Giving Green is an analytics and research organization focused on identifying nonprofits to advance left-of-center climate change issues. It publishes a list of top nonprofits and encourages individuals, philanthropies, and businesses to donate to them. ¹

It is sponsored by social change think tank IDinsight, which is funded by several large left-of-center philanthropies including Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Co-Impact, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Open Philanthropy, and Skoll Foundation. ²

Background

Giving Green is a climate initiative of IDinsight, a global advisory, data analytics, and research organization that focuses on social impact. ³ IDinsight is supported by several large left of center philanthropies including Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Co-Impact, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Open Philanthropy, and Skoll Foundation. ⁴

Daniel Stein, chief economist of IDinsight, founded Giving Green in 2020. ⁵ Giving Green conducts research and identifies cost-effective nonprofits that focus on left-of-center climate change issues. It makes recommendations to philanthropists and donors on those nonprofits that it identifies as the most effective in fighting climate change and encourages donations to them. ⁶

Giving Green also provides advice and consulting services to businesses on creating a climate change investment strategy. ⁷ It is aligned with the effective altruism movement created by the Centre for Effective Altruism. ⁸ Giving Green’s team consists of scientists, analysts, and economists that conduct the research and impact evaluations. ⁹

Giving Green Fund

In late 2022, Giving Green launched the Giving Green Fund (GGF) which is hosted by Giving What We Can to facilitate donations and re-granting to its top nonprofit recommendations. ¹⁰ It claims that GGF can provide these donations dynamically, based on the nonprofits’ changing needs, such as when extra funding is needed for a specific project or in a weak fundraising year. ¹¹ However, GGF re-granted the donations collected in the first half of 2023 equally among its top five nonprofits. ¹²

Work Areas

Giving Green conducts research and analysis to identify nonprofits that maximize the impact of donations to the cause of climate change prevention and mitigation. It publishes its list of top climate nonprofits and encourages donations directly to the nonprofit, to the Giving Green Fund that re-grants the donations, or to Giving Green to continue the work it does. ¹³

For businesses, Giving Green provides recommendations on how to create an investment strategy that includes investing in companies that focus on carbon removal and carbon offsets. In addition to donating to the recommended nonprofits that engage in climate policy advocacy, Giving Green encourages businesses to invest in specific companies that are developing carbon removal and carbon offset technologies. Examples include Charm Industrial, which converts agriculture residues to bio-oil and injects it underground, and Climeworks, which captures carbon dioxide and turns it into solid material that it buries underground. ¹⁴

Recommended Nonprofits

In determining candidates for its research, Giving Green determined that activism and policy advocacy are the two methods that it would focus on, claiming that these two approaches are the “most impactful, solvable, and in need of additional support.” ¹⁵

As of September 2023, Giving Green’s recommended climate activist organizations include environmentalist think tank Clean Air Task Force, climate change advocacy group Evergreen Collaborative, advanced nuclear power advocates Good Energy Collective, and think tank Good Food Institute which supports plant-based and lab-grown alternatives to meat and dairy products. ¹⁶  Giving Green categorizes these as “inside organizations” that lobby for left-progressive climate policy change at the federal level. ¹⁷

Publicity

According to a July 2022 article published by The New Republic, Giving Green recommends donating to the 15 left-of-center activist groups that make up the Green New Deal Network and support “aggressively slash[ing] U.S. emissions while simultaneously reducing economic inequality.” ¹⁸

Green Giving’s strategy for investing in climate change was published in an October 2022 Center for Effective Philanthropy blog post. The article describes the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 as “the most meaningful piece of climate legislation in the U.S.” ¹⁹

A September 2023 article published by the Chronical of Philanthropy described the protest by Extinction Rebellion that halted the U.S. Open for 49 minutes. The article referenced Giving Green’s analysis on the effectiveness of climate activism which claimed that “donating to climate-change activism could be highly cost-effective in reducing CO2-equivalent emissions […] [comparing] favorably with estimates of the most cost-effective charities.” ²⁰

Funding

Known funders of Giving Green include Centre for Effective Altruism, Preston-Werner Ventures, and Ray and Tye Noorda Foundation. ²¹ IDinsight is Giving Green’s fiscal sponsor and covers finance, legal, and administrative functions. ²² The Giving Green 2022 Annual Impact Report indicates that 85 percent of its funding came from foundations and 15 percent from individuals. ²³

In the first half of 2023, donations to the Giving Green Fund for re-granting purposes totaled approximately $300,000, but Giving Green claims that through its recommendations it has influenced $2.8 million of donations to its five top recommended nonprofits. ²⁴

Leadership

Daniel Stein is the founder and executive director. He is also the chief economist at IDinsight. Stein earned a Ph.D. in economics from London School of Economics and Political Science. He was an economist for World Bank, then joined IDinsight in 2017. In 2020, he founded Giving Green as a project within IDinsight. ²⁵

Giving Green’s advisors include ClimateWorks associate director Dan Plechaty, Michelle Levinson from World Resources Institute, and Hewlett Foundation vice president Ruth Levine. ²⁶

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