Consulting with a health-focused family foundation to enter into the climate justice space
It’s hard to determine where tree-planting initiatives fall on the climate solutions spectrum. At times, it’s portrayed in the media as a silver-bullet solution to the climate crisis; more often, it can come across as a greenwashed solution lacking scientific rigor. It’s no wonder that philanthropists and private sector actors are understandably confused about the best actions to take regarding our collective climate crisis.
This issue is further complicated when setting our climate crisis on the same stage with staggering global wealth inequalities and social justice issues. Although Indigenous and BIPOC communities are disproportionately harmed by the climate crisis, only 1-2% of philanthropic funding goes to groups led by these communities.
Foundations are left asking, what strategies can we invest in that can truly make a difference? How do we address both climate change and a diverse array of other issues (women’s empowerment, meeting human needs, social justice) with the resources at hand?
One foundation grappling with these questions is the Jonas Family Foundation. At the urging of grandaughter Lendri Purcell, the foundation sought the advice of LIFT Economy in launching a tree planting campaign. Building off of Lendri’s long standing work in children’s environmental health and concerns about urban equity issues, we sought to expand the conversation beyond “tree-planting” to a holistic “tree-growing” framework that centered justice and equity, while also centering the work of rebuilding ecosystems, meeting human needs, recharging aquifers, building biodiversity, and so much more.
By engaging in research and a series of dialogue and conversations with the Jonas Family Foundation, we were able to bring them on a learning journey to understand that addressing climate change was about so much more than just putting trees in the ground. Ultimately, this learning journey helped to launch this program in a way that centers justice and equity.
The Trees For Climate Health Initiative, a project of the Jonas Family Foundation, has deployed more than $2.2M in capital (including $1.2M in matches from other philanthropists that LIFT Economy brought into the campaign) to tree-growing projects, over 52% of which are led by Black and Indigenous leadership. In addition to supporting the deployment of capital for this initiative, LIFT Economy produced a 26 page primer on important considerations of the relationship between Trees and Climate Health, developed a data-driven approach to assist the foundation in grantmaking, organized half a dozen webinars with other funders, convened a world-renowned board of advisors for the project, and developed media related to enhancing the “field” of tree-growing as it relates to climate philanthropy, and so much more.
“In thinking about how to best deploy our limited funding, I knew I wanted to work with the sharpest and most ethical shop I could find. Working with LIFT Economy, you are actually working with people who walk the walk and live the values they are helping to promote in the world. Their existing deep connections within the permaculture and social justice space have been incredibly valuable. LIFT has delivered in terms of high-quality research, communication, outreach, convenings and so much more. I honestly would not want to engage on this project with any other group.”
LIFT Economy continues to work with Jonas Philanthropies on an additional commitment of $1.5M over the next two years with an expanded scope of funding frontline community-led nature-based climate solutions.
You can learn more about the “Trees for Climate Health” initiative here and reach out to LIFT Partner Erin Axelrod for more information about the initiative or to learn how to implement a similar initiative in your own family foundation or philanthropic entity.