In 2008, EGA published “Confronting the Climate Challenge: Incorporating Climate Change into Your Funding Strategies” that looked at the impacts of climate change, and linkages to current investments in areas such as health care and education. This paper tries to encapsulate the key points discussed at a May 2009 Regional Salon focusing on mitigation and adaption strategies in the south, and aims to become a tool for EGA members interested in learning more about climate change, its impacts to their communities and ways that foundations can become involved. 

This report places U.S. foundation giving for ecotourism in the context of the broader tourism industry, details ecotourism’s promises and challenges, tracks its major sources of funding, and highlights needs and opportunities for interested foundations.

Situated at the intersection of water, energy, and agriculture issues in the Midwest is the rapidly growing field of biofuels. Interest in biofuels has surged along with the call for independence from Middle East oil. Depending on how biofuels are developed and which energy sources are used to manufacture them, growth in this area could bring environmental, economic, and community benefits—or it could place many systems, including freshwater ecosystems, at significant risk. Government policies, private-sector investment, and research priorities are already influencing the development of biofuel industries, and foundations are beginning to identify ways to foster this new energy industry in sustainable ways.

With all the benefits of solar power and a growing market for renewable energy, why hasn’t there been a stronger push to take advantage of solar energy? Whatever the answer, plenty of opportunities exist for philanthropic initiatives that will advance the solar industry.

This primer updates a 2005 report by the National Center for Charitable Statistics at the Urban Institute, The Broader Movement: Nonprofit Environmental and Conservation Organizations, 1989–2005. The 2005 report provided the first quantitative investigation of the broader environmental and conservation movement, based on data from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) tax files. This new primer updates this broad analysis of environmental nonprofits to 2008, the latest year for which IRS data is complete.