis' successful corporate leadership, and they aim to honor his ambitious philanthropic vision. Since their inception, the Foundations have given over 4,600 grants totaling more than $385 million to colleges and universities, hospitals, medical schools and divinity schools.
The Barr Foundation: There is so much potential all around us. We aim to serve as both stewards and catalysts of that potential. As stewards, we nurture and enhance vital community assets. As catalysts, we cultivate and advance the breakthrough ideas that will shape our collective future.
Energy Foundation: U.S. Energy Foundation (EF) is a partnership of philanthropies focused on securing a clean and equitable energy future to tackle the climate crisis. Since 1991, EF grantees have made significant progress in the largest-emitting sectors of the economy in the states with the greatest potential for carbon abatement. We envision a healthy, safe, equitable economy powered by clean energy. We believe a thriving clean energy economy can create sustainable opportunities, spur innovation, and protect our climate—for today and future generations.
The George Gund Foundation: The George Gund Foundation was established in 1952 as a private, nonprofit institution with the sole purpose of contributing to human well-being and the progress of society. Over the years, program objectives and emphases have been modified to meet the changing opportunities and problems of our society, but the foundation’s basic goal of advancing human welfare remains constant.
Hewlett Foundation: Today, people in communities in the U.S. and around the world are increasingly losing faith in each other, and in even the possibility of progress. Institutions at every level are struggling to provide solutions that work for all people. The Hewlett Foundation addresses these challenges by harnessing society’s collective capacity to solve our toughest problems — from the existential threat of climate change, to persistent and pervasive inequities, to attacks on democracy itself. As one of the largest philanthropic organizations in the United States, we promote constructive dialogue across difference, and we provide reliable, responsive, and strategic support to our partners. Together, we are working to build an inclusive society where people, communities, and the planet flourish.
Laughing Gull: We envision a world of sustainable communities, liberated from the inter-generational harm of structural racism and economic inequality, living in balance with the earth. We envision both human rights and human rites of passage including everyone equally and fully, especially those who have been pushed to the margins of our human family.
The McKnight Foundation: The McKnight Foundation, a family foundation based in Minnesota, advances a more just, creative, and abundant future where people and planet thrive.
Park Foundation: Park Foundation is a family foundation dedicated to advancing a more just, equitable, and sustainable society and environment, both nationally and in our local Ithaca community. We are principled, strategic and fearless in our grantmaking, collaborative with our partners, and nimble and innovative in our approach. We are committed to challenging the powers that threaten an independent media, a robust democracy, and the future of our planet.
Skoll Foundation: In 1999, Jeff Skoll created the Foundation to build a sustainable world of peace and prosperity for all. The Skoll Foundation catalyzes transformational social change by investing in, connecting, and championing social entrepreneurs and other social innovators who together advance bold and equitable solutions to the world’s most pressing problems