Eileen Rockefeller Growald Symposium

'Philanthropy's Role in the Climate Crisis: Transforming Interest into Impact' was the title of a Symposium on Collaborative Philanthropy jointly convened by the Climate Change Philanthropy Action Network (CCPAN) and Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors (RPA) in the US in April, which brought together over 150 donors. Of these, many actively fund climate change initiatives, and others are considering funding in the area.

Dr James Hansen, head of the Nasa Goddard Institute for Space Studies, discussed his compelling new research on climate change and the urgency of action. Terry Tamminen of Seventh Generation Advisors and the New America Foundation spoke about our dependence on oil and outlined a strategy for developing more sustainable energy sources. There was also a session highlighting a range of grantmaking approaches from around the world to climate change mitigation and adaptation. Panellists came from the Hewlett, Rockefeller and Khemka Foundations, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and Virgin Unite.

An open space session explored topics like environmental justice, ecosystem services, and biodiversity and climate, while themes for donor roundtables included creating a new global framework for climate change; moving the US government into action; and climate change funding on a city and state level.

Summing up, Melissa Berman (RPA) proposed a series of action points from the seminar which included: linking climate funding to your core mission; using the full range of your assets; working across sectors; getting comfortable with policy work; and communicating - the extent of the climate crisis is still not well enough understood, nor are the responses proposed to it.

Finally, Uday Khemka remarked that CCPAN emerged because there was a need to connect the global initiatives tackling this issue and the people behind them. In the next phase it will be opened up for the community itself to provide the vision and structure.