Ocean Resilience and Climate Alliance (ORCA)

Background

The Ocean Resilience and Climate Alliance (ORCA) was formed in 2023 ahead of COP28, that year’s meeting of the annual United Nations Climate Conference that governs the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The alliance was initially announced as a $250 million initiative funded by several left-of-center grantmaking foundations. The David and Lucille Packard Foundation issued a statement at the group’s founding, arguing the purpose of the initiative was to explore “ocean-based solutions” to climate change and that “ocean-based interventions could account for nearly half of the necessary carbon solutions needed to keep global warming below 2°C. Strengthening coastal resilience efforts is also critical to protect the well-being of the nearly 1.4 billion people around the world living in low-lying areas. Despite this, funding for climate mitigation receives just 2% of total philanthropic giving, and ocean conservation receives less than 1%.” ³

Following the announcement, the World Wildlife Fund released a statement praising the alliance as “a critical commitment from the philanthropic community to supercharge the scaling of ocean-climate solutions.” ²

Founders and Funders

The Ocean Resilience and Climate Alliance (ORCA) was created by a network of left-of-center foundations and philanthropies with a history of funding environmental activism. Its founding funders include Bloomberg Philanthropies, Builders Initiative/Builders Vision (the foundation of billionaire Lukas Walton, an heir to the Walmart fortune), the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the Oak Foundation, and Oceankind. Additional backers include Ballmer Group (founded by former Microsoft executive Steve Ballmer), the Jeremy and Hannelore Grantham Environmental Trust, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Sergey Brin Family Foundation, and Rivian Foundation. ^{4 5 3}

ORCA’s launch coincided with a broader push by governments and NGOs to elevate oceans in global climate negotiations. Countries including Chile, the United Kingdom, Madagascar, Brazil, and France later announced initiatives to include ocean-related issues in national climate strategies with funding from ORCA. ^{6 7}

In December 2025, ORCA was one of multiple organizations that received a grant from Yield Giving, the philanthropic initiative started by MacKenzie Scott, the ex-wife of Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos. In 2025 alone, Scott, through Yield Giving, donated over $7.16 billion to philanthropies and other charity organizations around the world. ⁸

Leadership

In April 2024, Ocean Resilience and Climate Alliance (ORCA) appointed Alasdair Harris as its first director. Harris is a British marine conservationist and the founder of Blue Ventures, an environmental advocacy group based in Bristol, England that focuses on marine and coastal conservation with an emphasis on regulation of commercial fishing. Harris’s appointment was announced alongside the coalition’s report that total financial commitments had surpassed $300 million. ^{9 4}

Program Areas

The Ocean Resilience and Climate Alliance’s (ORCA) website has described its funding focus is based on seven priorities: safeguarding the Arctic, advancing “blue carbon” business models, funding community-led action in the Global South, developing marine carbon dioxide removal (mCDR) technologies, accelerating offshore wind development, supporting shipping decarbonization policies (particularly in Asia and developing nations), and financing global ocean-climate diplomacy campaigns. ¹⁰