Rockefeller Family Fund: Climate Grant

The Rockefeller Family Fund's Climate Grant focuses on reducing fossil fuel production to combat climate change. It supports initiatives that hold polluters accountable and fosters citizen engagement for climate action. The fund prioritizes programs that seek to limit oil and gas production, enforce climate damages in court, and promote sustainable energy solutions. By addressing the fossil fuel industry's resistance, the grant aims to create meaningful progress towards climate goals and ensure that those responsible for climate disruption contribute to adaptation efforts.

NOTE: While we do not consider unsolicited proposals, we are always open to learning about the creative and effective work of organizations aligned with RFF’s programmatic goals. If you would like to make RFF staff aware of your organization and its programs, please send us an email with a brief description of the relevant information.
Recognizing that there is no path to reducing climate change without limiting fossil fuel production, RFF’s climate program funds and develops the best opportunities to slow the production of oil and gas and make climate polluters pay for the damage they have caused.
Climate Accountability Initiative
Meaningful climate progress will require breaking through the resistance of the fossil fuel industry and its allies, who to this day, continue to advance a business model that accelerates the climate crisis. To accomplish this, we support programs designed to engage and motivate citizens demanding change, deepen public recognition of those most responsible for the climate disruption now unfolding, unmask forces working to prevent climate progress and policies, and require polluters to pay their fair share of the climate damages they caused to help the public meet enormous climate adaptation expenses we now face.
Specifically, RFF’s initiative helps cities and states pursuing climate damages in court from deceptive companies, enacts first-of-its-kind laws to make polluters pay their fair share of climate adaptation costs, supports scientists working to improve climate attribution methodologies; and holds responsible companies accountable for their ongoing efforts to greenwash and deceive the public about the crisis they have caused and for blocking a sustainable energy future.
The Funder Collaborative on Oil and Gas
Over two decades, RFF has worked in opposition to the coal industry while increasing support to groups fighting oil, gas, plastics, and petrochemicals infrastructure. The United States became the world's largest gas producer in 2011 and the largest oil producer in 2018. To meet the Paris agreement’s climate goals, oil and gas must decrease by at least 80% worldwide by 2050. Yet the US government expects that domestic production will increase by ~20 percent over the next three decades.
Launched in December 2018, the Funder Collaborative on Oil and Gas focuses philanthropic attention on the fact that the US is producing more oil than any country ever before and is the world’s largest gas producer and largest gas exporter. We aim to accelerate the energy transition by limiting US production and weakening the industry’s influence, working through direct grantmaking, recommendations to funders, and funder education.

Eligibility

RFF supports tax-exempt organizations engaged in activities of national significance. Grants are made to nonprofit organizations in any state within the United States.

Ineligibility

With limited exception, the Rockefeller Family Fund does not make grants to international programs or domestic programs dealing with international issues. The RFF does not make grants for direct service providers, or for social services or human services programs, and we do not fund local or community-specific projects. We do not fund film or video projects. We do not fund profit-making businesses, construction or restoration projects, or projects to reduce an organization's debt. Also, grants are rarely made to organizations which traditionally enjoy popular support, such as museums, hospitals, or endowed institutions.Seldom are grants made for academic or scholarly research, and never for social or human service programs. Nor are grants made to support individuals, scholarships, international programs, profit-making businesses, construction or restoration projects, or to reduce an organization's debt.The Rockefeller Family Fund does not offer scholarships, fellowships, tuition assistance, internships, student loans, or any other form of personal financial aid.