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Dear Subscriber
While we were working on March’s cover story, we learned about the fierce battle for supremacy. How philanthropy is best able to combat climate change,Posted online today, our attention was also keenly focussed on another global crisis, the war in Ukraine.
Drew Lindsay, Drew’s colleague, surveyed charities to keep us informed of the latest news on our website. Responding to the humanitarian emergencyWe found records-breaking results at both large and small nonprofits.
“It’s not like anything I’ve ever seen,”Drew was told by Gideon Herscher (a senior fundraiser at American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee). “This crisis has brought down all the walls.”
Pavlo Palamarchuk. SOPA Images. LightRocket. Getty Images
We also asked Alexandra Toma, Head of the Peace and Security Funders Group about big philanthropy. In her essay, she reminds grantmakers of the importance to avoid misinformation campaigns about Ukraine or the conflict.while encouraging long-term investment in more equitable and varied approaches to foreign security.
“The tragic and unnecessary war in Ukraine is unlikely to end anytime soon,” she writes, “and Philanthropy is not an excuse to sit on the sidelines.”
The same exhortation is applicable to Climate Change,Only a small percentage of philanthropic dollars goes to these areas. Grants are suddenly starting to grow, though, in part because of the efforts of ClimateWorks, a nonprofit founded by some of the nation’s biggest grant makers. Jim Rendon looks at how ClimateWorks has evolved in response. There are concerns that the technocratic approach to it has failed. while grassroots efforts are getting stronger results — but still not many philanthropic gifts.
There are so many stakes in climate change that it is impossible to lose sight of them. However, philanthropists are increasingly joining activists to push for more attention to community-based solutions as well as efforts to stop fossil fuel extraction. They point out that large societal shifts — such as those that gave people of color and women more rights and made gay marriage legal — came about from grassroots activism.
Jim was told by Lee Wasserman, the Rockefeller Family Fund’s head, that: “Big, transformational change almost never happens in this country without fights.”
