DDCF: Environment Program Grants

DDCF: Environment Program Grants

Status: ACTIVE
Funder: Doris Duke Foundation Inc.
Amount: US $100,000 - US $1,000,000
Last Updated: April 03, 2026

Summary

The Doris Duke Foundation's Environment Program grants aim to foster a resilient environment through effective conservation efforts. By supporting U.S. nonprofit organizations, the foundation seeks to protect biodiversity, address climate change, and advance equity, particularly for marginalized communities. The program emphasizes land conservation, natural climate solutions, and inclusive practices, ensuring that conservation efforts benefit both wildlife and people. This initiative is pivotal for enhancing the health of ecosystems and communities across the United States.

Overview

NOTE: Through the Environment Program, the foundation typically awards grants via invited proposals and, occasionally, open funding competitions. Unsolicited proposals about future support for projects that fall within the Environment Program's three primary grantmaking strategies can be submitted through a letter of inquiry. Environment Through the Environment Program, the foundation seeks to ensure a thriving, resilient environment for wildlife and people, and foster an inclusive, effective conservation movement. Doris Duke was a lifelong environmentalist with a keen interest in conservation. In her will, which guides our focus areas, she expressed her interest in "the preservation of wildlife, both flora and fauna" and in supporting "ecological endeavors." Why It's Important In the wildest places and the most urban, our health and quality of life depends on the natural world—from the water we drink, the air we breathe and the food we eat, to the places where we may find inspiration, joy, healing or kinship. Increasingly, nature depends on us as well, to be responsible stewards of the ecosystems where we and millions of other species dwell. In the face of accelerating extinctions and global climate change, now is the critical decade for taking action. What We Support The Doris Duke Foundation seeks to demonstrate how effective conservation can protect and restore nature, help address climate change and promote a more equitable society. We support initiatives that increase the pace and scale of land conservation and stewardship across the United States to protect biodiversity, bolster the resilience of natural areas and advance climate change mitigation. We also focus on conservation efforts that advance equity, in particular for communities that identify as Black, Indigenous and people of color. To achieve these goals, the foundation concentrates on three complementary and intersecting areas of focus. Nature: Land Conservation in an Era of Climate Change Conserving, restoring and managing ecosystems is fundamental to protecting wildlife and sustaining biodiversity in all its forms. As climate change increasingly alters the natural world, the approaches by which we conserve and steward land must adapt to ensure enduring benefits to wildlife, the climate and communities. Our support focuses on three critical approaches to increasing the pace, scale and effectiveness of land conservation and stewardship across the United States, with the goal of conserving at least 30% of U.S. lands and waters by 2030 for biodiversity, landscape connectivity, climate resilience and thriving wild and human communities: Conservation of resilient lands and waters through efforts that identify and accelerate conservation of areas expected to be most intrinsically resilient to climate change. Climate-adapted conservation and restoration practices that draw on the best available science and traditional ecological knowledge to intentionally help prepare ecosystems for changing conditions rather than resist them. Landscape-scale conservation through collaborative approaches that focus on maintaining functioning, resilient, connected ecosystems. Climate: Natural Climate Solutions Natural climate solutions, strategies that leverage the capacity of ecosystems to absorb and store carbon, have the potential to provide 20% of the nation’s climate mitigation progress while also providing benefits to wildlife and communities. Through the Environment Program, the foundation works to accelerate the use of natural climate solutions as an essential means to mitigate climate change and support rural economic development. To that end, we focus on scaling climate mitigation through protection of intact ecosystems and priority habitats, ecosystem restoration and approaches to improved land management. To dramatically scale natural climate solutions, we particularly focus on supporting the following activities: Land restoration approaches like reforestation, through efforts that drive innovation, investment and implementation. Policy and program frameworks that enable federal and state governments to pursue natural climate solutions. Market-based approaches with high ecological and methodological integrity and accessibility to a diverse array of conservation stakeholders. Science, research and synthesis that underpin the design of effective natural climate solutions policy, programs, and implementation. Innovative finance and new models to scale public and private investment in natural climate solutions. Strategic communications approaches that deepen key audiences’ understanding of natural climate solutions. Equity: Inclusive Conservation Land conservation, restoration and stewardship of nature can have a valuable and tangible role in advancing equity in our society. This is especially true when land conservation is inclusive and respectful of local communities and traditional knowledge, and when it advances equitable access to and benefits from nature. For this reason, the foundation works to support environmental organizations who are advancing conservation efforts from a variety of cultural perspectives, including those led by and serving communities who identify as Black, Indigenous and people of color (BIPOC). We also aim to ensure that the conservation, restoration and stewardship of nature yield meaningful and equitable benefits to all people, particularly for BIPOC communities and those from households whose annual incomes fall below a government-designated threshold through the following approaches: Equitable distribution of urban trees and nature access for nature, climate and social well-being benefits. Expanding land access to enable conservation action by resolving barriers to land protection and stewardship posed by land tenure and usage rights issues. Diversifying the conservation workforce by investing with purpose in the next generation of young people, and supporting inclusive and equitable institutions. The longest running of the foundation’s efforts in this vein is The Doris Duke Conservation Scholars Program, which launched in 2013 to support the next generation of environmental conservation professionals from a diverse set of backgrounds and perspectives.

Eligibility

You can learn more about this opportunity by visiting the funder's website. Only letters of inquiry submitted by U.S. nonprofit organizations will be reviewed.

Ineligibility

The foundation cannot award grants directly to individuals.