· Public charity
Climate Imperative Foundation
CLIMATE IMPERATIVE FOUNDATION's mission is to employ science and economics to cut global carbon emissions to secure a better future for all.
What it funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2020 to 2024.
Where the money goes
Grants by size, and the largest recipients.
How this is measured
By grant size · FY2024
- $50k–250k18 grants · $2.7M
- $250k+78 grants · $159M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| ENERGY FOUNDATION CHINA (EFC) | $29,750,000 |
| SIERRA CLUB FOUNDATION | $23,050,000 |
| US ENERGY FOUNDATION | $15,167,150 |
| NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL (NRDC) | $7,875,000 |
| ROCKY MOUNTAIN INSTITUTE (RMI) | $7,640,000 |
| TIDES FOUNDATION | $4,146,268 |
| ROCKEFELLER FAMILY FUND INC | $3,475,000 |
| BUILDING DECARBONIZATION COALITION (BDC) | $3,350,000 |
| ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENSE FUND | $3,175,000 |
| ENERGY AND CLIMATE TRANSITIONS AI LLC | $3,127,932 |
| THE PARTNERSHIP PROJECT | $3,000,000 |
| VOTE SOLAR | $3,000,000 |
| EARTHJUSTICE | $2,680,000 |
| EVERGREEN COLLABORATIVE | $2,400,000 |
| CLIMATE STRATEGIES LAB (INDUSTRIOUS LABS) | $2,356,750 |
Does the money reach high-need areas?
Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.
Dollar for dollar, its grants (FY20–24) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 46% of its dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Its grants spread fairly evenly across need levels.
How this is measured
Which US states its grants reach
Grants abroad, by region: $81M on the FY2024 return
Schedule F, as filed: 4 regions. The IRS asks for region and purpose, not the recipient, so no country or grantee can be named here.
Stated purpose: ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION
Stated purpose: ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION
Stated purpose: ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION
Stated purpose: ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION
How this is measured
Who it funds again
Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.
Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +24% since the first grant, against +11% for those funded once.
96 repeat relationships: 73 still active in FY2024, 23 since wound down; 16 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (too recent to call).
How the two cohorts compare
Organizations
Total granted
Median revenue growth · since first grant
Still filing today
New vs renewed · share of each year
In FY2024, 96% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $6.7M went to new ones.
Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant
How this is measured
Backed again, and grew
- TETHE ENERGY FOUNDATION4× · 2021–2024 · $99M · revenue +31% · 32% of their budget
UNITED STATES ENERGY FOUNDATION5× · 2020–2024 · $57M · revenue +40%
Rocky Mountain Institute5× · 2020–2024 · $28M · revenue +183%
Funded once
- TETSINGHUA EDUCATION FOUNDATION NA INCone grant, 2023 · $1.5M · revenue -86%
- ETE3G THIRD GENERATION ENVIRONMENTALISMone grant, 2022 · $1.0M · revenue +18% · 93% of their budget
- WOWESTERN ORGANIZATION OF RESOURCE COUNCILS EDUCATION PROJECTone grant, 2023 · $1.0M · revenue -11%
How this is measured
Repeat means funded in two or more distinct years. Growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.
Closest unfunded matches
The nonprofits that most resemble its grantees but are not funded by it, scored along the direction from the rest of the field toward the portfolio. A resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.
The union of concerned scientists puts rigorous, independent science into action, developing solutions and advocating for a healthy, safe, and just future.
The national caucus of environmental legislators empowers a nonpartisan network of legislative champions to protect, conserve, and improve the natural and human environment.
Climate group advances climate action by mobilizing business and government leadership to drive systemic decarbonization across energy, transport, and industry, while engaging the public through large-scale convenings and global platforms.…
The Climate Center is a climate and energy policy nonprofit working to rapidly reduce climate pollution at scale, starting in California.
Improving the transparency and scientific integrity of climate solutions through open data and tools.
To raise awareness about the potential to reduce environmental harm by shifting electricity use to particular times; to encourage the development and spread of common protocols for this practice.
Climate catalyst sparks collective action to tackle the biggest climate challenges we face today: cutting emissions in heavy industries.
To research and develop centrist policy ideas.
The nonpartisan center for climate and energy solutions works to secure a safe and stable climate by accelerating the global transition to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions and a thriving, just, and resilient economy. for over 25 years,…
Cleanecon works to advance economic growth, shared proserity, and a safe climate through groundbreaking policy change. policy and regulatory frameworks must change to accelerate buiding, innovating, and investing in clean technologies.
Clean energy research and advocacy. Clean Energy Group promotes effective clean energy policies, develops low carbon technology innovation strategies and promotes new financial tools to strengthen the economy and stabilize climate change.
How this is measured
154 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.
Each grant beside the grantee’s revenue from every source, year by year.
How this is measured
Counted here: distinct organizations funded across 2017 to 2025, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 154 of the 169 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile.
Each grantee is resolved to its own IRS returns. Association, dated; never a causal claim.
Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee
Each grantee by its size and the funder’s share of it; top left is load-bearing
Grantee by grantee: a decade per organization, before and after funding
A decade per grantee: revenue shaded, grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.
- Who funds THE ENERGY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds SIERRA CLUB FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds UNITED STATES ENERGY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Rocky Mountain Institute ↗
- Who funds NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL INC ↗
- Who funds The Partnership Project Inc ↗
- Who funds LEAGUE OF CONSERVATION VOTERS EDUCATION FUND ↗
- Who funds TIDES FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds ROCKEFELLER FAMILY FUND INC ↗
- Who funds BUILDING DECARBONIZATION COALITION ↗
- Who funds International Sustainable Energy Foundation ↗
- Who funds ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENSE FUND INCORPORATED ↗
- Who funds EARTHJUSTICE ↗
- Who funds CLASP ↗
- Who funds UNITED NATIONS FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds West Harlem Environmental Action Inc ↗
- Who funds Vote Solar ↗
- Who funds WINDWARD FUND ↗
- Who funds EVERGREEN COLLABORATIVE ↗
- Who funds THE INTERNATIONAL COUNCIL ON CLEAN TRANSPORTATION INC ↗
- Who funds SECURING AMERICA'S FUTURE ENERGY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds ENVIRONMENTAL INTEGRITY PROJECT ↗
- Who funds RESOURCES LEGACY FUND ↗
- Who funds BlueGreen Alliance Foundation ↗
- Who funds CLIMATE JOBS NATIONAL RESOURCE CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds CENTER FOR AMERICAN PROGRESS ↗
- Who funds CLIMATEWORKS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Advanced Energy Institute ↗
- Who funds BERKELEY LAB FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN LUNG ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY FOUNDATION OF GREATER JOHNSTOWN ↗
- Who funds SOUTHERN ENVIRONMENTAL LAW CENTER ↗
- Who funds ASSOCIATION FOR ENERGY AFFORDABILITY INC ↗
- Who funds CERES INC ↗
- Who funds APPALACHIAN VOICES ↗
- Who funds NEW VENTURE FUND ↗
- Who funds REGULATORY ASSISTANCE PROJECT ↗
Co-funders
Grantmakers whose grantees overlap with this funder’s far more than size alone predicts. Closer means stronger alignment; arcs show where they also fund each other. Here they form a tightly interlocked group: most of these funders back each other's grantees too.
Open a dossier: United States Energy Foundation · The Energy Foundation · Climateworks Foundation · The William & Flora Hewlett Foundation · The Heising-Simons Foundation · Natural Resources Defense Council Inc · New Venture Fund · The McKnight Foundation · Windward Fund · Freedom Together Foundation · Sequoia Climate Foundation · Environmental Defense Fund Incorporated
How this is measured
How much its grantees rely on government
Each dot is one organization Climate Imperative Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Climate Imperative Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.
- Green & Healthy Homes Initiative Inc: 100% of income from government
- Institute for Sustainable Communities: 100% of income from government
- Northeast States for Coordinated Air Use Management Inc: 100% of income from government
- National Center for Healthy Housing Inc: 24% of income from government
- Beyond Toxics: 13% of income from government
- President and Fellows of Harvard College: 7% of income from government
- Clean Energy States Alliance Inc: 2% of income from government
- Ceres Inc: 0% of income from government
How this is measured
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to Climate Imperative Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Climate Imperative Foundation through trustees and officers whose names appear on both boards. Search for your organization and Plinth traces the shortest route it can evidence.
Each link is a name appearing on two organizations’ public IRS 990 filings, matched on that name and, where the filings support it, on location. A same-state match has geographic support, which is a second matching feature rather than confirmation that the two are one person; a cross-state one is the likeliest to be two people who share a name. Every hop shows its tier, low-confidence and distant paths are held back rather than guessed, and it is worth confirming the person before you use the introduction.
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