A Creative and Strategic Learning Partner for Climate-Focused Philanthropies

We help philanthropies turn research into action, instill a generative organizational learning culture, and achieve collective impact.

We are a collective of expert sensemakers, visual storytellers, researchers, facilitators, and strategists who are committed to harnessing the collective power of philanthropy for a thriving planet.

What We Do

We work at the intersection of five expertise areas to provide philanthropies with the dedicated and tailored support they need to bring their philanthropic vision to life.

  • Learning & Strategy

    We combine strategy with learning tools, platforms, experience design, workshops, coaching, and more to create a tailored and holistic learning process.

  • Facilitation & Network Management

    From learning and strategy retreats to data interpretation and sensemaking workshops and beyond, we can help you instill a culture of learning within and between your peer organizations.

  • Visual Storytelling with Data

    Our team digs deep into the data (whether that be climate trends or internal process data) and create a range of visual products that turn complexity into clarity.

  • Evaluation & Research

    Developmental evaluation is foundational to our work. But it’s just the beginning. From there we can help you create a roadmap for organizational transformation.

  • Organizational Design & Culture

    With their focus on creating a better world, teams can lose sight of their internal grantmaking processes and how their grantmaking decisions connect to their overarching strategy. We can partner with you to design a thriving organization from the inside out.

Our Focus

Who We Serve

Our expertise positions us to best serve two types of climate-focused organizations:

We provide an outside perspective to established and growing climate and environment philanthropies, family offices, and individual philanthropists. With all of the options available to you, look to us for guidance and direction when seeking a partner to help you achieve your philanthropic goals. We light the way for climate-focused philanthropies who are eager to learn and evolve.

Philanthropies and Family Offices:

Government Agencies and Organizations:

We work with government agencies that prioritize action on climate change and environmental protection, helping them develop and embed learning practices, processes, and platforms that promote organizational success. We’re the type of creative and energetic partner that you need when seeking fresh thinking that works within the restrictive structures and standards that make you feel stuck.

Manifesto

Healthier Philanthropies for a Thriving Planet

We believe that:

  • The reason for philanthropies to address climate change is clear: a warming atmosphere puts pressure on the very causes and actors that philanthropies most want to support. And while most investments in climate will come from intergovernmental organizations and governments, philanthropy has a clear mandate and imperative in tackling climate change.

    We believe that integrating a climate lens into all philanthropic work has become mandatory in order to truly tackle the interconnected issues philanthropies are best positioned to support.

  • Many philanthropies believe that they should keep their overhead at an absolute minimum so they can dedicate as much of their resources as possible to their partners. We understand this from a values perspective and agree with lean, effective philanthropic operations. But over the past decade, philanthropies have gone too far and have created organizational environments that do the opposite of what they intended: staff turnover is high, psychological safety is low, learning and strategic thinking is compromised, and partners are often suffering as a result.

    That’s why we believe that philanthropies succeed when they are healthy themselves. Because when their grantmaking operations are excellent and their strategic learning processes are organized and transparent, they are better partners. And that’s when they unlock impact, together with their partners.

  • Philanthropies often commission evaluation after evaluation without taking the time and doing the hard work of digesting the valuable information they gathered, learning from it, and developing a strategic path forward. We get it. We’ve been there!

    We believe that philanthropies can multiply their impact by as much as 10x when they reconfigure their resources to tap into the existing knowledge at their fingertips.

  • Many philanthropies are structured similarly: they often split out key overlapping functions (strategy, learning, human resources, grantmaking excellence) which prevents them from connecting the dots and seeing the big picture. As a result, philanthropies often work in silos and struggle to learn across their internal functions.

    We believe philanthropies should be centered around a learning philosophy if they want to achieve ongoing success.

  • Traditional evaluation and learning practices just won’t cut it for the pace of work that today’s philanthropies operate within. We understand. The world moves at full speed and it can be difficult to allocate the time needed to learn and adapt.

    We believe that modern philanthropies need to adopt real-time, micro-learning techniques and experimental evaluation practices to meaningfully embed learning into their decision-making practice.

  • Coaching helps philanthropies shift their mindsets to seek and celebrate positive change. When coaching is embedded in evaluation, learning, and organizational transformation, it results in new systems that set up philanthropies for lasting success. And when you look at what underlies transformation — agility, adaptability, innovation, resilience — you realize that fundamentally it is the ability to learn how to do new things. And we believe that coaching can unlock that learning much more quickly and meaningfully.

    We sense your hesitation. It can be challenging to involve someone in your internal processes. It’s valuable to include a coach to spark creativity and imagination in your transformation work who has your best interests in mind while maintaining an outside perspective.

  • It is our belief that the solutions that will truly transform our planet can only be found through thinking and acting systemically. For philanthropies, this means collaborating with peer funders more frequently and strategically. It also means supporting nimble and growing networks of partners that work in tandem with philanthropies to address key issues.

    We understand you may be skeptical. We know you hear “systems change” thrown around all of the time. It is our professional belief and practice that philanthropies who are in the business of climate change must also be in the business of systems change if they want to see real impact. And we are here to help you measure, learn, and adapt as you go.

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We love learning about philanthropies that are ready to do the fulfilling work of looking inward to become better versions of themselves. We invite you to reach out and let us know how we can help you reach your potential.